Joe Biden, Kamala Harris Got a Big Social Media Boost from Indian Troll Farms

[mountaineer]

This is from Newsweek - not some conservative source.

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris Got a Big Social Media Boost from Indian Troll Farms
By Siddharthya Roy, Zenger
11/2/20 at 12:30 PM EST

Joe Biden's Twitter account got a sizable boost beginning in August from tens of thousands of fake followers purchased on the open market from troll farms in rural India, an investigation has found.

Within two weeks of Biden selecting Kamala Harris as his running mate on August 12, his Twitter following jumped by 738,595 new followers—a 9.1 percent leap. The number hit 11 million by the third week of October.

A close examination has revealed unusual patterns. A large number of Twitter accounts that followed Biden's appear to have been created exclusively for that purpose. And a large number of the users are located in small towns in rural India—in places where English-speakers are rare, and from handles run by people who don't speak English as their first language, nor appear to be genuinely invested in American politics.   ...

Four of his employees, young men who live in the neighborhood, take their stations at long desks that line two walls of the tiny shop, and open up task sheets assigned to them. A Google Doc tells each one of them who to follow, who to retweet, what to retweet and what comments to leave on specific posts.

Using aliases—each worker controls several hundred—they schedule tweets, check engagement stats and, at the close of their shifts, fill up a spreadsheet with their analytics from the previous day.

Started mostly to serve the 2014 Narendra Modi campaign, India's troll farm business is now one of the most decentralized and robust in the world. They offer nearly anything to paying customers, according to Patel: fake news, Photoshopped images, support and "hate" campaigns, and even incitements of mob violence.   ...

Read entire story at Newsweek

Here's the DNC in a nutshell, folks:

"We don't pick and choose. Joe Biden the person is irrelevant to us. We got a target in August to follow him and engage with his tweets, and we did. The agencies in Delhi who we work with don't tell us any details, and we don't ask," he said.

Yajpal described a pyramid-shaped campaign structure akin to multi-level marketing, but without the mid-level payoffs.

[mountaineer]

Robby Starbuck @robbystarbuck
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been caught getting social media help from an Indian troll farm to give them likes, RT’s and go after Trump supporters. I told you all this was happening months ago. Now it’s official. Desperation!
1:47 PM · Nov 2, 2020

BongBong @BongBong
Replying to @robbystarbuck
Election meddling from paid foreign workers? That’s not a good look, Joe.
1:53 PM · Nov 2, 2020

[skeeter]

India is hacking our democracy! Bet they’re running around with their hair on fire at CNN.

[GrouchoTex]

FROM THE ARTICLE:

Indian regulations permit only nine registered SIM cards per person. But even that has loopholes, said Patel, the Internet café owner, and if social media platforms were to require identity verification, he's ready.

"Think a bit," he said about identity verification by photo ID. "I just told you that I scan IDs of everyone who uses my cybercafé, didn't I?"

[libertasbella]

At least they're not asking to please see bobs and vagene.