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.
People with 0 Twitter followers seem very interested in filing complaints against Ted Cruz. pic.twitter.com/FZBVVWC36V
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016
These accounts, Ruffini discovered, have a history of tweeting the same messages:
Same Twitter users concerned about Cruz robocalls also simultaneously tweeted 17 Marketing Tips for B2B Websites. pic.twitter.com/CY0QZL4vJ2
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016
465 Twitter users collectively urged people to complain to the FCC about Cruz robocalls.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016
These “users” have collectively generated 1.786M tweets over the last 30 days.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016
These 465 accounts generated 411K tweets about Trump over the last 30 days.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016
This group also collectively retweeted @DanScavino 13,000 times.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016
Dan Scavino is the director of social media for the Trump campaign.
But they’re not just interested in Trump, but in a wide range of topics. pic.twitter.com/G0f04ibJVQ
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016
They also take an intense interest in “fashion beauty news” pic.twitter.com/W3HySOF1Tf
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016
It appears that none of this group of people (who have tweeted about Trump almost 1,000 times in the last month on avg.) actually follow him
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) April 8, 2016
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
He mostly tweets in Italian, though occasionally sends out what appears to be advertisements in Russian:
Screen capture from Twitter
And French:
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
The account has retweeted pro-Trump tweets five, but it mostly tweets and retweets what appear to be advertisements:
Screen capture from Twitter
Including a link to a site promising social media followers and message targeting:
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
It also sent out this one:
Screen capture from Twitter
Which was sent out by:
Screen capture from Twitter
And by:
Screen capture from Twitter
Which also sent out:
Screen capture from Twitter
And so it goes.