Photograph by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Students are viewed through a target at a class taught by King 33 Training at a shooting range on Feb. 24, 2013 in Wallingford, Connecticut.
Twitter is all atwitter over a social media campaign on gun-control legislation that’s being promoted by President Barack Obama’s new policy group.
In the past week, Twitter users have sent some 36,000 messages with the hashtag #wedemandavote, according to social media tracker Topsy — many of them directed to the official accounts of members of Congress.
Do the tweets demonstrate grassroots energy on gun control — or “astroturfing?”
Texas Rep. Steve Stockman, a Republican, suggested in a press release that Obama’s group is “using the same scam techniques that sell ‘male enhancement pills’” He said in the release that two-thirds of the #wedemandavote Twitter messages his office had received were from “computer-generated spambots.”
One way to detect a spambot is to look at the Twitter user’s profile and tweeting history. For example, @jimbormiller recently sent Stockman a message saying:
.@stevestockmanus I’m 1 of the 92 percent of Americans who
support universal background checks. #WeDemandAVote— Jim Miller (@jimbormiller) February 25,
2013
That particular Twitter user has no followers and a history of tweets that reads like a list of infomercials. Here’s one: “OMG I just made $150 USD yesterday thanks to this” and includes a suspicious link.
Some pro-gun Twitter users have spent the afternoon warning members of Congress that the #wedemandavote hashtag shows “astroturfing” — that is, a phony effort to show grass-roots support for something.
Yet a review of the tagged tweets shows that many appear to have come from legitimate users.
Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a California Democrat, took the tag seriously enough to tell his Twitter followers:
To those who tweeted with #WeDemandAVote: I’m a proud cosponsor of @repmccarthyny‘s H.R. 137, Fix Gun Checks Act 2013 beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-con…
— Rep. Alan Lowenthal (@RepLowenthal) February 25, 2013
The tag is being promoted by gun-control groups, Democrats, unions and Obama’s Twitter account, which has more than 27 million followers and is now run by Obama’s re-election campaign-turned-policy group, Organizing for Action.
On Feb. 22, the @BarackObama account tweeted:
Newsflash for Congress: Universal
background checks for gun sales should not be controversial. #WeDemandAVote, twitter.com/BarackObama/st…— Barack Obama (@BarackObama)
February
22, 2013
A spokeswoman for Organizing for Action could not immediately be reached.
The #wedemandavote tag sounds a bit like Obama’s State of the Union riff on guns: “Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote.”
On Friday, Organizing for Action held a “National Day of Action” and began an online advertising campaign to press Congress to pass Obama’s proposals on gun control.
