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5 tweets,
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These tweets all promise a windfall of new followers in return for interacting with the tweet in question. That's not the only thing they have in common - they were also all tweeted via automated means.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
@ZellaQuixote To find automated follower train accounts, we searched for automated tweets containing various phrases associated with follower farming activity over the previous ten days. After eliminating accounts that were less than 50% automated, we wound up with 176 accounts.
@ZellaQuixote The automated follower train accounts employ a variety of tools to tweet their follower solicitations - some use services like IFTTT or Cheap Bots Done Quick, while others are run via custom apps. A few have achieved impressive follower counts.
@ZellaQuixote Do the follower train bots retweet each other? For the most part, yes - 117 of 176 do, and most of them retweet quite a few of the others, hence the dense (and somewhat difficult to read) cluster in the center of the network.
@ZellaQuixote What do these accounts tweet about? If you guessed "followers", you win! (We're not sure what you win, but you win.) Pretty much any way you slice it, followers/following back/etc are the dominant topic of this set of automated and semi-automated accounts.
