Update: Great news! It looks most of the accounts have been suspended. THANK YOU to all who tweeted, retweeted, reported and otherwise helped make this happen.
While the spambots are gone, the site from which the tweets originated, Put Wisconsin First, remains. The website is intended to harass and humiliate those who signed recall petitions and has a blatantly political purpose. They have compiled public information for the sole purpose of targeting those who signed recall petitions and to intimidate future signers. Although the original information was public, the individuals whom are targetted were selected because of their signatures. There is no public interest in knowing who got caught driving w/o a seatbelt, received a parking ticket, or made an illegal turn. Identifying those with more serious issues could constitute a threat to those individuals and their families by disclosing their names and addresses. And while some of that information is public, people's signatures are not, and could increase their chances of identity theft through forgery. Anyone who feels this violates Go Daddy's Terms of Service can contact Go Daddy here.
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Apparently, the right wing organization Put Wisconsin First feels the most common hashtag for Wisconsin political non-extremists #wiunion,is a serious threat to Scott Walker. Why else would they create 20+ Walkerbots to spam the hashtag during one of the most contentious Wisconsin legislative sessions since February of 2011? Walker is running for president and can't afford tens of thousands of protestors descending on the Capitol again. One way to prevent that is to disrupt communication.
The Walkerbots are easily identifible by the content of their tweet. Some match names of people who signed the Walker recall petition with the state's court database and then tweet the person's name and the "criminal" activity" such as OWI, speeding ticket, seat belt violation, or improper left turn. Other bots tweet the names of donors and the amount they donated to Wisconsin Democrat candidates and Wisconsin grassroots organizations. All of this information is public.
PWF currently has over 20 WalkerBots (increasing every day) and send tweets from a feed traced back PWF. Each tweet links to the Put Wisconsin First website, which is hosted by Go Daddy. Many of the accounts were created in the past 10 days yet already have 5000-7000 followers. Closer examination reveals 90% or more of their followers are fake. (Buying followers is a against Twitter's terms of service.)
Several accounts are “parodies” of real accounts, using the same avi, bio, etc. as an attempt to deceive.
Collectively, they send 12-17 tweets to #wiunion per minute.
A master list of Walkerbots as of Monday morning, June 17, is below. Thank you to those who provided me with information and advice for this diary entry.
Put Wisconsin First
PutWiscFirst
Progress3Day
Wlsconslnstrong
WisconsInstrong
bIuecheddar1
poIymath22
UnItedWisconsin
UnitedWlsconsin
UnitedWisconsln
UnltedWlsconsln
OatepFround
RussFinegold
TheresaPatuty
ScotRossesDildo
EyeMakeYouSea
SpudsPlacenta
OneWlsconslnNow
OneWisconslnNow
DlstrictTwevle
MadtovvnMayhem
LoriSnuggles
thebiblesatan
OccupyAJobWI
notjasonbourn
