Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #twitterblackout
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When you're a squad of newly-minted bots with randomized 15-character names, sometimes you can't help being late to the party. In this case, the party is the #TwitterBlackout, which was over by the time all but one of these 27 accounts retweeted the hashtag.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
Looking more closely at the accounts reveals other similarities. Other than @LnbHkEYM4KoGEul (the only one to boost a #TwitterBlackout tweet before rather than after the event) all are recent creations with Arabic display names, and they all RT'd the same #TwitterBlackout tweet.
The 26 accounts (we omitted @LnbHkEYM4KoGEul as a potential false positive) do not appear to be focused on #TwitterBlackout; in their short lives they've retweeted 47 distinct tweets from 30 accounts. Can we expand the set by looking at what other accounts retweeted these tweets?
We have been checking the #TwitterBlackout hashtag for signs of automated activity. We didn't find a lot in terms of volume, but did happen upon a pair of intriguing #resistance bots (@MiamiPapers and @jgionova) that retweet tweets containing the hashtag.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
(we ran across @MiamiPapers once before, when it retweeted this #tacocat #resist tweet that was posted with the goal of attracting bots)
Both @MiamiPapers and @jgionova are automated via custom software, both claim connection to Miami on their profiles, both were created in July 2016, and both of their feeds consist almost exclusively of retweets. What do they retweet?
