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Kamala’s KHive trolls boosted by bots while media defends harassment campaigns
MATT ORFALEA·APRIL 16, 2021
While the media defends KHive’s disturbing attacks on critics of Kamala Harris, new findings reveal a Democratic Party-linked bot farm amplified its leaders.
An April 8 LA Times profile of the “KHive” attempted to put a positive spin on Twitter’s nest of Vice President Kamala Harris super fans, omitting the group’s online abuses, offline harassment, and alarming origins. Describing the KHive as “the type of modern political army that politicians increasingly rely on for both support and defense,” the LA Times painted its members as political realists united by a desire to defend one of the most powerful politicians in the country from unfair attacks.
It turns out that Harris’ “modern political army” was manufactured with the aid of an army of fake Twitter accounts. After the term “KHive” was formally branded by MSNBC pundits like Joy Reid, KHive leaders received a boost from a Democratic Party operative-controlled bot farm. One of the people most advanced by the botnet is the widely recognized founder of KHive, Bianca Delarosa.
Delarosa’s KHive is well known for bullying and threatening critics of Vice President Harris.
According to Vox, KHive credited Delarosa with organizing KHive in a Facebook group that started in 2017. Bustle confirmed that many KHive accounts point to Delarosa as the creator of KHive, as did the LA Times’ source, Reecie Colbert, whom it identified as “one of the more prominent members.” During an appearance on CNN pundit Bakari Sellers’ podcast , Colbert credited Delarosa with creating KHive.
Beyond its omission of this obviously salient fact, the Times failed to inform readers that Colbert and the Twitter account @BlackWomenViews were the same person. Instead, the Times quoted Colbert as two separate people.
Democratic Party-connected Twitter bots helped drive KHive
The LA Times let KHive describe themselves as “truth tellers” when, in fact, they are notorious for spreading noxious lies about their political opponents. For instance, KHive spread a baseless lie that journalist Walker Bragman was “literally caught running fake black Twitter accounts.” In reality, it was KHive members who were connected to a network of fake Twitter accounts — some of which used the profile photos of deceased women of color.
In 2018, a forensically detailed investigation discovered a network of Twitter bots run by Democratic Party communications consultant, Sally Albright. Delarosa (then @BravenakBlog) and her fellow KHive ringleader, @WonderKing82, formerly known as @MrDane1982 and @MrWeeks1982, were among the Twitter accounts most promoted by the bot network.
The bots’ “most commonly retweeted negative or positive word” was “racist”, artificially boosting tweets accusing Bernie Sanders supporters of racism.
In 2019, Albright was again caught gaming Twitter “for fraudulent purposes”. However, her Twitter account was not banned until late 2020, near the end of the election.
At least three of Delarosa’s accounts (@Bravenak, @BravenakBlog, @BiancaNDelarosa) were eventually suspended by Twitter for violations, including “abuse and harassment.” Delarosa’s current Twitter handle is @RealKHiveQueenB. She also uses @QueenBDelarosa, and has used many others, including @KHiveQueenB, @KHiveQueenBee, and @WonderBitch81.
Using multiple accounts to circumvent suspension violates Twitter’s rules. In fact, KHive uses the very same tactics that Twitter banned Q-Anon accounts for using. Yet still to this day, KHive proudly admits to circumventing suspensions as far back as 2015, and remains on Twitter.
Retweeted by Delarosa, Apr 8, 2021
One of the LA Times’ KHive sources, Kenny Walden, tweets under @2RawTooReal. Notorious for calling for the death of Bernie Sanders, Walden has been banned on Twitter at least three times before under various aliases –– @KenneyEyes, @KingOfClapBacks, and @KENNYBOO93 –– for reasons such as “managing multiple Twitter accounts for abusive purposes.”
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/16/kamalas-khive-trolls-harassment/