The future of online or web-based research. Have you been BOTTED?

In the early 2000s few manuscripts based on web or online surveys were published by social science and psychology journals. Since the COVID-19 pandemic this number has increased exponentially to more than 10,000 papers in 2023. Online surveys are often widely advertised through publicly accessible platforms, which generate data but increase the risks of fraudulent internet robots (BOT) responses. It has been estimated that survey responses can consist of more than 90 % BOT responses. BOT responses can impact the integrity of online research, thus degrading science, trust in science, and social discourse. To minimise BOT responses a collective awareness, transparency and control from researchers, reviewers and editors is needed. This commentary discusses this issue and aims to raise awareness of the risk BOTS pose in the scientific community in general, and for appetite research specifically.