Why is Russian billionaire Artem Klyushin following my new Twitter account?

[Mrs. Overall]

I finally decided about three days ago to start a Twitter account in order to follow people like Rachel Maddow, Norm Eisen, Seth Abramson, Barack and Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, etc.

I haven't tweeted yet and I've liked a few posts from the above people.

Just this morning, I get a notification that Artem Klyushin is following me. He has 1.7 million followers and is implicated in helping Trump and possibly interfering in the election.

Does he have bots on Twitter that scope out new accounts hoping that by following me, I will in turn, follow him?

It's strange to me because my account is small, inconsequential, and uses an obvious fake username.

Is this just usual business on Twitter and I'm ignorant because I'm new to it?

[dawg day]

1. I heard about this sort of thing a few weeks ago.

It wasn't just Klyushin, but a couple other prominent Putin-buddies.

It seemed a thuggish move- trying to scare people.

I think you must be right about bots just adding new Twitter members to his list. I think you can block him.

[Mrs. Overall]

2. Thanks for this info. It was sort of creepy to see him pop up in my notifications--his account/feed

are entirely in Russian.

I'm not exactly intimidated, but I do think it is odd.

Will definitely block him.

[Hav]

3. I don't think it's a form of intimidation or anything negative of that sort

I think it's just a way of attracting followers for themselves and getting noticed with the aim of "I follow you, you follow me, please". I don't use social media but I also have this sort of thing happen in a programming community where I barely have any content and people just follow me out of the blue.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

4. Have you commented on any posts from Seth Abramson?

Abramson provided some background as to who Kluyshin was, and reportedly afterwards, Kluyshin started to add whoever commented on his posts as followers.

BTW Klyushin is definitely not a good guy. He and his then wife personally escorted Trump all around Moscow in his Miss Universe pagaeant in 2013.

Not only is he friends with Emin Agalarov--part of the father and son oligarch team who sponsored the 2013 Miss Universe pageant and then in 2016 pitched alleged dirt on Hillary Clinton to the Trump team via Donald Jr., he's also friends with Konstantin Rykov, who is known as one of the Kremlin's biggest online propagandist and tricksters. It was Rykov who boasted days after Trump was elected that he had run a social media influence campaign from Russia to get Trump elected.

That's not to say he's personally interested in hacking you. It might just be a lame attempt at intimidation of anyone who is following news about him.

[Mrs. Overall]

5. Yes, one of my few Twitter acts is to "like" several of Seth Abramson's posts--

they weren't about Kluyshin, but about other matters in the Mueller investigation.

Since I've just started Twitter in the past few days and have liked Abramson's posts, that has to be it.

Thanks for that insight!

I've blocked him.

[tenderfoot]

6. I blocked him too

I retweeted Abramson and thank you to the op and Tommy for the info