Even moar on Russian Bots: They weren't Russian, they were Venezuelan!
A bread or two ago, we discovered that Twitter backtracked on Russian troll claims; see >>5530577 pb.
Great! But I was curious. Upon closer inspection, it seems that this article goes on to say that Twitter now believes the "suspicious" accounts are from Venezuela! Here's how the author of this RT report puts it:
''Pivot to Venezuela!'' Interestingly, the highlighted accounts have now been linked to Venezuela, another country the US government just so happens to have bad blood with.
In a tweet, Twitter’s “head of site integrity” Yoel Roth said that the company can now “more confidently associate” the 228 accounts with Venezuela. Roth’s short tweet thread on the misidentification was met with little interest receiving only a few retweets and no attention from media figures who supposedly actively follow any and all news remotely related to Russian activity online.
[So "muh Russia" may turn into "muh Venezuela"!]
Later the article cites responses from Twitter users:
Journalist Sam Sacks tweeted that the new information about Venezuelan bots was “convenient” and said that the vast majority of stories written about Russian trolls and their alleged social media activity are “based on junk research.” Sacks also questioned why anyone should have faith in the credibility of such flawed analyses going forward.
Another Twitter user found it odd that Twitter and Bloomberg had “suddenly discovered” that bots it claimed were Russian had “miraculously turned into Venezuelans.”
……………………
https://www.rt.com/usa/452503-twitter-backtracks-russian-bots-media/
Sam Sacks has one last memorable quote (see cap):
''In the last few years, there have been thousands of stories written about what Russian trolls are doing on social media, and 99% of those articles are based on junk research.''
This is the problem with this "research" on designed to target conservative social media: it's ALL based on junk science.