Up until now, Russian and other foreign bots have been chummy with Trump and the GOP on social media, with "nearly half of the president's followers appearing to be fake or spam accounts," according to Newsweek.
But over the last 48 hours, these bots have begun to change their tune. According to Newsweek:
Russian-linked bots and trolls have caused a surge in use of the hashtag #ResignPaulRyan on Twitter over the last 48 hours, just as the Republican speaker of the House was returning to his hometown of Wisconsin for a month-long respite from Washington, D.C.
A monitoring dashboard established by the Alliance [German Marshall Fund's Alliance For Securing Democracy] noted the uptick Monday morning. It coincided with surges in the use of other hashtags by Russian bots, including #TrumpTV, #Magnitsky, #Fake and #ConfessYourUnpopularOpinion.
It hasn't been a common occurrence for the Alliance's dashboard to pick up on Russian bot activity targeting members of the GOP since the site was first launched last week by former FBI special agent Clint Watts. But Ryan wasn't the only member of Trump's party to face countless bots demanding his removal. A campaign calling on the president to fire National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster received widespread support from bots and trolls over the last several days using the hashtag #FireMcMaster, eventually getting picked up by some right-wing fake news sites that seem to have the president's full attention, including Breitbart.
Nice time to go on a 17-day vacation.
Image: DonkeyHotey
