4 ms·

Most of this article is talking about fake photos, not fake Twitter accounts. He goes on to say that if you use your Twitter account for politics, then you are

by Lendal 7y ago

Most of this article is talking about fake photos, not fake Twitter accounts. He goes on to say that if you use your Twitter account for politics, then you are fake. The only thing I agree with is 766 posts in a week is extreme and is an indicator of bot-like activity.

ryanar 7y ago
Tweeting at 4-6am and 1-3pm NY time is pretty unusual, and showing up as a dead lawyer in the registry is another quirk. That said, while interesting, I don't know if this article has offered any practical advice. They essentially said, become a private investigator to find out if they are fake.
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  > Tweeting at 4-6am and 1-3pm NY time is pretty unusual I dunno - if you're a (purported) lawyer in NY, I could imagine 4-6am would be "getting up, gym, breakfast" and 1-3pm would be "lunch, gym, whatever". I'd be more suspicious about the lack of evening tweets, myself. > showing up as a dead lawyer I would probably consider that quite suspicious, yeah.
pjc50 7y ago
Only tweeting politics is a flag too; real humans have more than one interest. Another indicator that's non-obvious is posting time distribution. Humans can't post 24h a day. But on the other hand if they're all in a 8h window, that person is posting from work - are these posts their job?
- mrlala 7y ago
  >But on the other hand if they're all in a 8h window, that person is posting from work - are these posts their job? Eh lots of people have desk jobs with enough downtime to be posting throughout their work day while they are bored... then maybe they go home and are doing something else. Although I agree it would be suspect if they never really posted outside that window.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  You're all describing Donald Trump, who is all too real.
- danShumway 7y ago
  > real humans have more than one interest. Sure, but plenty of social accounts only focus on a few of them -- people like to segment themselves into spaces. I'm a real person with multiple interests (or am I?) but at the moment my personal blog only has technical articles on it. Which, to be fair, a blog is not Twitter. But I could easily see myself or someone similar to me picking up a Twitter/Facebook account and saying, "I'm just going to use this space to complain about the government. I need a space to rant."
- skykooler 7y ago
  It's a flag, but not necessarily a sure indicator. For example, I have a separate twitter account I only use for political discussions, so that the replies I get don't overwhelm the other things I'm interested in.

by Lendal 7y ago

ryanar 7y ago

Tweeting at 4-6am and 1-3pm NY time is pretty unusual, and showing up as a dead lawyer in the registry is another quirk. That said, while interesting, I don't know if this article has offered any practical advice. They essentially said, become a private investigator to find out if they are fake.

zimpenfish 7y ago
> Tweeting at 4-6am and 1-3pm NY time is pretty unusual I dunno - if you're a (purported) lawyer in NY, I could imagine 4-6am would be "getting up, gym, breakfast" and 1-3pm would be "lunch, gym, whatever". I'd be more suspicious about the lack of evening tweets, myself. > showing up as a dead lawyer I would probably consider that quite suspicious, yeah.

pjc50 7y ago

Only tweeting politics is a flag too; real humans have more than one interest. Another indicator that's non-obvious is posting time distribution. Humans can't post 24h a day. But on the other hand if they're all in a 8h window, that person is posting from work - are these posts their job?

mrlala 7y ago
>But on the other hand if they're all in a 8h window, that person is posting from work - are these posts their job? Eh lots of people have desk jobs with enough downtime to be posting throughout their work day while they are bored... then maybe they go home and are doing something else. Although I agree it would be suspect if they never really posted outside that window.
TallGuyShort 7y ago
You're all describing Donald Trump, who is all too real.
danShumway 7y ago
> real humans have more than one interest. Sure, but plenty of social accounts only focus on a few of them -- people like to segment themselves into spaces. I'm a real person with multiple interests (or am I?) but at the moment my personal blog only has technical articles on it. Which, to be fair, a blog is not Twitter. But I could easily see myself or someone similar to me picking up a Twitter/Facebook account and saying, "I'm just going to use this space to complain about the government. I need a space to rant."
skykooler 7y ago
It's a flag, but not necessarily a sure indicator. For example, I have a separate twitter account I only use for political discussions, so that the replies I get don't overwhelm the other things I'm interested in.