A sparse view of the retweet network of "Stop the Steal” tweets (edges = 10 RTs by one account of another), so only shows common trajectories of information flow gives a sense of who the “elites” where in this discourse (on Twitter, they may differ on FB and elsewhere).

These graphs can be misleading, so a little context. This shows a three part structure. The top includes the now suspended account of former Pres. Trump as well as many of the organizers of the Stop the Steal movement. (Zooming into the top.)

Bottom section is a second component that we often see in network graphs of US right-wing discourse. It’s a lot of “grassroots” activist accounts (a bit of astroturf as well) that have build connections over years thru follow-backs and other techniques — and often RT each other.

If we lower the RT threshold on for the edges (to 3 retweets) we can see the larger audiences cluster around the influencers and, to a lesser extent, spread around the second network component as well.