Roy Moore Gains 20K Twitter Followers…From Russia

The Washington Examiner reports:

Judge Roy Moore is a big deal in Alabama — and also, apparently, in Russia. A swarm of Russian Twitter bots has suddenly followed the Republican front-runner in the special Alabama senate race, helping to increase his social media audience from about 27,000 followers on Friday to 47,000 on Monday.

But don’t call him Russian Roy just yet. The Moore campaign doesn’t understand the candidate’s sudden Soviet popularity and they’ve asked Twitter to investigate. “We had absolutely nothing to do with this,” Moore spokesman, Drew Messer said. “We’ve never purchased followers or dummy ads on Twitter.”

Another aide told me the same, stating that “our social guys worked hard to build an authentic following.” And while it’s difficult to explain why Moore is suddenly big in the former USSR, there’s no denying his popularity in Alabama. The base that loves Moore will follow, will like, and will retweet everything he puts out online.

Twitter has already suspended thousands of Moore’s Russian bot followers. As of today he holds an eight-point lead over Democrat Doug Jones.