New research suggests there is sophisticated automation amplifying Trump's social media presence.

[Nevilledog]

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Simon Rosenberg
@SimonWDC
This is a really important article. New research suggests, finally, that there is sophisticated automation amplifying Trump's social media presence. This was known, expected, but this work creates a new level of understanding behind what's happening.

Elizabeth Dwoskin
@lizzadwoskin
We did a deep dive on the forces powering Trump’s misinfo megaphone.
-Researchers found 1/2 of his RT’s come from identical accounts that tweet in near-perfect synchronicity. Zero chance this could happen organically.
-Up to 10% of RTs came from QAnon.
https://washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/30/trump-twitter-domestic-disinformation/…
3:36 PM · Oct 30, 2020

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/30/trump-twitter-domestic-disinformation/

President Trump launched into a tweetstorm in April, banging out nine retweets of the Centers for Disease Control’s account on the dangers of misusing disinfectant and other topics — two days after he himself had suggested that people could inject themselves with bleach to cure covid-19.

But those tweets spread in an odd pattern: More than half the 3,000 accounts retweeting Trump did so in near-perfect synchronicity, so that the 945th tweet was the same number of seconds apart as the 946th, University of Colorado information science professor Leysia Palen found.

The unusual finding underscores some of the little-known ways in which Trump’s social media army — composed of devoted followers and likely assistance from software that artificially boosts his content — has helped him develop one of the world’s most powerful political megaphones, unlike any other in the English-speaking world.

That megaphone has become a frequent source of misinformation, some of it so toxic that Harvard researchers recently dubbed attacks on mail-in voting by Trump and right-leaning leaders “a highly effective disinformation campaign with potentially profound effects ... for the legitimacy of the 2020 election.”

Trump’s singular ability to spread his messages, often disseminating false or unsubstantiated information, comes from his prominence as president and the relentless clip of his tweeting to his 87 million followers. He is also aided by a vital feedback loop — often discussed but poorly understood — among the president, high-profile influencers and rank-and-file followers that both push messages in his direction and promote every online utterance.

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