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4 tweets,
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Meet devoted Ted Cruz supporters @stepaniemore621 and @tammybrown87, two extremely similar automated accounts that until Feb 2017 spewed brief tweets laden with pro-Cruz hashtags such as #CruzCrew 24/7. Both use custom apps with names matching the account name.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
We pulled tweets containing #CruzCrew and looked for other accounts matching the pattern (24/7 activity, app name matches account name, each app used to run exactly one account.) We found 48, although only 17 posted significant numbers of tweets before the network went dormant.
What do these bots tweet about? Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz, and more Ted Cruz, by and large, although a few other topics do manage to sneak in.
To their credit, these accounts do acknowledge being bots in the fine print. They don't mention being a network of (at least) 48 though, along with the fact that their pictures are stolen from sources such as "How To Approach Dating As A Christian" and "Russian Girl Twerking."
