[View the story "Syrian Twitter Eggs are Made of Spam" on Storify ]Syrian Twitter Eggs are Made of Spam The Syrian government is being accused of having various accounts tweet using the #syria hashtag to drown out anti-regime voices with positive tweets about the country. Storified by The Stream · Wed, Oct 26 2011 22:00:12
[In Arabic]: The falafel plate is wonderful... #Syria #Damascus http://is.gd/2KvQoD beauty, is good
#Syria #Aleppo http://is.gd/2KvQoD صحن فلافل رائع الجمال، ما أطيبها...TheLovelySyria
[In Arabic]: Herbs and a shop of scents, through the lens of Dooshan Hamza #Syria #Homs http://is.gd/0HQVgy
#Syria #Daraa http://is.gd/0HQVgy زهورات، ومحل العطار، بعدسة دوشان حمزةSyriaBeauty
[In Arabic]: In round seven in the Syrian league for the 2005-2006 season, the game ends between Ittihad and Al Taleea with a score of 1:3 #Syria #Homs
#Syria #Homs في المرحلة 7 من الدوري السوري لموسم 2004-2005 انتهى لقاء الاتحاد و الطليعة بنتيجة 3 : 1KaramahClub
First was the proliferation of what tweeps dubbed as the “twitter eggs,” a group of newly created and mostly image-less twitter accounts that cussed out, verbally assaulted, and threatened anyone tweeting favorably about the ongoing protests, or criticizing the regime. rferl.org
Now, they are effectively diluting the discussion and making it much harder to find any info about the protests by bombarding the popular relevant hash tags with badly disguised spam. Those spammy accounts have already been reported by many twitter users for spam, but Twitter has been slow to respond and apply their TOS (terms of service) that clearly prohibit “overloading, flooding, spamming, mail-bombing the Services, or by scripting the creation of Content in such a manner as to interfere witrferl.org
Many online are saying these Twitter accounts are just spam, and are frequently tweeting about them to help report them to Twitter.
@leenn2011 Proof of spam: @TheLovelySyria and @syriabeuaty accounts have tweeted 14,000 times in under 20 days. They are spamming.anasqtiesh
@MalathAumran PLEASE REPORT @SyriaBeauty AND @TheLovelySyria AS SPAM: #assad is trying to inject #Syria search results with peaceful imagesGeorgeyea
@TheLovelySyria @anasqtiesh #Syria government is terrible at traditional PR, let alone plotting a complex spam charm offensive on #twitterfadisalem
To shot down #Syria secret police twitter spam machines, please report here http://goo.gl/Mosce @TheLovelySyria @SyriaBeauty Please ReTweet!SyrianPresident
One user created a Twitter account to help flag these accounts. Eggs_Hunter tweets [In Arabic]: Secret police @Ranolya Please report spam + block #SyEggs #Syria #Egypt #jan25 #ksa #uae #libya #kuwait #jordan
الرجاء ريبورت سبام+ بلوك @Ranolya بيضة مخابرات سورية + ريتويت #SyEggs #Syria #Egypt #jan25 #ksa #uae #libya #kuwait #jordaneggs_hunter
While many think the accounts are operated by elements within the Syrian government, some claim that a Bahraini company is involved.
@SyrianPresident it's a company in Syria that send automated msgs, a dedicated owner they use server of @eghna check website #Syria branchsyrianrebels
Bahrain company @Eghna seized @TheLovelySyria spam for mukhabarat of #Syria 22 hours ago! #Lebanon #Jordan #Iran #Aleppo #Damascus #HomsSyrianPresident
Anas Qtiesh looked into the company in a post for Global Voices.
I went to investigate the Bahrain based Eghna Developement and Support, which among other things provides “political campaign solutions.” I searched for any affiliation with Syria, and sure enough, one of the main suspected #Syria spam accounts was featured in their success stories page.advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org
advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org
Eghna claims that “LovelySyria is using EGHNA Media Server to promote intersting photography about Syria using their twitter accounts. EGHNA Media Server helped Lovely Syria get attention to the beauty of Syria, and build a community of people who love the country and admire its beauty.” The only problem with that claim is that the lovelysyria.com website is only a Drupal login page void of content. There’s no way of creating a new user account, and therefore any claims of fostering a community advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org
Eghna, however, has been tweeting Global Voices to dispute the information used in the article.
@globalvoices You are causing a great damage to my company, and to me personally.eghna
@JustAmira @globalvoices @anasqtiesh @advox Global Voices is spreading incorrect information about us, please contact us for the real storyeghna
