Thread by @conspirator0

Twitter accounts being sold on dodgy websites frequently have fake followers, and @nokilllogwtmp (permanent ID 529412597) is no exception, with several thousand batch-created accounts following it. We decided to further explore this bulk follow network.

cc: @ZellaQuixote

https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/1281064275524673536

To find more accounts that are part of this bulk follow network, we downloaded the followers of accounts followed by the bogus-looking followers of @nokilllogwtmp, and repeated the process until we hit diminishing returns.

We found 23794 accounts we believe to be part of this bulk follow network. Most were created in batches between 2012 and 2014. Some were not, but we suspect they're part of the network anyway due to the order in which they followed the accounts they follow (among other things).

The accounts in this bulk follow network fall into three categories:

• accounts with no tweets
• mostly batch-created accounts that tweeted exclusively with Twitter web products
• non-batch-created accounts that tweeted via hundreds of custom apps (shown in word cloud)

These accounts are largely dormant today, but back when they were active they tweeted in a variety of languages, with Russian and English being the most common. Many tweets were repeated across accounts, these are mostly in German, Russian, and Ukrainian.

These accounts also retweeted a variety of accounts back when they were active. Most of the accounts retweeted tweet in English, with Russian accounts making up a significant minority, including perennial fake engagement aficionado @ARTEM_KLYUSHIN.

This network follows a very different set of accounts than it retweeted, mostly English-language promotional/commercial accounts. @XHNews, the English-language Twitter feed of Chinese state news agency Xinhua, is one of the more interesting inclusions.