Trump’s Civil War Tweet Amplified by a Bot Army

Unhackthevote September 30, 2019

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On September 29, 2019, Trump tweeted about Civil War. Quoting Robert Jeffress, an Evangelical Megachurch Pastor and Trump supporter, Trump dropped a warning on his bot-infested Twitter feed. The warning appeared to be: if Trump is removed from office by impeachment, there will be a Civil War.

Is there a more dangerous dialogue? Let’s take a look at how the bots in Trump’s account added significantly to the problem. Twitter needs to step up. This is dangerous!

Amplified by a Bot Army

Let’s start with a four-tweet bot. which is certainly helping to spread the crazy. This bot is pushing out likes for Trump at a crazy rate. Only four tweets but 86,000 likes! One of those likes was Trump’s Civil War tweet.

Next, a two-tweet bot with 1,600 likes. This one liked each of Trump’s Tweets!

Created in 2009, this two-tweet bot also liked Trump’s Civil War tweet. This bot has 5600 likes.

Next, another four-tweet bot liked two of Trump’s Tweets from his “Civil War” thread. This Bot has over 17,000 likes.

This is absolutely nuts. This bot has never tweeted. It seems to have been born specifically to like these three Trump tweets. That is all it has ever done. It is there for a reason.

In keeping with this crazy, there are more. Again, this bot has no tweets. It liked several tweets from Trump’s Civil War thread and has liked more than 9,000 tweets.

Another! Zero tweets, but it liked Trump’s Civil War tweet and has liked over 4,000 tweets.

The Danger of Trump’s Army of Bot Amplifiers

We found these in minutes. Just to prove a point. Multiply these by the millions to begin to understand the immense scope of this. Whether a Retweet or Likes, when tweets are falsely amplified in the millions, it becomes overwhelming.

When you start talking about a network this large amplifying a tweet about Civil War. When you think about the other acts of violence that have come from his devotees. This bot amplification becomes a real threat.

These accounts push this out so fast and so wide. Then it gets picked up by real users to amplify. Before you know what happened, the dialogue and hate are everywhere.

The artificial amplification through these networks was a significant contributor to 2016. We know it. Mueller knew it. We are worse off now.

With an Impeachment Inquiry starting. With Trump feeling like his back is against the wall. To let this platform let his words be artificially pushed at such a high level will put many more lives in danger.

We need to keep insisting that Twitter put an end to this. We must let our Congress people know that we don’t understand the game plan of leaving this in place going in to 2020.

They say stupid is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Leaving this in place for 2020 is stupid. Let’s not be stupid.

Written by Unhackthevote