Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Data Scientist/Musician/Participant in the General Confusion @trutherbotprop Resist autocracy and research/counter disinformation. I serve the realm.

Oct 14, 2020, 11 tweets

Just for fun, we started digging through the accounts followed by 60 popular verified #MAGA accounts to see what there is to see. We found one weird thing that stuck out like a sore thumb (and will add more if/when we find more). . .

cc: @ZellaQuixote

Meet @ScottIngwers. This account has never tweeted, never liked any tweets, has no bio, and uses a default profile pic. Despite this, its 342 followers include @DonaldJTrumpJr, @IvankaTrump, and @EricTrump.

Since the account has no content, there's not really much about @ScottIngwers to analyze, but we did notice that despite the account being totally empty, it's picked up followers in a variety of languages.

(also possibly interesting, one of @ScottIngwers protected followers, @wn_defenders, has the "1488" white supremacist dog whistle in its profile)

(possible partial explanation - as several folks have pointed out, there is a Trump Hotels executive with the same name as the empty account)

Moving on, four of the verified #MAGA accounts follow members of the Mad World News botnet:

@PatriotCELL is followed by @DineshDSouza, @LisaMarieBoothe, @chuckwoolery, and @drdavidsamadi

@The4GNet is followed by @LisaMarieBoothe and @chuckwoolery

Next up, two of the prominent verified #MAGA accounts (@CassandraRules and @johncardillo) follow perennial bot magnet @ARTEM_KLYUSHIN.

Some recent threads on Klyushin's account:



Four of the large blue-check #MAGA accounts (@DineshDSouza, @ChanelRion, @ScottBaio, and @gatewaypundit) follow conspiracy theory dispenser @GregRubini, an account that repeatedly claims without evidence to have "sources" in Trump's inner circle.

Moving on, former NYC mayor and current #MAGA propaganda maven @RudyGiulian follows only 522 Twitter accounts. The first 7 are Trump, Pence, two Trump campaign accounts, and Trump's children, suggesting that Giuliani joined Twitter for the purpose of promoting Trump's candidacy.

Giuliani also follows @NealeyMaxwell, an account with a default pic, no bio, and 58 followers. In addition to pushing Giuliani's #MAGA propaganda, this account has a bunch of hydroxycholoroquine/herd immunity COVID-19 tweets, and likes Tulsi Gabbard but attacks other Democrats.

*oops, tag is wrong, should be @RudyGiuliani of course.

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