Twitter tech question

MONEYTREE_2

I opened a twitter account in my own name (let's call me "Mary Jones") which was subjected to horrible bullying, by thee male strangers who hold different political views to me. They found my Facebook account, stole pics of me, and screenshotted posts by me, and used them to mock and attack me on Twitter. Complaints to Twitter got me nowhere. So I deactivated that account permanently. Realised I was naive to have posted in my own name.

Account number 2. I created a new account a few days later. I used a different gmail address, and made up a totally new name for myself, let's say it was "Pat Kelly". On the biog I put a town 300 miles from me, and a photo of that town. I told nobody about this, not even my husband.

Soon after I began posting, the bullies addressed this 2nd account as Mary Jones! They mocked me for reappearing as a "sock". I was both puzzled and infuriated. So I deactivated that account permanently.

Account number 3. Older and wiser. I went to protonmail and created a brand new email address, and I gave no details about myself, not even a phone number. It was literally just a username and a password. Again I told nobody. I then created a new Twitter account, this time as a silly name, let's say it was "ShopaHolic". I tweeted a few news items, retweeted a few posts from random people, and waited to see what happened.

Within six hours, the same bullies doxxed me again, "hahaha Mary Jones has started yet another sock, this woman is a mental case! Three accounts, should be reported to Twitter hahaha" and then other posts mocking me, posting my name, location, political beliefs, and even my photos. Again I have reported them all for using stolen images, for harassment, for bullying, you name it. Twitter has emailed me to say not one of my complaints is upheld.
So I have deactivated that account.

I just wanted to interact on Twitter just like millions of others, and although it's not a big part of my life, it really gets my goat that these men have the power to bully me off it, and yet keep themselves on it, just because I support a different political party from them. Surely we ALL have freedom of speech, of religion, of political belief? They are all operating under invented names, they have total anonymity and privacy. It seems monstrously unfair that they know who I am, no matter what I do, but I am never allowed to know who they are.

My actual reason for posting this tale of woe on here is, HOW the hell could they possibly have known it was me? I didn't tell anyone about the two sock accounts, or the two new email addresses. I didn't email anyone from them, they were just dummy addresses.

I told part of this story to a friend last night and she said that these men must have sent a virus or worm or malware to my PC, enabling them to see all my keystrokes, and everything I do online. I feel intimidated, stripped bare, embarrassed and like I have zero privacy. I would not be surprised if they screenshot this and post it on Twitter.

I am only on the net via a Windows 10 PC, never any other machine nor a phone, in my private home housing just two people. Nobody else has access to it. It's in my private little office and password protected.

Can anyone PLEASE put me out of my misery and explain HOW these men knew that Account 2 and Account 3 were me? I don't care about joining Twitter any more, I just want to know how they are doing it!

Thank you to anyone who can help.

Moneytree

spadoosh

I would doubt theyve done anything with your computer.

I suspect its more case of you going back to the same place and pretending to be someone else.

Lets say you dont like trump. You want to go on twitter and say you dont like trump. Theres people who do like trump, they want to go on twitter and mock those who dont, you all end up in the same place, commenting on the same things. Its not hard to recognise a style of writing. Ive instantly picked you out as someone whose thorough with their grammar. If your arguing with Americans you will stand out as different.

As for freedom of speech, they are exercising theirs. If twitter see no issue with what theyre posting then theres little you can do about it.

Personally i would be asking myself the question of the purpose of using twitter. If you want to use it to express your political beliefs then i suspect you will need to toughen up a little bit. Politics thrives on disagreement and has got to be the number one draw for confrontation on twitter. If you dont want confrontation, politics on twitter probably isnt for you.

If you want to share your views with people of similar views find a local group that alligns with your political beliefs.

MONEYTREE_2

I was excited to see a reply and then disappointed to see the content.

I specifically stated this is a tech question ~ how are they hacking into me and finding out that I have created a new account?

You haven't addressed that, just gone off topic discussing why do I want to be on Twitter. I already said that this isn't the thing that bothers me but how they are able to see who I am, when whatever I do I am unable to find out who THEY are.

It really does not matter that YOU think I should not be on Twitter. I have as much right as anyone else, and am being bullied off it.

Lastly you are entirely WRONG. I did not post anything on my 3rd account, just retweeted random tweets by anyone about anything, being extremely careful not to give anything of myself away.

This isn't a "should this person be allowed on twitter or not" it is A TECHNICAL QUERY about how these people have hacked in.

spadoosh

They havent hacked in to you.

You outed yourself.

Try it again but instead of being you or you in disguise try and take their stance, immitate their comments (in a genuine way). At the same time, dont use capital letters or commas. See how long it takes them to guess its you. ACtually scrap that it will put you around the samepeople and i reckon youll give yourself away easy enough. Sign up to a twitter account and comment and share information about the chess championships, theyll never find you.

Think about it if they could hack you theyd do a lot more than ridicule your political stance. Bearing in mind if your computer has been infeccted with a key logger they will have access to every single password and email address you have entered on that computer. That will include things like online banking, shopping accounts, tax accounts etc. But the worst they are doing with this information is ridiculing your political stance.

Theres nothing technical about it. Youve just been easily identifiable.

[Deleted User]

Hmm, knows how to setup multiple Twitter accounts, knows what a "sock puppet" account is, knows what doxxing is (I had to Google that myself), knows about Protonmails secure email service and yet doesn't know how to check their computer for malware.

Why do you want to find out their identities btw? You could always just mute them.

pmduk

I suspect the OP just wants to learn the techniques to retaliate. I had to look up doxxing as well, we must lead sheltered, honest lives

John_Gray

I thought 'doxxing' might perhaps have something to do with doxology.
Somehow I doubt there is any connection...

Spadoosh in #4 seems to have the answer,
and to the OP: congratulations on returning to the Real World (TM)!

Ant555

If the email addresses and everything else were completely different then the first thing that springs to mind is your IP address - if you are logging on from the same place then its likely that this bit of information about you is the same (likely, but not definite)

I cant see how 'they' know your IP address but it could be possible or hidden in your posts somewhere

Or, is there another app that is allowed to read twitter data on your lap top such as a plug in in your browser (facebook, gmail??) or something along those lines.

Is twitter on your laptop using GPS data? - It might not be the same as on a mobile but I wonder if your precise location is readable by tech savvy trolls.

So, not a technical answer but some ideas that spring to mind that might help.

womble12345

I have seen location in twitter posts so I think location is sent with tweets so that could be how they traced you.....

droopsnoot

womble12345 wrote: »

I have seen location in twitter posts so I think location is sent with tweets so that could be how they traced you.....

If that's the case, then the OP should use a mobile broadband dongle to connect. I've seen posts made by me that suggest I am in Northumberland, and then New York ten minutes later.