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7 tweets,
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Fringe news source frontpagemag(dot)com decided to publish a conspiracy theory-laden diatribe from Milo Yiannopoulos about the Notre Dame fire, so we in turn decided to look at bots linking the site.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
We downloaded tweets linking frontpagemag(dot)com, resulting in 5135 tweets from 2862 accounts. Only 15 (0.5%) accounts, responsible for 144 (2.8%) of tweets, appear to be automated, which isn't a terribly remarkable percentage. One in particular merits a closer look, however... 
14 of the 15 accounts were flagged as automated based on use of automation services and/or 24/7 activity. One of the major nodes in the network, @aiiamericangiri (lowercase because #keming) does not meet these criteria, but we classified it as automated anyway. Why?
We've seen @aiiamericangiri before, back when it did tweet round-the-clock. The operator of the account reacted to us pointing this out by deleting all the tweets and adding a gap for sleep its schedule. Can we show that the account is still automated?
Looking at the services used by @aiiamericangiri gets us nowhere - all tweets appear to be posted via the Twitter website. This was the case back when the account tweeted round-the-clock as well, indicating automation of the web browser (a no-no.)
Despite attempts to emulate a human schedule, artifacts in the timings of @aiiamericangiris tweets betray the presence of automation. The tweets show spikes in activity at 10 minute intervals (top of the hour, 10 minutes after, 20 minutes after, etc), indicating use of a timer.
Amusing footnote: @ScottAdamsSays follows @aiiamericangiri. Some people have the worst judgment when it comes to bots.
