Follow the “Truthy” Tweets to Find Twitter’s Political Spammers
Last week an account going by the name @PeaceKaren_25 was suspended by Twitter.com. We wouldn't normally care about some spambot getting picked off, but PeaceKaren is important because she wasn't peddling porn or popups--she was a political puppet.
Karen and her sister account @HopeMarie_25 are examples of political "astroturf," fake Twitter accounts that create the illusion of a "grassroots" political movement. In the diagram above, the two accounts are connected by a very thick band, which in