Contests held on Twitter sometimes attract attempts to game the system. Here's an example: 30 accounts made over the span of 23 minutes on June 24th 2018, all of which retweeted both of these cryptocurrency contest tweets.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
All 30 accounts also replied with entries to the contests, varying their answers between entries in what was presumably an attempt to increase their odds of winning. (The contests in question pay out cryptocurrency to winners.)
These accounts hypothetically send all of their tweets via the Twitter website - none of the 30 has ever tweeted via the iPhone or Android app. Due to the low volume, it's hard to be sure whether these accounts are human-operated sock puppets or automated.
The accounts amplified by this network are pretty much all cryptocurrency-themed. An interesting outlier is tech entrepreneur, perennial Libertarian presidential candidate, and occasional fugitive @officialmcafee. (Granted, he does like Bitcoin.)
Who follows the accounts in this network? The other members of the network, mostly - each of the 30 accounts is followed by an average of 11 of the others.
This is not the first network we've seen attempting to manipulate contests on Twitter, btw. Here's another network gaming giveaway tweets and a botnet that cast hundreds of thousands of votes for the same song in the #iHeartAwards.
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