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Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
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Dec 8 • 3 tweets • 3 min read
Thus far, one of the most significant beneficiaries of Matt Taibbi's "Twitter Files" thread has been Matt Taibbi's Twitter account (@mtaibbi), which gained hundreds of followers in the hours and days immediately after the thread.

cc: @ZellaQuixote follow order by creation data plot for @mtaibbi
Based on the hashtags used in their profiles (#MAGA, #KAG, #Trump2024, etc), Taibbi's post-"Twitter Files" followers are almost all right-wing accounts. This is not true of his prior followers, who mostly have left-wing hashtags in their profiles (#BLM, #Resist, #GreenNewDeal). side-by-side hashtag clouds for @mtaibbi's followers gained
Typo: should be "hundreds of thousands", not "hundreds":

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More from @conspirator0

Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Dec 3
Here's a look at a smallish astroturf network targeting @SafeguardDefend (a non-profit group that has released multiple reports on human rights abuses in China) with spammy duplicate tweets. #SaturdaySpam

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 32 identical tweets with the text "#Safeguar
This network consists of 25 Twitter accounts created in multiple batches in September and October 2022. Thus far, all their tweets were tweeted via the Twitter Web App, and they generally go silent for two days a week (Friday and Saturday in US Pacific Time). table of the 25 accounts in the networkdaily tweet volume by source app chart, showing that the acc
The content tweeted by this network is repetitive, with many tweets duplicated verbatim numerous times across multiple accounts. The most frequently repeated tweets all begin with the hashtag #SafeguardDefenders, and are all attacks on the Safeguard Defenders group. table of repeated tweets
Read 6 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Nov 30
Meet @patfkauffman, a "TRUMP 2024!" account motivated by freedom and hard work with over 44 thousand followers. Although this account may at first glance appear authentic, there are multiple problems.

cc: @ZellaQuixote screenshot of @patfkauffman's Twitter profile
First, @patfkauffman's profile pic is a GAN-generated face. The image has been cropped, preventing it from being detected by facial feature position, but other anomalies remain, such an incorrectly shaped ear and weird artifacts where the hair, skin, and clothing meet. @patfkauffman's profile image, a cropped GAN-generated face
(More on GAN-generated faces and their use on Twitter and elsewhere here: )
Read 9 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Nov 26
As it turns out, the @milanvanacker22 account is one of a set of a dozen cryptocurrency/NFT promoter accounts currently up for sale for impressive prices. The total sale price of all twelve accounts is almost $30,000. #ExtremelyBoringWaysToWasteMoney

cc: @ZellaQuixote screenshots of 12 NFT promo...screenshots of the profiles...
These twelve "NFT promoter" accounts (along with a few others) are being sold by a group of four users on accs-market(dot)com: "NFT Promoter", "xGo Agency", "Mark crypto", and the rather boringly-named "accounts". screenshot of user "NF...screenshot of user "xG...screenshot of user "Ma...screenshot of user "ac...
Unsurprisingly, several (and possibly all) of these accounts have been renamed:

@Crypt0BatmanNFT was previously @/GiulianoScarano
@MariaLopezNft was previously @/ezekhalama
@PsychedlcEyeNFT was previously @/VoceSabiaSDV
@magicianpromos was previously @/UberCitoou wayback machine archive sho...wayback machine archive sho...wayback machine archive sho...wayback machine archive sho...
Read 4 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Nov 20
It's a Sunday, and some chucklehead has decided to bestow ~24,000 newly-created fake followers on my account. All are accounts created in November 2022 with 0 tweets, a default profile image, or both.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
In a possibly related development, this recent tweet linking a Substack post about detecting fake followers has been spammed with likes from random NFT accounts:
Roughly 40% of my unwanted fake followers also follow @bi3followers1 (ID 1298538907945050112), an account that sells "social media services" and appears to have almost no real followers. This account (which likely violates Twitter's spam policy) has an $8 Twitter Blue checkmark.
Read 5 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Nov 14
Despite being at least seven years old and having few or no tweets, these accounts have somehow accumulated over 50,000 followers each. In an interesting twist, almost all of those followers were created in November 2022.

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of the profiles of 20 old accounts with large numberhistogram of creation dates of the accounts' followers, show
These newly-minted followers are part of a fake follower network consisting of (at least) 157,342 accounts created between November 3rd and November 13th, 2022. All follow ~100 accounts and have 0 tweets, 0 likes, and few or no followers of their own. histogram of creation dates/times for the accounts in the netable of 30 example accounts from the network
Many of the accounts the network follows are old accounts (created 2015 or earlier) with very few tweets and 50,000 or more followers, all or almost all of which are fake followers from the network. Many but not all are crypto/NFT-themed. table of 20 example accounts created 2015 or earlier with fe
Read 7 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Nov 10
It's a Thursday, and a variety of Twitter accounts with GAN-generated faces have paid $8 for a blue checkmark. #BlueCheckShenaniGANS

(GAN = "generative adversarial network", the AI technology used by tools like thispersondoesnotexist.com)

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of the profiles of ...
Unmodified GAN-generated faces (so far) have the telltale trait that the main facial features (especially the eyes) are in the same position on each image. This becomes evident when one blends the images together.
There are other signs these images are inauthentic: nonsensical clothing (especially the bizarre "hat" in @JaredPretorious's profile pic), surreal backgrounds, and mismatched ears, among others. collage of all 13 GAN-gener...
Read 4 tweets

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