Thread by @malinablue

BOT ALERT - I've been monitoring my feed & followers for bots for a long while. I'm pretty good at spotting them (some get through, but I catch many, eventually). There are MASSIVE numbers of them being created right now. I've never seen so many. It worries me, what's coming.

Massive numbers in June & July alone. I'm seeing bots posing as Resistors: bots posing as doctors, lawyers, soldiers, Christians, foreign accounts, models, fake celebrities. They're everywhere. I should say, it's bots as well as trolls - in unmistakably greater numbers than ever.

I fear they're gearing up for something huge. They're already at it. I'm seeing a lot of extremist Christian posts, trying to provoke & attack liberals, feminists, atheists, Dems in general. I'm seeing both anti-Pelosi & anti-AOC bots, trying to provoke division among DEMs.

I'm seeing propaganda bots with fake news stories that seem legit, on both sides. Some tips on dealing with them:
1) Never RT stories without checking them out. Beware news sites you've never heard of. If a story is legit, you should be able to find it on legitimate sites.

It's easy to fall for some of these stories because they're what we want to hear. I've RTed a few myself, before realizing they were fake.
2) When you post or RT satire, it's a good idea to mark it as satire or parody. No one can tell anymore. We're living in absurd times.

Tips on identifying bots:
1) Beware new accounts. Not all bots are new & not all new accounts are bots, but a helluva lot of them are. Massive numbers of bots appear to have registered in May, June, July 2019.
2) Beware accounts that follow many people, but rarely or never tweet.

3) Beware accounts only a few months or weeks old that have tweeted excessively - I saw a few recently that registered only months ago & had tweeted 50,000+ times. That's more than me & I've been here tweeting for years non-stop.

4) Beware usernames ending in a random string of 8 numbers, particularly w/ no profile pic. Not ALL accounts w/ numbers are bots, but many are. Twitter automatically suggests usernames based on your name & fills them out with numbers. Bots, set up quickly, choose that easy route.

5) Beware profiles that are faceless, w/ no pic at all. Resistors who use pics of animals or other non-human icons are concerned w/ privacy & fearful of being identified. This is understandable. But bots may have NO pics at all because they were set up rapidly.

6) Beware profile descriptions w/ misspellings or bad grammar. Real people spend time on their profiles & would fix any typos. Also beware no profile description at all or extremely brief ones giving useless information, like "Car salesman" or "Proud Christian" or "US soldier."

I'll finish this thread tomorrow, with examples of bots I've caught. Have to run now, but there is much more to discuss.

One VERY important caveat:

DON'T use someone else's block-list or block an alleged bot without vetting them yourself first. There are accounts out there trying to divide #Resistance by telling others to block legitimate accounts as bots. Vet for yourself.