Dear
confused journalists: I found the bots you have been looking for.
They amplify trolls. They impersonate. They spam. They are funded by
oligarchs. What more could you want in a story?
And unlike@SecureDemocracy,
I have actually shown my work. Gather round.
First
things first. Here are the accounts in question. They posted nearly
600 links to@Sharebluearticles
from Jan. 22-28th
@SecureDemocracysays
they don't this because they would rather have us watch their snazzy
dashboard while troll masters and bots continue to flourish. 🤔
Let's
dig in. All of these posts were made using@Buffer.
Buffer allows users to post the identical tweet (or retweet) on up
to 150 separate accounts with a single click. It's called Buffer
because it allows you to queue up posts to go out according to a
programmable schedule.
Scheduling
of the buffer queue is important because it can be programed to
emulate a human twitter user. A good way to get favs while sleeping
in. Obviously, one can still go overboard with it, as can be seen
here. This was annoying and it continued for more than 24 hours.
Look, Adam you seem like a smart guy - did you even read the report? Not once did I claim that you "use any fucking system to boost anything." What I am claiming is that you have been retweeted more than 1000 times by Shareblue's sockpuppets in the past month. https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/964642842101669890 …
I made a web app for exploring recent tweets that have been amplified by Sally's Shareblue sockpuppets. You can sort, search, and filter by the retweeted account. It also produces nice retweet frequency plots of individual accounts. Enjoy. http://likingonline.shinyapps.io/shareblue_sockpuppets …