At BotSentinel.com, we research different types of social media manipulation. We often think about inauthentic accounts when talking about social media manipulation, but manipulation also occurs when “ordinary” accounts try to persuade others with repetitive messaging...
We observe accounts that search for tweets with specific keywords, and then they reply to those tweets with their scripted messaging. They often change the wording on each tweet slightly as not to be detected by Twitter’s algorithms and tools like Bot Sentinel...
There are now organizations that pay people to tweet, and a single organization can employ hundreds of people from around the world. We call it “decentralized manipulation.” Example: Organization (A) contacts people on social media and offers to pay x amount per week...
The accounts tweet whatever Organization (A) tells them to tweets, often tweeting for hours . Since each of the accounts are from different parts of the world and aren’t part of the same physical network, it makes it significantly harder to detect this type of manipulation...
When we notice suspicious accounts are manipulating a hot button topic, I would often tweet about the topic using keywords to catch their attention. Ma'Khia Bryant is the latest example of suspicious accounts manipulating this hot button topic...
In Ma'Khia's case, we are observing a mix of decentralized manipulation and manipulation by people operating multiple "dormant" accounts. The messaging is clear, and these accounts are attempting to persuade others to believe the shooting was justified...
Example A: Someone created this account in 2015, and it only has 13 tweets. The last time it tweeted was in 2017, and then it recently became active to tweet about Ma’Khia Bryant. You will notice this account is replying to tweets using similar messaging... 
Example B: In this example, the account was created in 2014, and it has 110 tweets. The messaging here shows sympathy for the two girls being threatened by the knife while painting Ma’Khia as a vicious thug. However, the sympathy for the two girls is just part of the deception...
Example C: This account appears to be “normal,” and it was created in 2009. However, you will notice it is repeatedly replying to tweets with the same image. I counted approximately 19 tweets with the same image...
Here is video of me scrolling through the tweets from Example C. You can see the account is spamming the same images, links, and messaging.
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