Obama using computer-generated Twitterbots to create appearance of social media support for gun control

Wednesday, February 27, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: Twitterbots, Obama, gun control

(NaturalNews) All of those Twitter messages that appear to represent millions of people who support President Obama's gun control agenda... Yeah, many of those are bot-driven. In other words, they're fake.

That's what a Republican congressman from Texas is alleging, anyway. He says the president's entire gun control narrative is a fraud being perpetrated over one of the world's busiest social media sites.

Rep. Steve Stockton accused Obama Feb. 25 of trying to make support for his gun control positions more muscular than it really is by flooding Twitter with messages from bot-driven programs, The Hill newspaper reported.

Obama, it seems, can't get out of campaign mode.

When your position is weak, spam it to life

The president's "anti-gun campaign is a fraud," Stockman charged. "Obama's supporters are panicking and willing to do anything to create the appearance of popular support, even if it means trying to defraud Congress."

"I call upon the president to denounce this phony spam campaign," he added.

Needless to say, the president has yet to "denounce" anything he has said in regards to pushing for more gun control. And we don't expect he will.

Stockman said that, in response to Obama's call for Americans to tweet their congressman in support of new gun control measures he has proposed - such as banning higher-capacity magazines, military look-alike rifles and universal background checks - he only received 16 tweets, but they were all identical. He said a closer examination revealed that only six of them were from real people.

"The other 10 are fake, computer-generated spambots," said Stockton's office, in a press statement.

As evidence, he said the 10 tweets used default graphics and names and have not engaged in any interaction whatsoever with other people, the congressional newspaper reported. In fact, he said two of the tweets were sent at almost exactly the same time, and both follow just one person: Brad Schneck, the president's former digital strategist.

The Texas lawmaker also said just one of the six tweets from an actual person is a constituent of his in his home state. Here is a rundown of the fraudulent tweets, per Stockman's press release:

-- They all use the default "egg" avatar.
-- They have account names resembling names automatically suggested by Twitter.
-- They have engaged in no human interaction.
-- They have tweeted almost nothing promotional, sponsored messages pushing real estate websites and other liberal "grassroots" campaigns.
-- They follow mostly MSNBC anchors or media outlets, not actual people.

Stockman also notes that reporter Robert Stacy McCain's investigation of the fraudulent Obama campaign (available at: www.theothermccain.com) finds the majority of the Obama-supporting accounts were created in fewer than 48 hours before contacting members of Congress.

"If you are a real person who contacted us about your support for the president's anti-gun campaign, we are listening," said Stockman. "We do not agree with you, but we appreciate your sincere opinions and encourage you to continue to contact us."

"But," he continued, "the vast majority of the president's supporters have no feelings because they have fake profiles from spammers." He went on to say that Obama's anti-gun activists "are trying to defraud Congress using the same scam that sells 'male enhancement pills.'"

When leadership is out, spam

Some websites were understandably critical of the spamming.

From The Daily Caller:

Schenck describes himself as a "former digital strategist at #Obama2012 and @ObamaInaugural." He also doesn't seem to think anybody knows how Twitter works. Or maybe he just doesn't know how Twitter works. Either way, it's pretty clumsy work for a "digital strategist."

These guys think you're stupid, America. But then, they've got some pretty strong evidence to back them up. You reelected them.

Per Twitchy, a site that aggregates Twitter feeds:

"Kathleen H. Dittus" wasn't born yesterday, you know. She - or her Twitter account, at least - was born today. No, she hasn't even been born yet; she's still inside that "egg" avatar, but she can't wait to break out and lend the president a hand with his gun control effort.

The @BarackObama account, fresh off of exploiting Gabby Giffords to push its demand that Congress vote on an assault weapons ban, is doing its best to get #WeDemandAVote trending, but some conservatives are noticing that a lot of the supporters are a little, um, young. They have zero followers, follow no one, and have tweeted just once.

Clearly, the president seems more interested in campaigning than leading. Then again, the measures he's proposing would have done nothing to stop any of the past gun massacres anyway.

Sources:

http://thehill.com

http://dailycaller.com

http://twitchy.com