How A Twitter Fight Over Bernie Sanders Revealed A Network Of Fake Accounts
How A Twitter Fight Over Bernie Sanders Revealed A Network Of Fake Accounts
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Trevor, a Sanders supporter who declined to provide his last name for fear of being doxxed, but goes by @likingonline on Twitter, noticed a strange pattern of behavior when Albright responded to him. Her tweets addressing him were rapidly retweeted by the same series of accounts. This created a barrage of notifications making it look as though there was an avalanche of opposition to everything he said.
But as Trevor discovered, after an extensive amount of research that he posted online, these were not normal accounts. They appeared to be bots ― automated accounts masked as real people being used to amplify a particular political message. Who is really pulling the strings, however, remains a mystery.
Albright told HuffPost that the accounts were voluntarily handed over by their original users to an unnamed client of hers to be automated in “an analytics program.” She said she was bound by a non-disclosure agreement and could not disclose who was collecting and automating these accounts or for what purpose.
Twitter allows users to automate their accounts, including setting up automatic retweeting and liking of other accounts. This increases activity on the platform, something Twitter obviously wants to do, and allows busy users to promote messages or businesses that they support. Presumably Twitter did not anticipate that users would simply hand their accounts over to another person or campaign to artificially spread the latter’s tweets.
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The account named for Iris Winter, which is temporarily suspended, uses a picture of Spanish ice dancer Sara Hurtado. Minnie Casera’s supposed picture comes from the Facebook account of Martina Painter, an Alaskan who died on Jan. 11, 2017. The picture used by Georgia Miles is actually Deja Farrior-Quinones, a New Jersey woman who was killed in September 2016 by a car involved in a high-speed police chase. Maggie Campell’s picture is one of Deb Solsrud, a Florida woman who died in a plane crash in December 2016. Madeleine Ware’s photo is really Mary Knowlton, a retired librarian who was killed in August 2016 by a police officer in a practice drill.
Allison Rowe’s account uses the picture of Dr. Roberta Guilizzoni, an Italian physicist who works at the National Physical Laboratory in London. Baylee Allmon’s picture is actually the Bosnian model Nejla Hadzic. The account of Callie Calloway uses a picture of Kelsey Lundy, a lobbyist in Arizona for Compass Strategies. Cameron Gibson offers an image of the freelance travel writer Sarah Gordon that appeared in the Daily Mail. Francie McCormack has taken her picture from the Twitter account of Callie Maries. The photo of Lena Robinson is actually Ashlynn Sparks, an Alabama teenager who was shot to death in 2016.
File this in the No Shit Sherlock section. I don’t have much to add to this except that anyone who makes decisions based on what a lot of ‘people’ on the internet are saying rather than what their own research and life experience has shown them is a complete idiot and shouldn’t be allowed to walk around without a keeper.
Comments
Anybody
who uses twitty or faceplant for their news is also a complete idiot.
I won't go so low as to say anybody who uses either is a moron but it would be easy to do so for the majority of users.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Like anything, it's how one
uses it.
The site is designed to hold one prisoner there all day, every day, and lots of users oblige.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
You mean sorta like here?
Sneaky marketing tactic, having too many interesting and informed/informative essayists and commenters here to ever leave...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
The difference, of course,
is that we actually learn something here.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
And 'here' comes with sane, reasoning inhabitants! Bonus!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Thanks!
We know it goes on, but having specific identified instances pointed out is a very helpful reminder.
Hey, wait a minute, why weren't Albright's bots and this mysterious unnamed client automatically accused of being Russian Twitter-bots?
A likely story, when we know that Putin does everything! Especially on Twitter! Albright's clearly a Putin-puppet!
A full and publicly transparent investigation is definitely in order. They're already interfering with the next election, already anonymously going after the supporter of a likely Presidential candidate in order to destroy American democracy by influencing the 2020 election and I have yet to hear Russiagate banging. After Russian marketing firm Twitterbots and FB ads single-handedly elected Trump and deprived the True Heir of Her Turn! How long must she wait?
And we must know exactly who pressured/bribed/blackmailed Albright so that she committed this heinous crime!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I remember her and her tweets
Wouldn't it be funny if she had been hired by Hillary's campaign? I can't believe that she bitches about Russia bots when she used her Correct the Record bots. How is that any different? Oh wait, Putin paid her not Hillary. I agree with Ellen.
ETA - wait, I know who created those tweets. It was Hamilton 68! You know, the new Twitter political group that looks for patterns to decide which ones are Russian bots who retweets tweets that are decisive. Yeah, that's who Albright works for.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I have to admit that my first thought
was also that it must be a Clinton/DNC effort, but then I realized that Putin, that ubiquitous Super-god-like being, somehow manages to do all of their evil first, even time-travelling to do it, adding his own warped spin by such as cruelly sending humanitarian aid to people who The Good Guys were deliberately starving, so I realized almost instantly that it must be Super-Putin after all.
And there must be a publicly transparent, independent investigation into this matter, to establish the actual perpetrator, with perhaps the first evidence yet produced of Putin's nefarious crimes against American democracy.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
When I reread the article I saw this statement by Albright
“I don’t really see it as the same thing as the Russian accounts, but I guess since you’re calling me about it, I guess that means that it’s something that I didn’t think that it was ― if that makes sense,” Albright said. “People seem upset by it in a way I did not anticipate.”
It's not the same thing in any sense. The Russian bots didn't exist except in people's minds. The company that put ads on Facebook was an advertising agency and its purpose was not to interfere with the election, but to get people's opinions on them. Besides most of them were placed after the election. Tell me how that had anything to do with it?
The tweets that Albright did was to definitely change people's minds about Hillary! The Correct the Record campaign was borderline illegal according to the election laws and if she got paid to do that then that too might have been also.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Just watching this, thought you'd be interested
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8ecDhcpJ98
I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!
Edit: damn Dems stole an 'o' this time; wonder if they're spelling out 'lol' at my expense...
Re-edit to add something I just came across and am about to watch:
Just how low do TPTB, et al, dig on their ill-intentioned road to hell-on-Earth? Are the pics used of all these dead people a not-so-subtle threat? Were these all arranged accidents or something of the kind and therefore additional trolling? I have to admit I kinda wondered upon first reading about this, although it might just be a variation of 'cemetery voting', which I understand was fairly common in vote padding, where dead people had their no-longer-used votes 'recycled' by corrupt politicians/Parties. People did eventually notice the re-using of stock photos for some of their previous troll armies ... but honestly, one can only guess at the root or purpose of any of this intensifying psyop insanity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY9VzzZ9bvI
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
The Reason Why I think the HuffPo Piece is Worthy
Is because I also think CTR had paid contributors on TOP despite GOS denying it.
I'm glad to see Sally Albright and her ilk, which includes David Brock, get busted. Kudos to likeonline on twitter for archiving and sharing how he did his analysis (a quick one at that).
It is the Ides of March. And that date means some things to lefty bloggers, not just to Shakespeare.
One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--Tennyson