Watson blames Russian bots for resignation call

AUTOMATED Russian bots may have joined a Twitter campaign calling on Black Country MP Tom Watson to resign as Labour’s Deputy Leader.

Mr Watson (pictured), Labour MP for West Bromwich East, highlighted the possible involvement of Russia’s propaganda machine as he published an analysis of the #resignwatson campaign. Bots are automated programs that generate messages for social media platforms.

Critics of Mr Watson sent thousands of tweets with the #resignwatson hashtag, after he wrote an article warning Labour would “disappear into a vortex of eternal shame and embarrassment” if it failed to deal with antisemitism allegations.

He called on the party to drop disciplinary investigations into MPs Margaret Hodge and Ian Austin, MP for Dudley North, who were accused of being abusive to Labour colleagues in outbursts over the party’s stance on antisemitism.

The MP said: “I didn’t imagine that the contribution would lead to the hashtag #ResignWatson reaching the No1 global hours later!” Data from social media analysts Gizmondo shows that 89,000 tweets with the using #ResignWatson hashtag, including retweets, were sent during a 32-hour period. Mr Watson said: “But onequarter of those were sent from just 121 unique Twitter accounts, and 1,220 accounts were responsible for 55,000 of the tweets. Hardly a mass uprising! “What’s fascinating about this experience is that 121 Twitter trending spot 24 accounts could influence the Twitter trending algorithm that ultimately influenced the MSM [mainstream media] to write stories about the online campaign. And more depressingly, of a number of commenters in the campaign who used clear antisemitic tropes a dozen appear to be fellow Labour members. It’s a very sad state of affairs.

“Gizmodo also points out that not all of the tweets using the hashtag were necessarily against me, some might have been in support and some – as pointed out elsewhere – appear to be Russian bots.”