4chan hat 1500 NPC-Accounts auf Twitter eröffnet, was innerhalb weniger Tage in so etwas wie rudimentäre Wahlmanipulation von rechten Trollen mündete.

NYTimes: „Twitter has barred hundreds of right-wing accounts for posing as soulless, 'nonplayable' liberal activists.“

Over the weekend, Twitter responded by suspending about 1,500 accounts associated with the NPC trolling campaign. […]

Late last week, a group of users on r/the_donald, Reddit’s largest pro-Trump forum, decided to take the NPC meme to a wider audience. They created dozens of Twitter accounts using fictional NPC personalities, the NPC Wojak avatar and bios like “fighting against Nazi Racist Drumpf Fascist Cheetofinger.” They used these accounts to follow and tweet at one another, as well as at liberals, creating the semblance of an army of resisters mindlessly repeating anti-Trump talking points.

The campaign began as a joke. But a few of the accounts started posting misleading information about the midterm elections, including encouraging liberals to vote on Nov. 7. (Election Day is Nov. 6.) […]

Are these people actually trying to interfere in the election? Probably not. Evidence suggests that these are mostly just attention-starved gamers looking to impress one another by “triggering the libs” with edgy memes (Hervorhebung von mir).

Schöne Metapher von Rafael Behr im Prospect Magazin in einem Text darüber, wie Twitter die Politik vergiftete (Original-Artikel hinter Paywal). Er vergleicht den Effekt, den Twitter auf die politische Berichterstattung hatte, mit dem des High Frequency Trading an der Börse, und ich möchte anfügen: mit dem Unterschied, dass wo HFT mit Aktienkursen und Bewertungen arbeitet, der 24/7-Twitter-Newscycle-Hurricane nun vor allem über Emotionen und psychologische Eigenschaften des Hiveminds geleitet wird. Social Media als Radikalisierungsmaschine der Massen.

Prospectmagazine: How Twitter poisoned Politics

Twitter has had an effect on political news akin to the impact high-frequency trading had on financial markets. Just as algorithms there can subordinate judgment to trend, intensifying the move in the market in whichever direction it already happens to be heading, so with Twitter we can see volatile intra-day trade in an individual’s political stock. The system can then be gamed by organised campaigners who tweet and retweet in a quasi-robotic frenzy, and it can be manipulated by actual robots—bogus accounts that typically amplify partisan opinions, on behalf of the Russian security services or anyone else who might wish to cause trouble. One study estimated such “bots” might constitute 9-15 per cent of all Twitter accounts. It can be hard to distinguish between a mechanical troll working to a wrecking algorithm and a human maniac sitting in pyjamas firing off outrage through the night.

Part of journalists’ professional vanity is the belief that we can observe a herd while detaching ourselves from its movements. We suppose we can be on Twitter without belonging to Twitter. We see its flaws while flattering ourselves that it doesn’t prejudice our work. This is untrue. We cannot un-see the things to which we are exposed, nor insulate ourselves from peer pressures and taboos. It is no easier to look at Twitter without being influenced by it than it is possible to jump into a river without getting wet. It doesn’t matter that you claim to be swimming against the flow. You are still in the water. […]

In place of the old top-down message discipline, Twitter brings bottom-up policing—a kind of ideological vigilantism as swarms of loyal adherents to one position or another impose whatever the crowd has settled on as orthodoxy. That raises the prospect of parties too divided to present voters with coherent, unified programmes and leaders so beholden to doctrinaire followers that there is no scope for the kind of compromises and consensus-building that are necessary for stable government. […]

Otherwise mild-mannered and reasonable people turn deliriously combative on Twitter. Cycles of aggression flare up over nothing. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that Twitter can inflict mental injury on people working in politics.

And the rage appears endemic to the platform, regardless of the issue. It is unsurprising that disciples of radical ideologies—both far-left and far-right—express themselves ferociously. But it is extraordinary to see how many self-styled centrists have adopted extremist manners. The #FBPE (“follow-back, pro-European Union”) hashtag can turn formerly sober and unassuming europhiles into virtual stone-throwing yobs. A mob with moderate slogans is still a mob.

Twitter, it seems, can radicalise anyone. That is deleterious on an individual level, but profoundly corrupting of the collective political process. The website is a vast polarising machine—a centrifuge that separates politics into the most extreme iterations of any given position. When the ideal conception of politics might be rival teams, advancing competing policy prescriptions based on some common set of facts, Twitter turns us into quasi-religious cults, looking at the world in terms of righteous believers and despicable blasphemers.

Der Bosten Globe über die Trump Tweet Machine: Staff-written posts, bad grammar (on purpose), and delight in the chaos. Vor allem die Stelle mit den vorverfassten Tweets in seinem Style, die er dann nur noch auswählt finde ich – nun, nicht erstaunlich. Goldenboy is a brand, das ist Marketing für seine irregeleitete Wählerschaft und reine Kalkulation und seine dumme Grammatik ist nur ein weiterer Fake. Hail to the Dumbfuck-King™ of Twitter.

West Wing employees who draft proposed tweets intentionally employ suspect grammar and staccato syntax in order to mimic the president’s style, according to two people familiar with the process. […] His staff has become so adept at replicating Trump’s tone that people who follow his feed closely say it is getting harder to discern which tweets were actually crafted by Trump sitting in his bathrobe and watching “Fox & Friends” and which were concocted by his communications team.