Thread by @conspirator0

Do you want to have your fundraiser tweeted to 4 million+ donors on large Twitter pages? Given that @MonsterFundrise and its eight recently-created clones have just over 2000 followers between them, we're skeptical they can pull it off, but we took a look.

cc: @ZellaQuixote

These nine accounts (@MonsterFundrise, @FundingMore, @FundingTweet, @FundingAdept_, @Fd_Collector, @CharityGofundme, @Funding_Skilled, @FundingCrowed, and @F_Experienced) all do the same two things: link GoFundMes and promote a website called monsterfundrise(dot)com.

We checked out monsterfundrise(dot)com via Tor (always exercise caution when visiting potentially shady websites), which claims to promote your GoFundMe to 1 million followers via "5 Large Twitter Pages". Needless to say, we didn't whip out our "creidt cards" (sic).

The "Our Network" section of monsterfundrise(dot)com indeed lists five largish Twitter accounts (@FundraisingNews, @Fundraising, @GlobalFund, @FundingCircleUK, and @StopFundingHate), but none of these accounts link GoFundMes or appear to have any connection with MonsterFundrise.

Also listed in the "Our Network" section of monsterfundrise(dot)com are seven of the nine accounts that promote the site (although one of the links is broken). These accounts do indeed promote GoFundMes, but have very few followers.

A quick reverse image search of the "Team" section of monsterfundrise(dot)com reveals that this is merely the latest incarnation in a series of similar websites. At least one previous incarnation, monsterfundraiser(dot)com, was suspended by its webhost.

Despite the claims that monsterfundrise(dot)com promotes its customers' GoFundMes on "large Twitter pages", we found no evidence that the vast majority of the fundraisers they promote have ever been tweeted by large accounts. (Many have only been shared by @MonsterFundrise etc.)

The GoFundMes posted by @MonsterFundrise do get retweeted, yet the majority garner few or no likes: ~0.05 likes per retweet, or 1 like for every 20 retweets. (Most GoFundMe tweets get slightly more likes than retweets: 1.12 likes per retweet is the current average ratio.)

Who's retweeting the @MonsterFundrise GofundMe tweets (usually without liking them)? Most of the amplifiers are relatively new accounts - 1236 of 1757 (70.3%) were created June 2020 or later. Despite @MonsterFundrise's claims of a massive audience, most have few or no followers.

Are the accounts amplifying @MonsterFundrise and its clones bots? We can't be sure - they mostly tweet via the Twitter website and Android app, which generally indicates human use, but it is possible to automate either or both, albeit against Twitter TOS.

The accounts retweeting the @MonsterFundrise GoFundMe tweets also amplify a few other accounts. The content retweeted is largely promotional in nature, and as with the @MonsterFundrise tweets, many of the other tweets amplified end up with far more retweets than likes.

(We've observed before that a pattern of substantially more retweets than likes across many accounts is a sign of artificial amplification, whether from bots or human astroturfing efforts such as the #Mighty200 MAGA retweet rooms.)

https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/1308191759298703362

https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/1273076930884100096

Slight correction - the titles of the first two columns in the table should be "account retweeted" and "number of retweets", respectively.

https://twitter.com/conspirator0/status/1354240312038846468