Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #keeponastroturfin

Most recents (2)

Come for the fake video, stay for the fake followers. It turns out that @ThePatriotOasis, an account that went viral earlier this week with a Biden deepfake video, recently gained approximately 8000 batch-created followers with zero tweets and zero likes.

cc: @ZellaQuixote Image
The fake followers following @ThePatriotOasis are from a massive and very familiar fake follower network. Here are a couple of threads on it:

The account currently named @ThePatriotOasis (ID 1392538357251469312) has been renamed at least twice: previous names include @/CodyGrantham12 () and @/TheTennesseeGuy (). Early tweets are about cryptocurrency rather than politics. ImageImageImage
Read 7 tweets
What do Michigan GOP congressional candidate @Seely4Congress and New Hampshire GOP state senate candidate @LougNH have in common? Both were recently followed by swarms of recently-created accounts with random-looking names. #KeepOnAstroturfin

cc: @ZellaQuixote
The recently-created accounts that followed the two GOP candidates en masse are part of an astroturf botnet consisting of (at least) 25762 accounts created in June and July 2022 with display names consisting of random lowercase letters.
Here are follow order by creation date plots for @Seely4Congress and @LougNH. The followers from the botnet show up as horizontal streaks (highlighted in red).
Read 8 tweets

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