Meet @tjrich49, an account with, um, strong opinions. We believe the goal of accounts like this may be to push folks to extremes, either by eliciting amplification of antagonistic rhetoric embarrassing to the left or hardening existing opposition to the left.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
@tjrich49 @ZellaQuixote We don’t believe that @tjrich49 is a bot, or at least see no sign that automation is in play (and the tweets seem human.) The account does have key themes it focuses on, with “Trump” being its most frequently used non-trivial word.
@tjrich49 @ZellaQuixote Politically, @tjrich49 claims to be a staunch Republican who simply can’t stand Trump, but who is also utterly unsatisfied with the Democrats’ efforts to oppose him. Also, Trump’s base is apparently way less white and male in @tjrich49’s world than in the real one.
@tjrich49 @ZellaQuixote Where is @tjrich49 from? Baltimore, which is evidently the same place as San Francisco and is located in Oregon, Florida, Wyoming, Colorado, Canada, and Texas. You can thank us for the geography lesson later.
@tjrich49 @ZellaQuixote Oh, @tjrich49 also has constituents, although what office a six follower Twitter account with a default profile pic might hold is unclear.
@tjrich49 @ZellaQuixote We point out this account to help folks be discriminating in what they choose to amplify heading into #Election2020; just because an account tweets emotionally-toned content we might resonate with, we need to recognize that it may not be good for the cause.
@tjrich49 @ZellaQuixote We will be pointing out these accounts as we run across them; stay tuned. (There are also quite likely variants of these accounts pretending to be #MAGA for the sole sake of stoking political division and unrest heading into the election.)
