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Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
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21 Nov, 5 tweets, 4 min read
The #metaverse isn't here yet, but the crypto spam accounts mentioning it in identical tweets sure are. #SundaySpam

cc: @ZellaQuixote
The spammy #metaverse tweets are from a network consisting of (at least) 741 accounts with handles and display names consisting of lowercase letters and random numbers, created in batches from August to November 2021.
These accounts amplify a variety of large cryptocurrency/blockchain accounts via a combination of quote tweets, replies, and retweets. The quote tweets and replies are frequently duplicated verbatim by dozens of accounts in the network.
Almost all of this network's content is (allegedly) tweeted by the Twitter Web App, with the exception of 29 retweets of @usebraintrust sent via "ViralSweep App".
Accounts IDs for the 741 accounts in this network, should anyone want them.
pastebin.com/2Z0SA5Et

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More from @conspirator0

Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
15 Nov
Follow order by creation date scatter plots can reveal interesting things about the history of popular Twitter accounts. Case in point: almost all of @maureen_bannon's first few thousand followers are accounts that primarily tweet in Chinese.

cc: @ZellaQuixote Image
These early Chinese-language followers all followed @maureen_bannon over a relatively short span of time: specifically, the first two weeks of October 2020, roughly a month prior to the 2020 US Presidential election. Image
Although the Chinese-language accounts do not show obvious signs of being automated or fake, they differ from @maureen_bannon's English-language followers in one key way: they frequently link Guo Wengui/Steve Bannon propaganda sites GNews and GTV. Image
Read 5 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
8 Nov
As it turns out, this is not @TheTexianDM's first encounter with an astroturf botnet. Here's a thread on an old botnet from which @TheTexianDM got a couple hundred retweets each on a set of #Texit tweets and about 3000 fake followers back in 2018.

cc: @ZellaQuixote ImageImage
This network consists of 36374 now-dormant accounts created in early 2018. Almost all of the accounts in the network either retweet or follow accounts; very few do both. All have either 0 tweets/0 likes or fewer likes than tweets. ImageImageImage
None of the accounts in this network has been active since 2018. Back then they tweeted (allegedly) via a mix of the Twitter Web Client and Twitter for Android (iPhone is entirely absent). Image
Read 7 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
6 Nov
How did this tweet from #Texit supporter and lieutenant governor candidate @TheTexianDM get more retweets than likes, mostly from accounts with GAN-generated profile pics?

(GAN = "generative adversial network", the AI technique used by thispersondoesnotexist.com)

cc: @ZellaQuixote Image
Answer: @TheTexianDM's tweet was retweeted by an botnet consisting of (at least) 1081 accounts created in September, October, or November 2021. All 1081 accounts tweet exclusively via the Twitter Web app, and almost all of their tweets are retweets. #astroturf ImageImageImageImage
The accounts in this network mostly retweet cryptocurrency/blockchain/NFT content, but there are exceptions - gaming accounts, musicians, and political accounts turn up as well. Image
Read 10 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
3 Nov
This "account vetting guide" has been floating around Twitter on and off for a couple of years. As both a disinformation researcher and a Twitter user, I find multiple aspects of it problematic and therefore do not adhere to it.
First, the "bot detection" criteria are nonsense that will tell you nothing about whether or not a given account is automated. (All accounts are new and have few tweets at some point, plenty of humans tweet hundreds of times a day and make profuse spelling/grammar errors, etc.)
(Longer thread with more information on the detection (and misdetection) of bots, for those who are interested in more detail on the topic:
)
Read 5 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
28 Oct
Why do all these cats want to have a cup of coffee in the morning, and do they even exist? (Spoiler: no, they do not.) #ThisCatDoesNotExist #WednesdayShenaniGANs

cc: @ZellaQuixote
The coffee-craving cats are part of a 129 account cryptocurrency spam network. The accounts in this network were created in three batches in August and September 2021, and thus far have (allegedly) posted all of their tweets via the Twitter Web App.
These accounts do three things:

• post repetitive tweets, most of which are conversational-ish stuff like "I like to have a cup of coffee in the morning", but with occasioal spammy replies about crypto
• retweet crypto/blockchain accounts
• follow crypto/blockchain accounts
Read 8 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
23 Oct
FYI: Despite the banner that says "BREAKING NEWS" in large friendly letters, the @FordJohnathan5 account is neither a news outlet nor a reliable source of information. The "no disinformation" claim is false, as the account has repeatedly presented falsehoods as #BreakingNews.
This is a lie. Neither of the tweets I screenshotted had been deleted by @FordJohnathan5
at the time of this tweet, and had been up for quite some time prior.

Archives with timestamps for proof:
archive.md/g6BEC
archive.md/wKwO1
Additionally, I made good-faith efforts to get @FordJohnathan5 to address the false tweets LONG before posting this. I was ignored, as were many others who asked for sources.
Read 4 tweets

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