Before I begin I would like to pardon the mess my website currently might look like at the moment.
I’m experimenting with new wordpress themes and trying to get a feel of what I’d like.
Anywho.
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During the past nine or so months #GamerGate has gone on for now, one of the rumors that floated around the internet was that someone against #GamerGate had an army of bots at their disposal. Although there was nothing substantial to support this claim for a very long time.
Until #BotAlly was discovered.
This report probably won’t confirm any of the rumors surrounding #GamerGate being attacked by bots.
But it’ll provide the necessary foundation and allow the right questions to be asked to actually get answers.
Setting the Stage
What is #BotAlly?
#BotAlly on freenode , the home of the anti-gamergate twitter bots including TruGamer1992
Please look over the ruby and its library twitter_ebooks to see if it can go crazy such as favor a bunch of pro stuff
http://pastie.org/private/rqidxyjgabzv6rtskszkq http://archive.is/5VbEJ
Some members of this #BotAlly group will have their personalities explored in detail in this first section. This is to establish the idea that the people in the #botally group that are listed in the pastie first of all *exist* and second of all to see if it’s plausible that this group harbors feelings of resentment and anger against #GamerGate in one form or another.
FluffyPira (Elizabeth Harper)
The twitter account with the same name as indicated in the pastie is definitely owned by the same person according to a search (archive) of the account’s tweets.
And the sentiment against gamergate is also present according to a search (archive) of that.
vogon (Anthony V)
Vogon uses the #GamerGate autoblocker which obviously means he has something to hide.
A standard search (archive) of his tweets confirms that he is in fact the “vogon” from the pastie.
This 2013 tweet (archive) from Tully Hansen just cements Vogon’s membership stretches back many months before #GamerGate, even.
aanand (Aanand Prasad)
This guy was very good at keeping to himself on twitter, zero trace of anything #botally related was readily apparent.
But then I came across this tinyletter (archive) that mentioned him as a member of the IRC for #botally – and it even made sure to link the dude’s twitter right in the post just so I could be sure. Thanks!
And as far as #GamerGate tweets from the guy go? Much more vocal (archive).
jennmoneydollars (Jenn Schiffer)
UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF PAGE – jennschiffer commented on the article and denies any involvement with bot production.
A search of their tweets (archived) reveals they are indeed connected to the #BotAlly pastie .
However – there is something else that needs to be pointed out about this person in particular.
Jenn has some *very high* connections at Twitter.
http://archive.is/bfMNk, https://archive.is/vm44R
In the pastie itself, “jennmoneydollars” lists their real name as Jenn Schiffer, making their connection to #BotAlly clear.
GorillaWarfare (Molly White)
https://twitter.com/search?q=gamergate%20from%3Amolly0x57&src=typd https://archive.is/hCOJS
#GamerGate has crossed paths with Molly at Wikipedia.
Wikipedia editor points out Arb GorillaWarfare being involved for being an antiGG feminist. Gets banned for a week by FuturePerfectAtSunrise (Archive)
Wikipedia admins delete mentions of GorillaWarfare COI (a feminist antiGG arbitree who voted to protect Ryulong, NorthBySouth, et al. and ban neutral editors) reasoning that it’s “vandalism” (Archive)
In terms of confirming Molly White to be the same GorillaWarfare as mentioned in the pastie?
Their twitter list here (archive) makes it a safe bet.
cblgh (Alexander Cobleigh)
There wasn’t much to go on to confirm @cblgh as a part of #BotAlly, until I found this tweet (archive) giving a clear indication that such was the case.
Confirming Cobleigh’s connection to #GamerGate interests was even harder. Yet it was still possible.
Remember this medium (archive) that was “signed” by a bunch of people (somehow) connected to the gaming community in one way or another?
Cobleigh managed to make an appearance on the list of signatures.
pd0x https://binaryparadox.net/
johmholdun https://twitter.com/johnholdun https://twitter.com/johnholdun/status/478934860497948672 http://archive.is/mm9sg
davemenninger
This tweet (archive) here makes it clear that @dave_menninger is a #BotAlly member.
Their #GamerGate awareness is next to none (someone ought to look into that more) but back in November, Menninger was spotted in an irc called #indiewebcamp (archive) – where #GamerGate was briefly a topic of discussion.
amarriner (Aaron Marriner)
Thankfully, right on this guy’s twitter page (archive) you can see #botALLY in the bio.
Absolutely *nothing* about #GamerGate was seen after a solid look around.
inky
This person was nice enough to block me despite never having spoken to them, it’s safe to assume they use a blockbot.
A search of their tweets (archived) reveals that they are indeed the same “inky” from the #BotAlly paste list.
I was able to find inky by this tweet (archived) from Tully Hansen, who I’ll talk about in detail later.
ckolderup (Casey K.)
Prominent member of #botally according to a search (archive) of his tweets.
His interest in #gamergate is minimal as nothing turned up in twitter search. However he favorited this tweet (archive) indicating that he’s at least aware of it.
negatendo (Brett O’ Connor)
Tully Hansen shows up again interacting with the #botally crew in this tweet (archive), confirming this twitter is indeed property of the negatendo mentioned in the pastie. Negatendo made botallybot (archive) as well.
Negatendo seemed to avoid the #GamerGate topic miraculously.
#BotAlly vs. #GamerGate
That first portion was just to establish the members of #BotAlly mentioned in the pastie from the beginning of this report. The second portion will go into how #BotAlly attempted to sabotage and derail #GamerGate.
#botally is responsible for “TruGamer1992”
And as you can see by this archive (their account was suspended) – they were responsible for dumping pure garbage into the #GamerGate hashtag early on.
Although not on the list of people mentioned in the pastie, an individual known as “Tully Hansen” plays a key role in the activities of #BotAlly
And his github revealed the motherlode of bots.
The relation of all this to #GamerGate is evident in a few of the bot names – “whatsgamergate” and “GAMERGATEebooks”
But Fluffypira’s ggbot (archive) gives an example of how the implementation of these bots works. “What can a bot do in action?”
Looking at the pictures section (archive) gives an indicator. Full archive of this section can be found at https://pastebin.com/ZYcEm49s
Propaganda.
According to the readme (archive)
So take Tully Hansen’s list of hundreds of bots, and imagine that each one of those has the capability to run FluffyPira’s gg-bot programming.
Hundreds of twitter bots owned by a small group of people. I don’t know specifically if twitter bots can report tweets.
But as vex0rian, another member of the #botally hashtag puts it in this tweet (archive) – they’re doing it “for your own good”.
What to Take From This
UPDATE 6.3.2015 – Jen was nice enough to respond to the article and clarify their position with what they do for the #botally community. They specifically requested this photo be published https://twitter.com/jennschiffer/status/606106247591510016
Right off the bat, Jenn Schiffer’s resentment of #GamerGate and her connections to Twitter’s leaders could easily explain how GamerGate seems to always get the short end of the stick when it comes to Twitter politics. Several members of the #botally pastie express clear disdain and disgust to #GamerGate in their tweets, and in cases like Molly White’s they intervened directly with Wikipedia administration.
But in general – if one wanted to make the argument that someone has been running around the #GamerGate hashtag on twitter with an army full of bots running about, this is a solid foundation to provide evidence for that. There’s a solid list of hundreds of bots on one part, and there’s instructions on how to design these bots to specifically interact with the #GamerGate hashtag.
(Thank you for to @papapow on twitter for leading me to the tip of this iceberg)
Holy cow. I didn’t understand the point of this article until the very end. The disinfo-spreading pseudo “Pro-GG” bot The_Insanity is exactly the kind of dishonest crap thinly disguised as academic “social experiments” that Jon Ronson covered in the first chapter of his latest book “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed”. Fart, I recommend that you check it out, at least the first chapter, to understand the insidious parallels here, and see if there’s anything you can use to aid in your digging quest. This form of defamation is new and may not be able to be readily identified yet, but it needs to be exposed and brought to public light.
Anyway, I hate the notion of using public shame as a weapon here, but look at the type of manipulation the other side’s using here. How does one fight this and stay clean without being as disingenuous as these people are?
Apologies for the burner email, posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
We fight them by exposing them. Like this.
How do fight someone trying to bury you in shit? You dig.