Thousands of fake Twitter accounts created throughout 2022 are praising former President Donald Trump and attacking his rivals, tech researchers claim, according to the Associated Press (AP).
The alleged bots repeatedly posted praise about Trump and ridiculed Trump’s critics, including 2024 GOP presidential rival Nikki Haley and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, AP reported Monday. They also said DeSantis would be a great running mate, despite being unable to defeat Trump in a primary matchup. (RELATED: A Classic Trump Moment At McDonald’s Reveals His Greatest Strength)
Researchers say that for nearly a year, someone created thousands of fake, automated Twitter accounts — perhaps hundreds of thousands of them — to offer a stream of praise for Donald Trump and criticism of his rivals. https://t.co/qlVH79iJN8
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 6, 2023
Researchers at Cyabra, an Israeli tech firm, discovered the purported bots and shared their data with AP. The researchers identify bots by looking at patterns in a user’s profile, such as its follower list and the content of its posts, they told the outlet.
“One account will say, ‘Biden is trying to take our guns; Trump was the best,’ and another will say, ‘Jan. 6 was a lie and Trump was innocent,” Cyabra engineer Jules Gross, who first discovered the alleged bot network, told AP. Gross made the discovery after observing Tweets about political figures from accounts that were allegedly all created on the same day, the outlet reported.
Cyabra researchers observed that batches of alleged pro-Trump bots were created in April, October and November 2022. Hundreds of thousands of accounts could be involved in the purported bot network, the researchers estimate. Most of the accounts continue to be active and possess moderate amounts of followers, AP reported.
It remains unclear who is running the alleged bot network, but Cyabra’s analysts believe it originated in the U.S., according to the outlet. The impact of pro-Trump bots on political discourse is unclear.
DeSantis is widely expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination against Trump, Haley and other candidates. He will likely be Trump’s most formidable challenger, based on preliminary state and national polling of GOP primary voters.