How Twitter Bots and Trump Fans Made #ReleaseTheMemo Go Viral - POLITICO Magazine

The vote marked the culmination of a targeted, 11-day information operation that was amplified by computational propaganda techniques and aimed to change both public perceptions and the behavior of American lawmakers...Computational propaganda... the use of [ICTs] to manipulate perceptions, affect cognition, and influence behavior”...
#releasethememo ... evolving ... from ... discussion on Nunes’ memo through ... an expanding conspiracy theory about missing FBI text messages and imaginary secret societies ... internal coups ... an organizational framework for this comprehensive conspiracy theory... to minimize and muddle concerns about Russian interference in American politics...
flagged by the German Marshall Fund’s Hamilton68 dashboard as being promoted by accounts previously linked to Russian disinformation ... Twitter itself, identified the hashtag as an “organic” “American” campaign linked to “Republican” accounts...
KARYN ... an interesting example of how bots lay a groundwork of information architecture within social media... to track views representative of a Trump-supporter, @underthemoraine would be a pulse to keep a finger on—the virtual Michigan “man in the diner” ... KARYN follows hundreds of such accounts, plus conservative media, and a lot of other bots... The second account to tweet #releasethememo is @well_in_usa... retweet and reply to accounts with hashtags included, marking them into messaging campaigns... engaging and directing traffic to a specific group of accounts on specific discussions... organizers and amplifiers... qualify as “cyborgs”—accounts with “human conductors” that are partly automated and linked to networks that automatically amplify content...
She may be a real person with real beliefs in Trump and what he represents, but when she tweets hundreds of times over the course of a week using #releasethememo, while artificially enhancing her followers (using the “follow-back” lists, etc.) and exhorting others to amplify the hashtag, she is just as much an element of computational propaganda against the American public as a Russian bot...
tweet at key influencers with these messaging campaigns—media personalities, far-right brand names, and elected officials who might pick up the info or hashtag and legitimize it by repeating it... Each time an influential verified account used the hashtag, it was rapidly promoted by a vast network of accounts... By midnight, the hashtag was being used 250,000 times per hour...
The problem with the term “fake news” is that it is completely wrong, denoting a passive intention. What is happening ... is not passive; and it is information warfare.