Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Data Scientist/Musician/Participant in the General Confusion @trutherbotprop Resist autocracy and research/counter disinformation. I serve the realm.

Sep 6, 2018, 8 tweets

This tweet from @shocker_daily was cloned by ten other accounts shortly after being posted. Some kind of automation is the obvious explanation, and the "RT shocker_daily" instead of actual retweets is a telltale sign of IFTTT (TY @MikeH_PR for the lead).

The @shocker_daily account was created recently (7/27/2018) and is almost exclusively focused on posting dubious claims about the #Skripal #Novichok poisoning. It has an associated "news" site (dailyshocker(dot)news), registered the same day with similar content.

The ten accounts that copied @shocker_daily's tweet have been copying its tweets ever since the account started tweeting. The cloned tweets are, as suspected, posted via IFTTT. The majority of @shocker_daily's reach is via the bots, as @shocker_daily has very few followers.

These accounts are not recent creations, but they were dormant for almost two years before they began copying @shocker_daily's tweets in an automated fashion. Old tweets are mostly via the website rather than IFTTT, but still look potentially automated.

We can't prove it outright, based on the fact that the @shocker_daily account was created on the same day as the website, and the bots activated at the same time, it's reasonable to conclude that the bots are operated by the same entity as the website and the primary account.

The operator of @shocker_daily appears to be displeased. Note that none of their three replies actually address any of the claims made in the thread.

When you get called a "cheeky cunt" by a small botnet before you've even finished breakfast, you know you're doing something right. #FridayFeeling

Footnote: I deleted the tweet I added to this thread last night because it was erroneous.

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