Thread by @SlickRockWeb

Okay there's a serious flaw in the monetization calculations by Symantec. I really doubt these rogue IRA employees were making bank off of Shorte link shorteners. Most definitely did not make $1 million dollars from these #infosec #disinfo symantec.com/blogs/threat-i…

Stick with me as I walk through this. The IRA account @CathyTo47590555 first retweeted a Sh(.)st (Shorte) link on 10/27/15, this accnt had 8685 followers, twice the Symantec example. But most of the Shorte activity started in 05/2016

The example Symantec used had 4,123 followers and sent out 16,914 tweets that generated about 8362 retweets. So not particularly huge engagement and roughly every 2 tweets generated one retweet. #infosec #disinfo symantec.com/blogs/threat-i…

Now lets look at the Twitter analytics of my Twitter account. I currently have 3400 followers. So I'll just double my numbers for the Symantec example at the end of this calculation which will be more than enough to cover the difference of 1000 extra followers #infosec #disinfo

So in the month of May I had 29 tweets and got 1085 retweets or about 37 retweets for every tweet. Way more engagement as one would probably expect from a non-primary IRA troll. Remember the Symantec example had 16,914 tweets that generated 8362 retweets. #infosec #disinfo

Next and here is where an estimate without any real world data starts to dramatically breakdown. Most of ur followers will not actually engage or even see your tweet and click through rates are actually very low, even 4 the best accounts. I've been told I have higher than average

Engagement with my tweets in terms of retweets is roughly 75x better than the Symantec example for the IRA account that was putting out Shorte links. 37 retweets for every tweet I send out versus 0.5 retweet for every one the Symantec example sent out #infosec

My 29 tweets generated 800 link clicks in May, which is what is needed to generate the actual Shorte payout. So my 29 tweets would generate $11.32. Remember my engagement is roughly 75x better & just 4 simplicity I'll give the IRA troll the same engagement rate

Final calculation, 29 tweets generated $11.32 so the the 16914 tweets by the IRA troll sending out Shorte links described in the Symantec report would have generated $6,600 in ad revenue. Oh wait ... double it make up 4 the extra 1k followers -> $13,200 ..way less than $1 million

Back in April Kevin Hall at McClatchy put out a far more in depth report on the use of these link shorteners and how it connects to the tech company in the Steele Dossier. Far more complicated than just mere click-bait revenue. mcclatchydc.com/latest-news/ar…