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2/ I analysed several batches of tweets. Most of these are from between 15th and 20th of October. I analysed the hashtags #Tulsi2020 and #TulsiGabbard. I also analysed #QueenOfWarmongers, which refers to Tulsi's tweet where she called Hilary Clinton the 'queen of warmongers'
3/ Here is a link to that tweet, which was retweeted 79k times. https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1185289626409406464 … I removed duplicates from my main sample of accounts tweeting on "Tulsi 2020" and "Tulsi Gabbard". This left around 10,000 unique accounts producing in the region of around 20,000 tweets.
4/ I analysed the biographies again, in order to determine any similarities among the accounts. I discovered the most common word was Trump, mentioned in around 525 of those 10,000 accounts. MAGA came in number 3 (excluding http) with 433 hits. Indeed, Tulsi only came in 5th.pic.twitter.com/RauDLSH7cS
5/ While most of those accounts with #MAGA in the bio seem to support Trump, those with Trump in seem to be a group of accounts that either love or hate Trump. You can see below. I'd broadly sum this up as a polarised community with a right-wing bias. The nature of the languagepic.twitter.com/SR7bc5MuMr
6/ is similar though, with extreme love or disgust expressed with regards to Trump. Also what is interesting is that we see an account creation date spike at January 2017. I have documented this time before - as one where an unusual amount of pro-Trump and Resist accounts werepic.twitter.com/770KG6ESEq
7/ created. The same pattern holds out true with the "Queen of Warmongers" hashtag. Indeed, the approx 9,300 unique accounts in the sample, MAGA and Trump were the top 2 words featured in bios. Conservative was 4, and KAG (keep America Great) was number 5. Might be worthpic.twitter.com/ENV09ODvKl
8/ reminding everyone that Tulsi Gabbard is a democratic candidate... Indeed, in my sample, 22% of all those tweeting on the 'Queen of Warmongers" hashtag had either Trump, MAGA, KAG or conservative in their bios. That's around 20% (a number that is becoming very familiar).pic.twitter.com/7IbJUD2Kew
9/ As for Tulsi's tweet about Hilary Clinton, the one that inspired the Queen of Warmongers hashtag - the same story plays out. Of around 10,366 unique accounts I sampled that retweeted her, the most commonly occurring words are once again MAGA, Trump and erm, love of course.pic.twitter.com/fHFugNUaqI
10/ Again, we see the same suspicious January 2017 spike in creation dates. Again, in this sample, we see similar figures - around 16% of accounts retweeting have either MAGA, KAG, Trump or Conservative written in their bios. Indeed, the trump-mentioning accounts are consistentlypic.twitter.com/19zSZEsA08
11/ the most vocal on both Tulsi hashtags and Tulsi's comments condemning Hilary. Accusations that Tulsi is supported by a social media influence campaign are not new, but the fingerprint of those boosting Tulsi's tweets are extremely similar to those boosting anti Trudeau
12/ and pro Hard-Brexit tweets. Indeed, I cross-examined a sample of those tweeting against Trudeau with the pro-Tulsi accounts and my early estimates suggest at least 300 of the accounts may be active on both issues - again, strange bedfellows in many ways.
13/ So in short, recently we have seen that those boosting pro-Tulsi hashtags often involve a large community of MAGA and Trump-related accounts. At times, these account for 16-20% of all unique accounts tweeting, often the most cohesive community. The patterns of behaviours
14/ certainly fit the argument that Tulsi is being promoted by those wishing to disrupt the democratic nomination for president - whether to divide the democrats or promote a challenger who is seen as perhaps naive, or even sympathetic to the US's traditional enemies....
15/ End thread. Feel free to ask questions, retweet or request data
Hi Marc, thanks for compiling your thread with Threader. The whole version is here: https://threader.app/thread/1185984162890702850 … #Thread #MAGA #polbots #Tulsi2020 #TulsiGabbard
Marc, all things said, Tulsi is not a serious contender at this time, and the fixation on her by Clinton is bizarre.
[2] And whether or not Tulsi is a serious contender does not have any real bearing on whether these tactics are effective at achieving their goal. And they are exceedingly effective. That's the real point here.
I also think these are the tip of the iceberg, indicators of what else might be going on...
I've been studying these hostile influence ops as they happen. And you are absolutely right that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Tulsi is just one small aspect. There are large botnets/sock puppets that pretend to rep every major candidate as they engage in divisive acts.
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