Let’s go down a bot rabbit hole this evening.



I have no idea where we’ll end up...

Douglas Walter is one of my newest followers. He’s new to Twitter.

Douglas seems like a nice guy. His posts are on brand for his bio - “simple and humble”

That’s be nice if Douglas weren’t a bot stealing photos from celebs.

The photos of “Douglas” actually belong to Brazilian actor @otaviano.

It’s amazing what you can find out from a quick reverse image search.

Check out who Doug follows!

He’s also following a bunch of folks who are on some of my block lists.

Vast range of accounts to follow especially for someone brand new to the platform.

I wonder what will happen if I try to engage Doug. Probably nothing (famous last words) but let’s give it a shot.

Hey @Douglas91356507!

The“people” who follow “Doug” all look like bots.

Bot network

So, Killy needs some help with her Twitter presence, but we won’t get on her case.

She’s been on Twitter for less than a month. She’s tweeted once.

Interestingly, Killy has liked four tweets so far.

Let’s check out Zal. Like the others, Zal is new to Twitter.

Update: Douglas unfollowed me :(

Zal has tweeted three times on her account.

Like many of us, Zal is frustrated with COVID19.

Zal and Doug are mutual follows. Neat!

Like Killy, Zal has only liked Trump related tweets.

“Michael” is an interesting one. She’s got a bio and is more active than the other accounts.

She’s new and hasn’t figured out the Twitterverse yet.

The one tweet she liked also happens to be one she retweeted with “hi.”

Update 2: Doug blocked me

Oh well.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Diamond” is new.
Zero tweets.
All Trump-related likes.

?

Nat is the oldest account of the bunch and has the highest number of followers. She’s knee deep in the conspiracies, too.

I bet if you looked at the tweets from Ambur and SixQ you’ll see a lot of the same types of responses that Nat provided.

This stuff is bananas.

or not?

Update 3: bye Doug!

Lol another bot follower. No activity on this account.

Anyone recognize him?

He’s Prince Sheikh Hamdan.

Oddly, this bot follows mostly elementary school teachers lol

Here’s “Isabella”

No tweets from Isabella, but she’s liked a lot of political tweets.

Anyone else have a lot of bot followers?

Alright, here’s another fake account/bot tactic involving unmonitored accounts with weak passwords.

Dianne likely set up her Twitter account in 2009 and forgot about it.

See, she’s on other social media platforms. She doesn’t post much of Facebook, but you can see she has no history of political posts. Her pins and boards on Pinterest are cooking and DIY projects.

Buckle up for her Twitter account

#MedTwitter will probably find this interesting. She started off as a #DoctorsSpeakUp bot/troll account.

FYI @DrToddWo

Her account is a catch all for antivax sentiment.

Also a Gates and Fauci hater account.

Ok, so let’s check out how the mask narrative evolves with Dianne.

The first couple of posts didn’t have hashtags associated with them.

Boy, that escalated quickly.

So it goes from:

-I prefer gloves over masks
-Masks are a choice - cool to wear one don’t guilt others
-Masks are useless
-Don’t wear a mask

Meanwhile, what’s happening during that time? The scientific evidence to support wearing masks is increasing.

She also tweets the same thing over and over again. Notice how the text is the same in each tweet but the memes change. Those all went out in the same date. There were dozens more.

You might be thinking, “ok, Dianne just went off her rocker and is full blown conspiracy theorist.”

I have a hard time believing that because of what we saw on her other platforms and because of her sophisticated use of Twitter.

Sophisticated how? Next tweet.

Her Twitter activity is sophisticated compared to her FB account. Look, her company logo is even outdated clip art which is what you would expect from a non-tech savvy person.

On Twitter, she’s tweeting, retweeting, quote tweeting, using hashtags, tagging, and posting photos.

All of her hashtags are strategic, too. Many of them are hashtags that have trended on Twitter.

The average, new Twitter user will need time to experiment and understand hashtags. They will often hashtag #random words, or add in hashtags that aren’t relevant. #BirdTwitter

You can find those types of accounts in the replies of any politician’s tweets.

The hashtags I’m watching today are:
#BuyGoya
#BuyMoreGoya
#goyagate
#GOYABOYCOTT
#GoyaGottaGo
Etc etc

It’s pure chaos on those ones.