Closing in on The Bot Army Manipulating Social Media for Entertainment (and Beyond)

Good morning, everyone! What a great time we have had this week! Hope it has been as nice for all of you.

Today, we're talking about the continued investigation into the bot army being used to manipulate social media, online conversations, visibility, and more... for entertainment companies, but probably far beyond.

Sometimes the best way to understand the world around you is to study entertainment and entertainment companies. As opposed to political operations and government efforts, entertainment companies tend to be more sloppy; however, they're often doing what the bigger entities are up to, just on a different scale. And, for this case, I think it reveals what we can expect going forward on social media as companies and governments look to manipulate society through fake "voices" that swarm dissidents, critics, and use complex visibility algorithms to choose what the world is talking about today and tomorrow.

Here's what we're finding out from our very good friend, Masterofthe TDS, who we are currently scheduling for the channel next week:

UPDATE ON THE BOTS: With the help and support of @SidAlpha, Upper Echelon and Shino:

We had a node graph run on the accounts promoting Star Wars: Outlaws, especially the Mehmet account, and found some interesting information: There seems to be a little over 1,500 accounts involved. There is no direct follow/follower relation, which may provide the appearance of randomness, but the aggregation of accounts shows a correlation to a bot network being the controlling factor.

The primary or largest ones appear to be these two accounts: https://twitter.com/EuroLeague 
https://twitter.com/sinanguler 

Those two are also mutuals and are followed by the Mehmet account. These don't appear to have any direct social media link to Ubisoft, which means these are bought either directly or through a 3rd party.

In conclusion: This is likely one leg of a larger bot network. So anyone who is saying it’s just crypto or random reply bots farming for engagement, this proves that wrong. It’s not random. It’s paid for engagement boosting, as I’ve said from the beginning.

So why does this effort to figure out Star Wars Outlaws and Ubisoft matter in the more grand scheme? Because the effort is now underway by a group of analysts to keep pulling on the web. As they follow the trail, they hope to find the connective tissue for many of these huge bot efforts to manipulate entertainment discussions.

I hope they're successful.

Your pal,
Pro