Published inThe Startup·PinnedVisualizing Cyber HarassmentContent warning: this blog contains racist and anti-semitic language and terminology associated with sexual assault. Harassment campaigns by swarms of trolls online are disruptive and destructive to their targets’ lives, but what these campaigns actually look like is somewhat nebulous. The people in the crosshairs of a troll campaign…Twitter13 min readTwitter13 min read
Feb 12, 2021Repurposed Mexican state government accountsFiled to: WTF On February 5, 2021, data scientist @conspirator0 tweeted a thread about a cluster of 18 Twitter accounts that have been repurposed — and verified — as official accounts of the state government of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Most old tweets from the original handles have been deleted…Twitter8 min readTwitter8 min read
Nov 30, 2020Audience-building via Facebook groupsPennsylvania Senator Doug Mastriano seems to be building a Facebook army. I stumbled upon a newly created network of Facebook groups supporting Pennsylvania Senator Doug Mastriano, consisting of groups representing 39 counties in PA. …Facebook5 min readFacebook5 min read
Published inOneZero·May 9, 2020Facebook Groups and YouTube Enabled Viral Spread of ‘Plandemic’ MisinformationA social media researcher and multimedia artist shows how medical misinformation spreads so far, so fast — A slick, professionally produced documentary featuring discredited virologist Judy Mikovits went viral last week. The plot of “Plandemic” is a convergence of various conspiracy theories, which is why it appealed to such a wide audience. I was curious about how the video spread so far, so fast. …Facebook5 min readFacebook5 min read
Feb 18, 2020Bot or not?The word “bot” has become a catch-all to describe anything on social media that people perceive as suspicious or contrived, but overuse of the term has rendered it meaningless and current methods for “bot identification” are… lacking. One thing I’ve noticed in nearly 5 years of tracking Twitter bots is…Disinformation7 min readDisinformation7 min read
Dec 30, 2019Information operations in BoliviaSeveral researchers from around the world have published analysis in Spanish language regarding social media manipulation surrounding topics and trends supporting the recent military-civilian coup in Bolivia but their research has not been translated to English or widely reported in the US media. Here are some highlights. On December 10…Social Media9 min readSocial Media9 min read
Sep 22, 2019ميدان_التحرير_الان — hashtag visualizationsFake accounts bombarded top trending hashtags in Egyptian Twitter with obvious, automated spam while protests were breaking out on the ground. Around 5pm EST on September 21, I noticed some suspicious accounts that were spamming hashtags trending in Egypt using IFTTT (“If This Then That”), a web service that automates…Twitter6 min readTwitter6 min read
Sep 16, 2019Trump TrainsA look at the follow-for-follow networks that are a staple in pro-Trump Twitter. If you are somehow unfamiliar with Trump Trains on Twitter, they are tweets that contain nothing but a list of user names, some emojis and usually a meme or a gif. It’s a social media growth hack…Twitter14 min readTwitter14 min read
Apr 27, 2019Incorrect citations of my research in MSMFiled to: corrections needed I recently found some of my research cited incorrectly in two different articles. Neither outlet contacted me at the time to verify if what they were publishing was accurate and both misinterpreted my analysis. …Politics8 min readPolitics8 min read
Published inChatbots Life·Apr 23, 2019Mexican President recognizes the existence of bots in social media networks; calls for ethicsMexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador acknowledged the presence of bots on social media today in a press conference at the Palacio Nacional, an important step forward to addressing the problem. In a press conference this morning in the Palacio Nacional, the Mexican President addressed a long-standing issue in Mexican…Social Media5 min readSocial Media5 min read
