Thread by @SlickRockWeb

So for the first time in quite a while a newcomer hashtag had top spot on the #Hamilton68 Dashboard -- #walkaway. We remembered seeing this hashtag in the past few weeks but didnt really know what it was or follow up on it. #infosec #opsec dashboard.securingdemocracy.org

The background story on this hashtag #walkaway is a little strange & the number of bots, trolls, & fake testimonial promoting this hashtag is even stranger. Here's an example of a completely fake tweet highlighted by @daveweigel #opsec #infosec

We decided to look retrospectively at our own reverse engineered #Hamilton68 data. This is a wordcloud of 22893 tweets from our main Hamilton68 troll subset going from June 24th until now & #walkaway takes the #1 spot. #infosec #opsec

Looking at our #Hamilton68 troll subset that generally focuses on events directly related to Russia, we did a wordcloud of 19059 tweets from June 24th until now. And #walkaway also showed up although not as prominently as other subsets #opsec #infosec #bot #botnet

This is what I don't get @Aurora3379 u clearly have a vested interest in this #walkaway movement & claim to be a Democrat leaving the party when you clearly are not & probably never were a Democrat. U just have to look at ur timeline. That is what is so strange about all of this?

@Aurora3379 you have used the #walkaway hashtag over 300 times in the past week & apparently only tweet on Sunday?? Even a dumb apolitical capitalist like myself can clearly see from the hashtags you use that you are not a Democrat

Here are some more completely organic and legitimate tweets on the completely “real” snark #walkaway campaign #opsec #infosec

So this very suspect Row Powers #walkaway testimonial was retweeted 5400 times including Donald Trump Jr. The account retweets RT(.)com stories and strange mixture of affiliate marketing type tweets including an obscure dating site

The Ron Powers account was traced to the domain ronpowers(.)us & email address & its clearly a fake registration using Los Angeles as the city, Alabama as the state and a Burbank, CA phone number?? Hmm. Weird clients and tweet frequency that is very bot or cyborg like. #walkaway

This one is quite funny in that they have mixed up their messaging. This "MS-13" gang member is leaving (#walkway) the Democratic party and joining the Republican party. Huh?? Is that really the message u were shooting for? #infosec #opsec

This account @cecilia48188170 has tweeted three times since 2017. Yesterday it put out a #walkaway testimonial that magically got retweeted 377 times and liked 1.1k times. Impressive for an account with 20 followers and 3 tweets. Wish I had that kind of "organic" pull. LOLOL

Some great visualizations of the artificial connections and bot activity in the #walkaway propaganda hashtag by ( @3r1nG ). Anytime you get directly connected to #pizzagate the believability factor goes WAY down #infosec #opsec

This completely normal sounding Twitter name @72b84c5d3868437 from Erin's work tweets out at about 800 tweets per day and has used #walkaway almost 400 times in the past 5 days. Also really likes to eat at #pizzagate Totally normal "Human" activity! LOLOL

Very interesting analysis as usual done by @conspirator0 showing the Twitter accounts claiming to be former Democrats in the whole #walkaway propaganda campaign are nothing more than astroturf accounts #infosec #opsec

Here is another completely believable #walkaway account newly created. Democrat that had a recent crisis of conviction, just found Twitter & left the party 2 join the GOP and is an apparent black man who now tweets alt-right activist hashtags at 153 times a day mostly at 2:00 am

In honor of our country's Independence day @realShawnEib and I are outing the first still live #Hamilton68 troll. @KeepTexasRed7 retweeted a #WalkAway tweet on June 8th & was the first of the 250+ Hamilton68 trolls & bots we have collected to do so. #infosec #opsec

The @keepTexasRed7 account is partially restricted by #Twitter & falls within our Russia-centric troll subset (1 of 8 subsets we have created) of #Hamilton68. Here is the exact #WalkAway tweet that @keepTexasRed7 retweeted on June 8th. #infosec #opsec

The @keepTexasRed7 account has lots of incredibly accurate and balanced non-progadanda style tweets like this one. #infosec #opsec #hamilton68

Interestingly since we first identified @keepTexasRed7 back on March 5th where it was tweeting at a good clip of 914 tweets/day it has since deleted all its tweets prior to June 30th 2018. #infosec #opsec #hamilton68

If you have your doubts that @keepTexasRed7 existed & was tweeting before June 30th look closely at this retweet from geli2j on June 9th #WalkAway #infosec #opsec #psyops #osint #hamilton68 https://twitter(.)com/geli2j/status/1005497086132056064

Another very interesting thread on #walkway by my research partner @realShawnEib. His socialbearing.com data also shows Russian involvement. Keep in mind that most good #pysops accounts dont have geo-enabled turned on so this is way under-represented

Can't remember if I mentioned the icing on the cake where Brandon Straka got an exclusive interview of all places RT(.)com. @realShawnEib posted it here yesterday. Also the @CarolN33 account has gone eerily silent #hamilton68 #walkaway

More media & journalists picked up on this #walkaway astroturf / propaganda campaign 2day being pushed on #Twitter & #Facebook including detailed analysis by @RVAwonk confirming our findings Also of note #WalkAway has now fallen #2 on #Hamilton68 dashboard

Along with the decreasing frequency of the #walkaway hashtag now that it has been outed as an #astroturf / #propaganda campaign, the Google trends search data also shows that it is losing steam #opsec #psyops #infosec #osint

Lastly the Google trend search data over a 24 hr period for #walkaway is quite interesting. The 2 biggest spikes occurred in the 2:00 am -4:00 am range. Totally what you would expect for a domestic only organically-driven political movement <snark> #opsec #psyops #infosec #osint

Wonder if these fake #walkaway twitter accounts saying they r switching parties, leaving the Democrats & will b voting Republican qualify as the mythical "corpses that vote" in every election. The ones the conspiracy nuts rage about. They are certainly "Ghost in the Shell" voters

My research partner @realShawnEib has more VERY interesting details on the fake Ron Powers Twitter account and its #walkaway testimonal that was retweeted 5400 times including from Donald Trump Jr. #infosec #opsec #psyops #osint

Whomever was behind @ronpowers accnt was advertising to pay people 2 commandeer their twitter accounts ..presumably 2 create a Twitter botnet. Also had an account on the criminal Arizona based website Backpage which was seized by FBI back in April 2018

A surprisingly large number of Russian speaking Twitter accounts also retweeted the Ron Powers #walkaway testimonial courtesy of data provided by @josh_emerson #infosec #opsec #psyops #osint

@RebootBill from the fake propaganda #walkaway movement has been suspended by #Twitter as of today. This accnt had been tweeting at a rate of 148 per day. So far the suspension rate is now at 5% for the #walkaway accnts we are following #infosec #opsec #osint #psyops

The new walkawaycampaign(.)com website was first registered at Godaddy on June 6th, 2018. Two days later we saw the first #Hamilton68 troll / Russian influence account @keepTexasRed7 retweet a #walkaway tweet. #infosec #osint #opsec