[Thread]1/ This is another one on @BillGates . It indicates that in the last 24 hours, the Twitter conversation around him has been dominated by pro Trump accounts & conspiracy theorists. The sample involved around 23000 interactions (tweets, rts, mentions etc) ... #COVID19
2/ from around 18000 unique Twitter accounts. I downloaded accounts that mention the term "Bill Gates". So apart from factors beyond my control, this will mean that returned tweets are agnostic in the sense they are only interested in the specific term "Bill Gates" #covid19
3/ The network graph below is organized by out degree (i.e. the size of each node, which represents one twitter account will be larger the more the account mentioned the phrase "Bill Gates". As you can see, there are some stand out nodes and communities. Look at this brown one... 
4/ If we examine the accounts, henryrow2, vicksiern, davidf4444, cfrobw, dmshockley . As you can see, almost all seem to MAGA accounts and pro-Trump. You don't have to look far to see conspiracies.... (see next tweet) #COVID19
5/ This poll asks if you think #Covid19 was brought to you by Gates, George Soros, Obama, the Clintons and 'other NWO leaders'. Methinks the poll doesn't really care about public opinion...
6/ I reorganised the nodes on the graph by in-degree - which shows which tweets were the most retweeted, and which accounts were replied to the most, or mentioned. Some of the largest nodes are this zach haller, and our old friend imam of peace. Let's look further #covid19
7/ Turns out this Zach Haller also goes by 'shirtless pundit'. Just the kind of guy you want giving political advice. He claims his Qanon article 'blasting' the CIA and Washington Post was the reason his account was taken from Medium. Wonder if that's really the reason #COVID19
8/ Also tweeting about Bill Gates is the world's most Islamophobic cleric, @imamofpeace, who has repeatedly been the subject of many inquiries as to his qualifications & funding. The @theintercept questioned how he became a far right hero theintercept.com/2019/06/25/moh… #covid19
9/ Here is imam of peace (mohammad tawhidi) claiming "we" do not consent to nanoparticles under the skin (another highly conspiratorial trope). I am curious as to who Imam of peace is speaking on behalf of, his flock of mostly right wing Christians? #COVID19
10/ And of course, an analysis of the bios of all the accounts in the sample show that the most common terms are once again, MAGA, Trump, KAG, WWG1WGA, God, etc. You get the picture, it's mostly right wing accounts. Not sure how many are genuine or not.
11/ Doesn't matter if you like Bill Gates or not, or dislike billionaires in general. The level of nonsense around his name at the moment is staggering. Also some of the prominent accounts, a self described 'shirtless pundit' and a seemingly islamophobic muslim cleric. #covid19
12/ So after this thread I have downgraded my faith in humanity from 'sludge' to 'tepid slurry'. Hope you enjoyed reading #covid19 #coronavirus
