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Geoff Goldberg (@geoffgolberg) [1] who is very vocal about this on twitter and has done bunch of analysis about foreign bots, got his account suspended by forei

Geoff Goldberg (@geoffgolberg) [1] who is very vocal about this on twitter and has done bunch of analysis about foreign bots, got his account suspended by foreign trolls flagging him. Presidential Candidate, Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) account was inflated by millions of fake followers. There is an analysis of it here [2] Which is if paid by the campaign, by law it should be reflected on their campaign spending (however, it would violated twitter's rules and her account could be suspended). Or paid by some PAC. Either way, if it's so easy to detect, it's obvious twitter knows about these and are just not reacting to them and only removing some accounts for PR purposes. [1] https://twitter.com/geoffgolberg https://twitter.com/geoffgolberg [2] https://twitter.com/likingonline/status/1092643779402620928 https://twitter.com/likingonline/status/1092643779402620928

ceejayoz 8y ago
Don't discount the alternative possibility of an opponent buying followers. Someone pulled that on Roy Moore: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/alabama-senate-roy-jones-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/alabama-senate-roy-jon... > It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention. > “We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says. It's fairly common with Google AdSense, too - generate obvious click fraud on a competitor's ads, watch them get suspended.
- stingraycharles 8y ago
  This seems really difficult a problem to tackle for Google, Twitter etc. Other than a victim trying to make a strong case that they are not responsible, are there any elegant solutions to this problem?
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    why not tie twitter accounts to some strong real world identification? One cent payment to twitter, national id or something of that sort? Just push the bar up for people. The flipside is that people who want to stay anonymous or people with privacy concerns will stay off the platform, but I think fundamentally there is a price to be paid if you want an authentic community.
    - tootahe45 8y ago
      Because Twitter would be exposed as 95% throwaway/inactive/bot accounts.

ceejayoz 8y ago

Don't discount the alternative possibility of an opponent buying followers. Someone pulled that on Roy Moore: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/alabama-senate-roy-jones-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/alabama-senate-roy-jon... > It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention. > “We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says. It's fairly common with Google AdSense, too - generate obvious click fraud on a competitor's ads, watch them get suspended.

stingraycharles 8y ago
This seems really difficult a problem to tackle for Google, Twitter etc. Other than a victim trying to make a strong case that they are not responsible, are there any elegant solutions to this problem?
- Barrin92 8y ago
  why not tie twitter accounts to some strong real world identification? One cent payment to twitter, national id or something of that sort? Just push the bar up for people. The flipside is that people who want to stay anonymous or people with privacy concerns will stay off the platform, but I think fundamentally there is a price to be paid if you want an authentic community.
  - tootahe45 8y ago
    Because Twitter would be exposed as 95% throwaway/inactive/bot accounts.