Lawfare Blog: Is There a Targeted Troll Campaign Against Lisa Page? A Bot Sentinel Investigation

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.lawfareblog.com/there-targeted-troll-campaign-against-lisa-page-bot-sentinel-investigation

By Christopher Bouzy Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 7:14 PM

“Homewrecker.” “Traitor.” “Tramp.” These are just some of the insults flung at Lisa Page—the former FBI lawyer whom President Trump has targeted for her text messages critical of him during the 2016 election—in the almost four thousand responses to a tweet she posted on Jan. 18.

Phrased like this, such insults might seem unsurprising, if gross. Public figures often receive online abuse, after all. But the replies to Page’s tweet stand out. They likely represent a targeted trollbot attack—one that nobody has reported on until now.

I operate Bot Sentinel, a platform that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to classify Twitter accounts who exhibit toxic troll-like repetitive behavior—that is, misleading or coordinated posting. Because of my experience, I see a lot of bile from trolls and inauthentic accounts on Twitter. But when my team examined the responses to Page’s tweet, even I was shocked by what we discovered.

The tweet in question was pretty mild for such an aggressive response. It read:

Link to tweet

Lisa Page ✔ @NatSecLisa

All I can say is this: I very much look forward to Rod’s deposition.

Keith Boykin ✔ @keithboykin

Rod Rosenstein admits he authorized the public release of text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page but he claims he only did it to help them "avoid the additional harm of prolonged selective disclosures."
Yeah, right. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/18/rosenstein-strzok-page-texts-100776 …

12:42 PM - Jan 18, 2020

Over the weekend, Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes brought to my attention a suspicious pattern of replies to Page’s tweet. A significant number of replies invoked the same oddly specific misogynistic epithet: “homewrecker.” He wondered: Could these odd replies be a part of an automated attack against Page? Plugging the usernames of the responding accounts into Bot Sentinel’s service, Wittes showed that the overwhelming majority of the users tweeting hostile replies had a relatively high resemblance to automated trollbot accounts.

</snip>

Excellent article - I highly recommend using the Bot Sentinel Chrome extension if you frequent Twitter. Its accuracy is pretty remarkable (although not perfect, as I see false positives from time to time, about 1 a week. I look at, probably, thousands of tweets in a given week).

[Dennis Donovan]

1. Kick - this is about disinfo campaigns by hostile nations

[Liberal In Texas]

2. Fasten your seatbelts...in the coming months the bots will be out in force

spreading disinformation and ginning up general rancor before the elections.

[Dennis Donovan]

3. This is a serious thing. What's really frightening is that I see the disinfo spread here

...especially disinfo about Dem candidates.

[Ilsa]

4. Her Twitter posts get negagtive replies, a big

Percentage of which are troll bots. Why is Putin scared of her?

[mopinko]

5. people ask why people fear spanky. it's not the tweets, it's the bots.

the threats, the doxxing, the digging. he has a whole troll army.

we need this pretty badly.
i dont tweet much, but gonna use that extension.

[Dennis Donovan]

6. Lisa Page responds to the Bot Sentinel investigation

Link to tweet

Lisa Page ✔ @NatSecLisa

This is astounding. Bots are behind almost a third of the vile and hostile responses to my most recent tweet.

Somebody cares enough about me to unleash a bot army against me.

This is what bullying looks like in 2020.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/there-targeted-troll-campaign-against-lisa-page-bot-sentinel-investigation …
Is There a Targeted Troll Campaign Against Lisa Page? A Bot Sentinel
I am the founder and CEO of Bot Sentinel, a platform that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to classify inauthentic and problematic Twitter accounts. Even I was shocked by what we

7:37 PM - Jan 22, 2020

Look at her replies - they're at it again

[NewJeffCT]

7. There are a lot of good legal scholars and analysts on Twitter

sadly, my account has been suspended, but I've found some of them are actually pretty cool about responding to questions - Glenn Kirschner, Asha Rangappa, Joyce Vance... heck, even George Conway retweeted me once.

[Dennis Donovan]

9. I followed you on Twitter. What happened?

Of course, none of my business, but I never saw anything even remotely inflammatory in your feed.

Glenn is very accessible. So is John Flannery.

[NewJeffCT]

11. Last year

around Memorial Day weekend, I created a backup account on Twitter when I got hit with a shadowban. I also had a very rarely used business account from 2012/2013 when I took a part time job as a realtor (we had moved so often that I felt that I might as well try to make some money off of it.)

however, under the new Twitter rules as of 1/1/2020, backup accounts are considered "Platform Manipulation", I guess. So, all 3 accounts were suspended. What's strange is that I hardly even used my backup account after the shadowbans on my main account went away.

I've appealed, but I doubt it will amount to much.

[Dennis Donovan]

12. Jeez! Plenty of people have professional and personal accts - every politician, for example

I know they might not have the resources for it, but they really should *manually* review accounts that are caught up in a rule change like that.

[NewJeffCT]

13. I know a lot of people

have backup accounts that they use frequently as well. I'm guessing that some MAGA types probably noticed my main account and backup account and reported me as a group.

[Initech]

8. Just remember: Iff you see it, report it!

We can beat the bots and trolls. If you see disinformation, hate, or violent threats on social media, don't hesitate for a minute to hit the alert button.

[Dennis Donovan]

10. Agreed!

[Hortensis]

14. Hmmm. So who is behind this and with what agenda?

My ignorant assumption is that, since Page is a well-established hate target for the deBase, representing the evils the Democratic Party is up to, this is about keeping her image alive and them worked up about something they think they understand. Could be any of the bad actors interfering with our elections. But...? Could this be a clue to a future campaign of attack? Maybe she's been having simultaneous affairs with Hunter and...The Whistleblower?

I loaded Bot Sentinel, thanks. I'm not at Twitter much, and mostly ignore replies, so may not use it much, but nice tool to have.

[Dennis Donovan]

15. The cool thing about Bot Sentinel is it shows Trollbot in red on offending tweets

Like I've said, it's like having Roddy Piper's glasses!

[Hortensis]

16. Oh, that's really cool, jumps right off the screen.

No wonder malicious miscreants getting ID'd as possible bots hate it. Gotta go check that out.