Elections

Some Pro-Trump Twitter Accounts Appear To Be Part Of Marketing Campaign

Derek Hunter Contributor
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Some of Donald Trump’s support on Twitter comes from accounts with zero followers who tweet identical messages and who have been part of social media marketing campaigns in the past.

Patrick Ruffini, a conservative activist and anti-Trump supporter, noticed that several hundred accounts have used word-for-word language to urge voters to opt out of [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] robocalls or emails and file complaints with the Federal Communications Commission.

Some of the accounts also send advertisements for all manner of web-based entities designed to show up in trending topics and search results for various topics.

These accounts, Ruffini discovered, have a history of tweeting the same messages:

Dan Scavino is the director of social media for the Trump campaign.

The Daily Caller did some investigating. (These tweets have begun to disappear, but we’ve screen captured them.)

A search for “@tedcruz opted out robocalls” turns up dozens of accounts sending out the exact same message. A search for “@tedcruz opted out emails” returns the same, with many of the same accounts and the exact same wording.

One account, @KhalyMauna, links to a Facebook page showing him to live in Italy and, in spite of his seeming interest in the Cruz campaign’s alleged tactics, a search of his page back to Feb. 1 shows no mention of Trump or Cruz. In fact, with the exception of captions on a couple of pictures, he posts exclusively in Italian.

Yet, in addition to his Cruz complaint tweets:

 

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

He mostly tweets in Italian, though occasionally sends out what appears to be advertisements in Russian:

 

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

And French:

 

Khalifa 3 Screen Shot 2016-04-08 at 2.06.10 AM

A search of his Twitter feed back to August 2014 shows he’s never tweeted about Trump and the only 2 times he’s ever mentioned US politics were the times he sent those 2 Cruz complaint tweets.

Another account, @cliffjordan, also tweeted the exact same 2 Cruz complaint tweets.

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

The account has retweeted pro-Trump tweets five, but it mostly tweets and retweets what appear to be advertisements:

 

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Including a link to a site promising social media followers and message targeting:

 

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Another curious account is @edsonsuzigan. In addition to sending the exact same two Cruz complaint tweets:

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

It also sent out this one:

 

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Which was sent out by:

 

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

And by:

 

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

Which also sent out:

 

Screen capture from Twitter

Screen capture from Twitter

And so it goes.