A Twitter account that tweeted support for President Donald Trump on Saturday was rewarded when Trump shared the compliment and replied, "Thank you Nicole!"
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Trump retweeted a Twitter bot — then it got suspended
A woman who tweeted her support for President Donald Trump on Saturday was rewarded when Trump shared her compliment and replied, "Thank you Nicole!"
But observers quickly noticed something odd about "Nicole": She didn't seem to be real. And by Sunday night, the account was suspended.
The account, which joined Twitter in January with the purported name Nicole Mincey, branded Mincey as a "black pro-Trump conservative" who began a pro-Trump retail empire after becoming disillusioned by former President Barack Obama.
An ad published in the Daily Caller under the byline "PROTRUMP45," the name of the merchandise store Nicole claimed to run, described Mincey as an "
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The profile photo for one of Mincey's biggest promoters — an account under the name Kendra Manning, who claimed to blog for protrump45.com — appeared to be an altered picture of a T-shirt model, too.
Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins noted that "Kendra," whose account was also suspended on Sunday, was not alone.
"The propagandistic power of bots is strengthened when few people know they exist," Woolley and Guilbeault said. "The more people know about bots, the more likely it is that citizens will begin reporting and removing bots, as well as using bots to boost their own voices."
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