Someone has created thousands of fake, automated Twitter accounts — perhaps hundreds of thousands of them — to offer a stream of praise for Donald Trump over the past 11 months, an Israeli tech firm has discovered.

Besides posting adoring words about the former president, the fake accounts ridiculed Trump’s critics from both parties and attacked Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador who is challenging her onetime boss for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the bots aggressively suggested, couldn’t beat Trump, but would be a great running mate.

As Republican voters size up their candidates for 2024, whoever created the bot network is seeking to influence them, using online manipulation techniques pioneered by the Kremlin to sway the digital platform conversation about candidates while exploiting Twitter’s algorithms to maximize their reach.

Sprawling bot network praises Trump, attacks DeSantis and Haley – CBS News