January 31, 2025      12:35 PM
Houston Chronicle reports an army of online bots attacked Speaker Burrows throughout his campaign to preside over Texas House
Reporter
Edward McKinley has
the details:
An
army of automated bots mobilized late last year to attack state Rep. Dustin
Burrows on social media as the Lubbock Republican campaigned in a hotly
contested race to become the next speaker of the Texas House, according to a
data analysis prepared by a Republican social media marketing company and
shared with Hearst Newspapers.
The
accounts on X blasted Burrows, who went on to win the race, as a “RINO,”
“traitor,” and “Democrat shill,” and they promised GOP primary attacks against
his supporters.
His
main competitor was state Rep. David Cook, a Mansfield Republican who ran as a
hardline conservative and promised to sideline Democrats from the policymaking
process. Cook was backed by the state party, most of the chamber’s far-right
members and some of the party’s most prolific donors.
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