Thread by @TomMostlyZen

So, there’s this live space right now entitled #Twitterfiles and it’s got 5800 or so listeners. It’s generally insane wingnut conspiracy theory bullshit. Here’s who’s on the panel:

As an avid listener of #MriyaReport, I’m often dismayed to think “are there really 10x more wingnut conspiracy theorists than there are who listen to our space?” Because that’s what it looks like. So I decided to investigate

Spaces display Host, Co-Hosts, Speakers, People you follow, verified people, unverified people, in that order. I scrolled down to check out the unverified people. It turns out it only displays the first 1000 people anyway…

Ok, I think, let’s check out some of those people. Some have no profile picture and a bunch of numbers after their name. Look at this screenshot of the people then look at the screenshots of their Twitter profiles below, so you know I’m not randomly cherry picking people…

Eggy has a cool picture. Eggy sounds fun. Maybe I could follow Eggy and we could be friends. Actually no, Eggy is a bot. You can’t be on a platform for 9 years retweeting stuff and get ZERO follows…

Let’s check out JS. JS has no profile picture and looks like a bot. Zero followers and random text after their name. Bot.

Let’s check out Redacted. Bot.

I thought Ino Nutin would be a real person, due to the name and profile pic. Then I checked him out. Bot

Same for Olive, a cute cat picture could be a real person right? Right?

SYM looks like a bot and sounds like a bot. SYM is a bot.

Gerry on the other hand sounds like a Real Dude. Nope

Kasper looks and sounds like a real dude too. One follower since 2010?!? Nope - he’s a bot

Goodluck Peace could be a real person, but who joins Twitter in 2009 and DOESN’T FOLLOW ANYONE?

Bot

Is Patel real? I am fairly sure he is a robot. Also, check out just how many of these bots are retweeting Tesla positive tweets

Is Shonta real? I don’t know.

I scrolled up to try and find one that looked real. Based on the name and the cool AI Yoda picture, Raphael looked real. But nope, he’s a bot, retweeting Elon.

You can’t say I cherry picked these accounts, as I checked EVERY account in the screenshot. I invite you to do the same if the Space is still up

Also, you can’t say “but Tom, those were the dregs of that space, displayed at the bottom”, because there were another 4816 Twitter Accounts BELOW those that are not even displayed

Conclusion: some person or persons or behind these nut job conspiracy spaces are using networks of bots to make their space, and their extreme political views and lies appear FAR MORE POPULAR than they actually are.

Why is this important? Because we know that state actors like Russia and China use Bot networks to create division in the west as a deliberate strategy.

It’s also ironic, considering that KimDotCom always says #NAFO are a bunch of bots, when in fact it’s his spaces that are /END