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No, these are bots. Anyone that's ever replied to one of the 'legit' accounts these bots are designed to amplify can watch as the posts are retweeted and liked
by JohnTHaller 9y ago
No, these are bots. Anyone that's ever replied to one of the 'legit' accounts these bots are designed to amplify can watch as the posts are retweeted and liked on a regular schedule over the course of a month. Nothing at all for a week and then suddenly hundreds of retweets/likes Saturday night after midnight NY time on a 3 week old tweet. All from the exact same network of 'users'.
- dashundchen 9y agoHere's a dashboard someone created monitoring a small portion of the Russian Twitter network: http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/ http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/ The velocity, timing, and similarity among links in these tweets are not organic at all.
- mizzack 9y agoFrom that site's methodology page re: the users sampled: > Accounts likely controlled by Russian government influence operations. > Accounts for “patriotic” pro-Russia users that are loosely connected or unconnected to the Russian government, but which amplify themes promoted by Russian government media. > Accounts for users who have been influenced by the first two groups and who are extremely active in amplifying Russian media themes. These users may or may not understand themselves to be part of a pro-Russian social network. So, not bots? Maybe organic right wingers? Looking at the advisory council of that group and seeing Bill Kristol along with a bunch of Obama staffers and hawkish neolibs/neocons is setting off my "disinfo via appeal to dataviz" alarm.