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6 tweets,
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Let's take a closer look at automated Twitter activity related to powerlineblog(dot)com. The earliest tweets (several from automated accounts) pushing conspiracy theories about Ilhan Omar's marriage linked to an article on the site as the source.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
We found tweets linking to powerlineblog(dot)com as far back as 2007. None of these accounts appear to be automated, however. When do the first bots show up? 
This appears to be the first automated tweet linking powerlineblog(dot)com, posted via twitterfall by @pasher on 5/26/2009. Currently, the account is entirely automated and tweets once a day, but was partially human-operated at the time of the powerlineblog tweet.
We downloaded original tweets linking to powerlineblog(dot)com. Of 457764 tweets, 172853 (37.8%) were sent via automation services. 5576 of 46433 (12%) accounts appear to be bots based on use of services/24-7 activity; these accounts posted 99395 (21.7%) of the total volume.
These 5576 accounts are unlikely to all be part of a single operation, but there are definitely some groups present. One way to find them is to look for groups of accounts that appear to have been created in batches, such as the 138 born on 6/27/2012.
130 of these 138 account do indeed look like a group - they post 95% or more of their tweets via dlvr(dot)it, have self-similar names, and similar schedules to accompany them.
