Geoff Golberg takes a closer look into a college professor/Harvard law grad driving online attacks on Iranian-American women journalists and the likely role of twitter bots in amplifying the aggression.

Shahrooz, one of the more active non-sockpuppet accounts that similarly has targeted Fassihi (alleging both are part of the Iran Lobby), opts to hide behind thousands of fake Twitter Followers, which not only inflate his Followers count, but also function to artificially amplify the content of his tweets:

Among Shahrooz’s 21.1K Followers, Social Forensics has identified:

• 436 accounts that have, on average since being created, tweeted 100 or more times per day -1,024 accounts that have, on average since being created, liked 100 or more tweets per day
• 344 accounts that have, on average since being created, tweeted 100 or more times per day AND liked 100 or more tweets per day

Of the 344 accounts referenced above, 290 of them were created in Sep or Oct 2022 (view accounts here).

These accounts all amplify the same accounts and hashtags, indicative of a script/automation being used to mislead others (gaming hashtags to trend, for example) and disrupting the experience for Twitter users that Shahrooz opts to tag in his tweets (i.e. brigading the tagged users via bombarding their Twitter notifications).

For more please visit: https://geoffgolberg.medium.com/iranian-american-female-journalists-targeted-online-via-coordinated-campaigns-9e685c24030c
#mahsa_amini
#Iran #iranprotests #Twitter #Censorship ##Politics #NIAC
#اعتراضاتسراسری #اعتصاباتسراسری
#زنزندگیآزادی
#مهسا_امینی
#ایران #تهران #