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There is a new annoying, time consuming and potentially dangerous tactic happening on twitter.
The low end of annoyance is the posting of links that go through an ad serving source before it delivers the clicker to the address, if it ever does at all. I have ad blocker and normally get stuck on a blank screen or worse I get stuck on a screen telling me I need to download something. This is likely a virus or malware program because what else tricks its way through to computers with such notices other than dangerous programs?
These are really friendly looking accounts. Most of them have images of Trump, eagles, the flag, the constutution or any number of symbols along with an account name that might send a signal of conservatism.
Upon looking at one of these accounts time lines, often there will be links to only one or the other of these servers. A few examples -
POTUS.TrumpNewss.com/GAP
USATrump.co.vu/468
TheTrumpHouse.co.vu/38G
45.wh.gov/RHj7Fn
By now there are several of these so they are getting harder to spot by memory - so the main thing is to check the sender before clicking.
I think anyone may spot a title and hit retweet occasionally without checking, and I may have done that a time or two myself. But when I start to see repeating posts by an account I unfollow them.
This is the last account I unfollowed and it makes a good study for typical accounts practicing this. I don't know what you may see by the time you click this. At the moment as I write this, it exhibits links from all of the above addresses, the adress mentioned below and exhibits other practices mentioned here. https://twitter.com/kaarkon
These similar accounts often mix in a lot of images with the links. Some accounts may only have links to items starting with one location such as they may all be TheTrumpHouse or POTUS.TrumpNewss but others like this one will have a number of links to the types of accounts trapping clickers into their webs.
Many of these are accounts previously did not practice this so they were created to gain followers first, then morphed to introduce the clickbait links. Some are not even the same as when I first followed them in any way by name or appearance.
And this brings me to an account I've watched scoop up members through twitter recruiting for quite some time, years actually, and rather aggressively. I've never even been to the site having that gut feeling about it from the get go until this very moment to check my instincts.
It has been tied by twitter retweets to another site, the Barracuda Brigade, and a few more that regularly cross post and cross share each others links as well as engage in recruiting for this site. Several of these related blog sites have recently reformed under new names but are recognizably posting the same types of items.
The site I am talking about is usfreedomarmy.com. I'm not sure without further examination if I think that site is a controlled opposition data mining trap, but my gut feeling didn't change about staying away from it after looking around.
Since some of the Twitter Clickbait profiles occasionally retweet non associated links, repetition is hard to spot but today the account I unfollowed was officially the third of such kind of profile I've found with links to freedomarmy.
So, I post this to alert you to watch accounts that retweet freedomarmy calls to join and these other click bait links and visit or join with caution.
It's a jungle out there!
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