The link in this "Looking to boost your #Followers?" tweet is dead, but the fake follower botnet the account that tweeted it belongs to is still around.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
We downloaded the followers of several of the accounts followed by @jonathanling209, and repeated the process on accounts followed by their followers. Many of these accounts were followed by hundreds or thousands of accounts created in bulk in 2018/2019 (the circled regions).
We found a total of 6882 accounts created in batches between March 2018 and February 2019, with the majority created in January 2019. Many of these accounts have never tweeted. Those which have did so exclusively via "Twitter Web Client".
The accounts in this botnet are dormant now, but went through two phases when they were active: retweets in early-mid 2018, followed by original tweets in late 2018 and early 2019. Original tweets mostly aren't repetitive, with the exception of generic #MyFirstTweet tweets.
Who did this botnet retweet back when it was active? Mostly promotional/business accounts, a few media accounts as well as Ecuadorian President @Lenin Moreno.
The set of accounts followed by this botnet is similar to those it retweeted (mostly promotional stuff), but with more political accounts in the mix: Dominican diplomat @JosueFiallo, former Mississippi state rep @RobertFoster4MS, and President of Senegal @Macky_Sall among them.
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