, 7 tweets, 7 min read Read on Twitter
Back when the #MoscowMitch hashtag first proliferated in late July 2019, we took a look to see how much of the traffic was bot driven. At the time, not much: only 4230 of 1103160 tweets (0.4%) prior to August 1st appear to have been posted by automated means.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
@ZellaQuixote The situation has changed substantially since. We pulled #MoscowMitch tweets for the past 10 days - a whopping 14.6% (72949 of 254666 tweets) were posted via automation tools, mostly via custom software with names mentioning taxis or real estate. . .
@ZellaQuixote The surge of #MoscowMitch bot activity is almost entirely due to a network of 24 automated accounts that are theoretically associated with taxi and real estate businesses in Virginia, but in reality mostly retweet political hashtags.
@ZellaQuixote We've seen this set of accounts before, very recently in fact. We posted a tweet last Thursday (August 29) containing hashtags related to ten of the 2020 Democratic candidates to see if any retweet bots picked it up, and this botnet happily obliged.
@ZellaQuixote Correction: this tweet should read "a whopping 14.6% (37075 of 254666 tweets) were posted via automation tools" rather than "a whopping 14.6% (72949 of 254666 tweets) were posted via automation tools". (Values on figure are correct.)
@ZellaQuixote We'll additionally note that the set of 24 taxicab/realtor bots described in this thread (and our earlier linked thread) would appear to be in violation of the highlighted portions of Twitter's TOS regarding spam:
help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-p…
@ZellaQuixote We searched tweets for the phone numbers linked by these bots and found 8 more: @AshburnTaxiCab, @DullesTaxi, @GetFareEstimate, @HaymarketTaxi, @InStyleRealty, @_FalconCab, @_FalconCoach, @_FalconTours. Other than @AshburnTaxiCab, the latest ones been largely dormant for months.
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