Thread by @conspirator0

While looking at something unrelated, we ran across a bulk follow botnet created in May 2018. A few of the accounts in this network have recently reactivated. #ThursdayThoughts

cc: @ZellaQuixote

This bulk follow botnet consists of (at least) 46414 accounts, all created in May 2018. (It's likely we missed a few.) None has ever liked a tweet, and most have no tweets or followers of their own but follow between 50 and 200 accounts.

Who do the accounts in this network follow? It's kinda all over the place, although social media marketing and cryptocurrency turn up as repeated themes. The account followed by the largest share of the network is Indian politician @indutiwarijbp.

Of the 46414 accounts in this botnet, only 2884 have actually tweeted. All of their tweets thus far have been allegedly posted via Twitter web products. Most tweets are original tweets, although some of them did some retweeting early on (mostly of cryptocurrency accounts).

The majority of the tweets generated by this botnet are #MyFirstTweet tweets in a variety of languages, with English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Vietnamese, Portuguese, and Thai being the most common. Many of these accounts have posted no additional tweets.

Some of the accounts have sent additional tweets, and some are still active (or active again) in 2021. We found three common varieties of tweets:

• coupon code spam
• Arabic phrases accompanied by hashtags and 3 letter codes
• occasionally nonsensical English phrases