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Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
@conspirator0
Oct 2, 2020 • 17 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
We've done a decent amount of digging into various bulk follow botnets over the last couple of years, and decided to aggregate all of our threads on the topic. Some botnets are still online, while others have been shut down by Twitter.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
First botnet: 105081 accounts, 2012-2013 creation dates, mostly English tweets. Some of them follow COVID conspiracist Senate candidate @va_shiva.
6448 accounts, Russian tweets, 2013-2014 creation dates. Some follow RT editor-in-chief @M_Simonyan.
39430 accounts, English content, 2014-2015 creation dates. Some follow former GOP candidate @LisaSongSutton.
215067 accounts, Arabic content, 2014-2015 creation dates.
295830 accounts, created between 2010 and 2012. Mostly English and Russian content. Point-of-sale account was @TwReloaded, at least at one point.
848080 accounts, created (mostly) in 2012 and 2016. Arabic profiles/tweets, @rrvvs was selling them as followers via WhatsApp at one point.
711727 accounts, English tweets, created between 2012 and 2014. @RealTonyRocha is/was the original point-of-sale account.
5295 accounts, English tweets, created in 2009.
17957 accounts created in 2020. About half used GAN profile pics. Sold on thousandfollowers(dot)com, which is currently down for maintenance.
15603 accounts created in 2014. Most tweets are Russian follower gain spam.
2319 English-language accounts created in 2011 and 2012. These were sold by @moretweeple, and it's likely there were at one point more accounts.
7461 English-language accounts created in 2020, sold on twitterfollowersbuy(dot)com.
6882 accounts created in 2018 and 2019, with tweets/retweets in a variety of languages.
4220 accounts created in 2019, with English and Arabic content. We found this one thanks to fake engagement seller @sendthetrend following us (at least until we posted this thread).
17814 accounts with Turkish names and zero tweets, created in 2018. Some of them follow @ACTBrigitte, which is how we found this botnet.
Last botnet (for now): 95848 Japanese-language accounts, created in 2017.

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More from @conspirator0

Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Dec 31, 2023
It's New Year's Eve, and a bunch of politics enthusiasts with GAN-generated faces are enthusiastically replying to a variety of posts with similarly-worded replies. #NewYearShenaniGANs

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 10 replies containing variations on "politics enthusiast" from accounts that use GAN-generated faces as avatars
The politics enthusiasts are part of a spam network consisting of (at least) 575 accounts created between May and December 2023 with GAN-generated faces. Many of their handles, such as @Maairiuieinaaa and @eJooeiaAoneueer, contain long strings of vowels.
histogram of account creation dates
table of example accounts from the network
@Maairiuieinaaa @eJooeiaAoneueer All 575 of these accounts use StyleGAN-generated faces as profile images. Some of these, such as @MauMoiagaia's profile image, contain a tiny "StyleGAN 2 (Karras et al.)" watermark in the lower right corner. collage of the GAN-generated faces that the accounts in the network use as profile images
Read 11 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Dec 7, 2023
It's a great day to look at a network of inauthentic accounts that post identical AI art images (with a side of good old fashioned T-shirt spam).

cc: @ZellaQuixote


3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
This network consists of 24 X accounts. 12 of these accounts were created in the latter half of 2023 and have female avatars, while the other 12 were created in 2013 or earlier and have male avatars.

table of the 24 accounts in the network
screenshots of the profiles of the 12 female-presenting accounts in the network, all created in 2023
screenshots of the profiles of the 12 male-presenting accounts in the network, all created in 2013 or earlier
The 12 accounts with female avatars and 2023 creation dates regularly post AI-generated art images, and these image posts are quickly reposted by other accounts in the network (both female and male). The AI-generated images are often duplicated across accounts.


examples of AI art images posted by the network, and screenshots of the reposts
3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
Read 8 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Sep 1, 2023
Meet @ImJamesMiller (permanent ID 1371651462153994242), an account with a GAN-generated face, 172K followers, and no tweets prior to two days ago. What's up with that?

cc: @ZellaQuixote screenshot of @ImJamesMiller's profile, screenshot of tweeterid.com lookup showing @ImJamesMiller's permanent ID, and closeup of @ImJamesMiller's profile image, a GAN-generated face
As it turns out, @ImJamesMiller wasn't always named @ImJamesMiller. In June, the account was named @/IamJimCaviezel in an apparent attempt to impersonate Sound of Freedom actor Jim Caviezel.

web.archive.org/web/2023062319…
screenshot of wayback machine archive
@ImJamesMiller Multiple prominent users appear to have accepted the fake Jim Caviezel account as legitimate, including Texas Congressman Brian Babin, right-wing influencer/ex-Game of Thrones blogger Jack Posobiec, and recently indicted ex-Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark. screenshots of tweets from large accounts tagging the fake Jim Caviezel account
Read 9 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Aug 27, 2023
It's a great day to look at a network of Bluesky spam accounts with randomized names. #SundaySpam

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 16 bluesky accounts with random adjective + noun names
This spam network consists of (at least) 401 accounts, all of which were created (or added to the Bluesky app view) in August 2023. These accounts do not follow each other; rather, each one follows a small number of popular Bluesky accounts. histogram of account creation dates for the 401 accounts in the network, all created in August 2023
The accounts in this network cycle rhythmically between posting three types of content:

• reposts
• posts containing links to news articles
• posts containing links to news articles accompanied by images hourly post volume by post type bar chart
Read 6 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Jun 18, 2023
This #FathersDay2023 tweet from @PaulFox50854324 has gone somewhat viral, but both @PaulFox50854324's profile image and the alleged image of the neighbor's son are GAN-generated faces.

cc: @ZellaQuixote Image
More on GAN-generated faces and their use on Twitter here:

Tips on recognizing GAN-generated faces here:
Today's #FathersDay2023 tweet is not the first time @PaulFox50854324 engaged in image shenanigans.

This glass of grape Kool-Aid that @PaulFox50854324's son supposedly made in 2021 somehow traveled back in time to 2019 and became alcoholic kombucha. Image
Read 7 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Jun 4, 2023
Meet @thisisorange, a Twitter account created in February 2022 with a gold "verified organization" badge, thousands of batch-created fake followers, and a couple other interesting traits.

cc: @ZellaQuixote screenshots of @thisisorang...follow order by creation da...
Verified organizations on Twitter can verify affiliated accounts (employees, teams, brand names, etc), which receive blue checkmarks as well as an organization badge (help.twitter.com/en/using-twitt…). The @thisisorange account has thousands of affiliates, mostly cryptocurrency accounts.
How did this come about? The website linked on @thisisorange's profile (orange dot associates) apparently allows one to become an affiliate simply by providing a Twitter account and a cryptocurrency wallet. screenshot of orange . asso...
Read 5 tweets

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