Oh boy. What a day for Twitter. First we have thousands of accounts, including those belonging to the BBC, Amnesty International, and Forbes, compromised by a third-party app forcing them to tweet pro-Erdoğan propaganda and swastikas, and now we have this.
The Russian Embassy in the UK, which previously made headlines for its stint in the President Trump Meme War, has concocted an innovative method to garner social media support: it's turning its Twitter followers into automated news bots. [...]
Once a user's credentials are registered with Tweetsquad, that user will automatically follow the Twitter account of UK Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko, and automatically retweet one of his "most important" tweets each week. Essentially, users willingly sign up to become a Twitter bot for the Russian Embassy. [...]
In a time of politically motivated Twitter bots, fake news accusations, and a smart deployment of meme warfare, the Russian Embassy's Tweetsquads are an inventive new weapon as the war for political credibility navigates its way through the kingdom of social media. Motherboard contacted the Embassy to learn more about its social media strategy, but was simply encouraged to sign up to the service.
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