[THREAD] @abulkhaezuran and I analyzed two of the largest trending hashtags in #Egypt yesterday: ( #جمعه_الغضب_25_سبتمبر & #السيسي_يهزم_التنظيم_الدولي). The 1st is fervently pro Sisi and the 2nd is fervently anti Sisi.

Here is what we found:

The pro regime hashtag bears signs of coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB). We found a suspicious spike of 173 tweets in a single minute at 3:18 am UTC on Sept 25, 2020 (5:18 am Cairo time).

There were also suspicious spikes in the number of accounts tweeting on the hashtag that were created in a single day: Sept 7, 20, & 24 each had between 40 & 50 accounts created in each day. Days with a high # of account births are an impt indicator of coordinated activity.

After manually investigating the accounts created on these days, we found they shared similar imagery & motifs in their profile pictures & background photos. These accounts exclusively posted pro-regime messages.

The anti-regime hashtag tells a similar story: There was a suspicious spike of 503 tweets in a single minute at 5:38 pm UTC on September 24th (7:38 pm Cairo time).

There were also a number of suspicious spikes in the number of accounts tweeting on this hashtag that were created in a single day: Sept 16, Sept 20 & 24 2020 each had between 335-435 accounts created in a single day.

Again, when the accounts created on these days were manually investigated, they shared similar imagery & motifs in profile & background photos. They also exclusively posted anti-regime messages and slogans.

Conclusion: Both hashtags bear well-known signs of coordinated inauthentic behaviour & the anti-regime hashtag arguably bears more signs of inauthenticity than the pro regime hashtag.

/end

NB: the awkward rendering of english and arabic in the same sentence caused the 1st & 2nd references in this first tweet to be switched. The 1st is anti-regime, the 2nd is pro-regime.