This morning I dropped by New Mexico’s Republican congressman Steve Pearce and noticed a phenomenon– scores of accounts had spammed Pearce with their pro-illegal immigration message.

Upon closer examination it appeared that many of these accounts were doing NOTHING but spamming congress members on a “list” and sending them graphics like the one below using the hashtags #ActOnReform #immigrationreform and others:

How many accounts do you know of that send out 40 tweets in a minute?   @alfarosuarez did just that.  Auto-tweets?  You bet!  But imagine being an elected official or leader of an organization and having your account buzzed by eighty accounts auto-set to tweet like that?   Sounds crazy, but it is very real– just check out the #ActOnReform hashtag or @RepStevePearce‘s mentions to see what I mean.  Oh, and lest we forget– OFA was also spamming Reince Priebus, The Heritage Foundation and other non-elected officials.

Here is a sampling of accounts I’ve investigated that appear to be run by OFA– I could list several dozen:

These accounts raise questions.  Is OFA participating in identity theft?  Where did they get all these profile pictures, some of which appear to be of real people?

This activity (using automated spam-bot accounts) is also in violation of Twitter’s Terms of Service (TOS).

And lastly, what business does OFA have bullying members of congress on Twitter?  Such low tactics– do Republicans have a response?  The right often ignores and overlooks social media.  Let’s learn from this and catch up using real activists to get things done!

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