A stealth glance into the top desk drawer of someone's Social Media Team's desk:
Exhibit A shows some pretty dirty, used erase scrubbers. To the left, a small stock of fresh ones. Looks like someone's been busy, doesn't it? Hard at it?
Scrubbing the internet is nothing new. Remarks in interviews which revealed too much, inflammatory or regretful tweets taken down, or in the case of Oh My Godot, when M&M or I have gone back to old posts to find a link, only to find the dreaded "404". Gone. "Doesn't exist". There's also the intentionally controversial tweet or post, followed by quick deletion, pretending to look like an "oops" just occurred, but online just long enough for "fan" accounts to see and download. But that's a whole 'nother matter. This author tends to get derailed easily and let's get back to our intended topic. ;D
On March 2, we at Narnia were initially intrigued that one visitor in particular was visiting our site daily and looking at everything. Post after post after post. Not that this hasn't happened before. But whoever this particular person was, really seemed interested!
Statcounter tells us that this person has paid 81 visits (as of today, 03/17) over 18 days? Actually, it began to be creepy. M&M and I noticed how many pictures were being downloaded and we began to suspect we had a PR intern doing the intense scoping. Then, on Thursday evening, I was looking again at statistics of this particular visitor and noticed a pattern of "exit links" following downloads.
First of all, many of you know about the web track analysis tool called Statcounter. Narnia uses Statcounter because we're curious about who visits the blog and seeing what topics are popular. Statcounter will break down a lot of different aspects for users and one of them is "downloads", which means someone is copying a picture from a post. "Exit link" means the visitor has clicked on a location in the post to take a firsthand look at whatever the link was connected to - a webpage, an Instagram post, or a tweet. Not any big deal at all. I know that my account is seen by various sites when I visit as well. And we all share pictures that we have found elsewhere - one of the best parts about the internet.
But like anything else when there is an overabundance of activity, this heavy downloading raised our curiosity. I clicked on a couple of the "exit links" of this particular visitor from "Brighton UK" and believe it or not, the source from the link no longer existed. "Hmmm...okay, that's odd." So I checked another one. Also "no longer exists". Already, the bad feeling was creeping in....
And it began to hit me what this visitor was doing. I checked several more and if the links weren't scrubbed (deleted), the instagram or twitter account was now set on private.
Sometimes I will "embed" a tweet into a Narnia post, meaning I'm taking an HTML code that every tweet has and I can place it into the blog so that it will show up in its natural state like this:
— DumpaDay (@DumpaDay) March 15, 2019
But having learned from past mistakes (of links or pictures being taken down), I also will make a JPEG picture out of tweets and Instagram posts. That way, if the tweet is deleted for whatever reason, I have a copy of it in its full, original form. If you simply embed a tweet into a post and it gets deleted later on in time, the original formatting is not only lost, but you lose the link altogether! lol. That's not good.
Let's take a look at a couple of examples of what was being seen:
Here is a snippet of a Narnia blog visit from our "Brighton UK visitor". You can see the date and then the time, followed by the URL of the web page they looked at. It might be a bit blurry, but in this small screenshot alone, one can see that "Brighton" was looking at many posts. This in itself is nothing unusual or alarming. Normally, it's welcomed. But, there are three "Exit Link's" right in the middle of the activity, two of which say "twitter" following the HyperText Transfer Protocol. So, if those links are opened, I can see that twitter account, but oddly, the account is now set to "Private", meaning that the account's tweets no longer can be seen. Of course, at the time the two links were selected for our post, the account was not on private.
In other words, now that the account has been "privated", no one can see the tweet in its original form. As a result, this section of the post looks (aesthetically) messed up and, let's face it, the most desired effect is to view a tweet in its original form.
Let's look at another example to show that there is a pattern of suspicious activity that is targeting Narnia Dispatches. Because people do private their accounts at times or take a tweet down. It does happen. Nothing to Henny Penny about it as an isolated event.
But, here's more download activity by our visitor on March 7 after they were looking at Narnia's post on photoshopping called Dastardly Darkroom Doins: Wake Up Call for OTP Fans. There was all kinds of downloading going on of the photoshopped pictures. But notice at 19:33:43, the reader exited on one of the hyperlinks (and there were hardly any hyperlinks in this post, mostly pictures):
That particular link was to provide an attribution to a blogger's page about how she used photoshop to insert a balcony where there really was none, but it was to help her own business, not for nefarious purposes at all.
Now, her post is gone:
Fortunately, this does not damage Narnia's post but if you try to click on the hyper link following the words "Well, this was an interesting find", the link is going to take you to the 404 page, as evidenced directly above.
Let's look briefly at two more Narnia posts where the embedded tweets took several hits: Never Too Late to Take a Way Back Look at Jake Gyllenhaal and Cannes 2017 which was a recap of all of the OTT narratives with Jakers/Paul Dano/Lily Collins at Cannes and then there was The Perils of a Michigan Taco Run which focused on a Jakers' sighting in Michigan at a Taco Bell - in other words, a place he wasn't supposed to get spotted at. Remember, Michigan is where Austin's family is from.
Here's Brighton's visit. Notice the pattern of looking at various posts, followed by several downloads and then at the end, several "exit links". Two of these were the same tweet link.
Here is one of the places in the Cannes post where the "t.co" exit link" belonged to the tweet we had embedded for entertainment purposes. ["t.co" in a URL indicates a tweet link] What remains are the words of the tweet ("jake gyllenhaal and steven yeun together at Cannes yes please thank you god"), but the tweet itself has been removed from the internet.
Notice, in the original Narnia post where the hyperlink reads (in green highlight) "pic.twitter.com/QgS9TtM7S8"? That letter/number sequence matches the first listed exit link in the screenshot above at 23:18 of the visitor's activity:
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"Pic.twitter" (which precedes the "t.co" in a URL link) also notes there is an image in that tweet. So not only has the tweet now disappeared off the web, the attached picture is also gone.
Are you still with me? LOL! We're all getting a quick lesson here, aren't we? Where's Mr Kotter, our teacher? Where's Professor Kingsfield? ;-)
Of those five exit links in the screen shot of Brighton's visit (of which two are identical, which means there were actually only four exit links) - all four are now deleted from the internet.
Here are two more examples. One can match the twit pic code to the exit link codes above and see that they match. "po9yzZve2k" and "8IFNHerlWj" match. This is how I'm able to link the coincidence of a now-deleted tweet to the viewing activity of this particular "visitor." It's really not looking so coincidental anymore now is it?
And as for the Michigan Taco Run post from February 27, 2017?
Well, there were a couple of casualties.
The "Jake Gyllenhaal is on my flight and here I go fan girling again" tweet - that account is now private-d. The "flying home with jake gyllenhaal" tweet which included a twit pic of Jake is now deleted entirely. (Fortunately, I had that tweet saved as a JPEG and I have now re-inserted it into the post.) #Winning
Interestingly, the hinky "flying home with Jake Gyllenhaal" tweet is one that our visitor exited from. In this screenshot from a March 13 visit, one can see where the Michigan Taco Run post was being looked at and at the very bottom, the exit link which contains the code "kjWjaAsiRC". This code matches exactly the same alphabetical sequence in @sarashenasky's tweet pic code of "pic.twitter.com/kjWJaAsiRC":
So for the past fifteen days, from March 2 through today, the 16th, here are Narnia's stats for this particular "visitor":
75 returning visits
286 downloads of images
In addition to these findings, this particular poster has subsequently visited Narnia many times and, interestingly enough, after reviewing each link, this was what was discovered:
6 deleted twitter accounts - (meaning the entire account is gone)
20 deleted tweets
1 twitter account goosestile (my twitter) was blocked from viewing
3 twitter accounts set to private which Narnia had embedded from
1 deleted website link
1 suspended twitter account
4 deleted Instagram posts
This is just a sampling of all the changes which have occurred since the time Narnia had full access to these social media links, which were used for blog posts. What a coincidence! That's a large amount of
Well, maybe not such a coincidence really when one realizes that we are just months away from the beginnings of studio promotion for Spiderman: Far From Home, starring Jake as Mysterio alongside Junior, aka Tom Holland. The flick will be the biggest movie Jake has worked on since Prince of Persia. "Biggest" referring to budget and money spent on marketing. Jake fans will not have seen the likes of this kind of promotion in many years, perhaps ever.
Disney's splashy influence on Prince of Persia was evident in the promotion back in 2010, and Jake was everywhere, promoting the film. Spidey will be very much like Prince of Persia on steroids, of which we've already seen a few sneak peeks with the Brazil Comicon joint appearance and the plethora of "Romance with Junior" Instagrams, Instagram shipping comments, and Instagram heart-eyes stories. Because the film involves both the Marvel Universe AND Sony Pictures, well....The Powers That Be would understandably be concerned about Jakers' "situation", one that involves his real-life same sex spouse and real life children.
Jake's name will be increasingly searched on the internet and highly ranked on Google. His social media team is not excited about the prospect of posts like "Michigan Taco Run" or "The Masterpost of Toothy Tile, Grey Goose and Baby Tiles" showing up next to a picture of Mysterio and Spidey. Hence, the markedly increased activity on Narnia Dispatches, the disappearance of tweets and hinky looking accounts online and suspicious emails coming into Narnia's mailbox. A mailbox which, by the way, will no longer be accessible on our blog. Sorry trolls.
In parting, let's look at an interesting tweet and subsequent conversation that my social media account had with the tweeter:
Kind of interesting, isn't it? No, no, no, no! I'm not saying this is Jake visiting Narnia and scrubbing posts with his little magic eraser. LOL. Not at all.
But it's interesting he was seen in the same city. Brighton is an "English seaside resort town". It is only an hour's train ride south of London. Just sayin'!! lol.
Supposedly Jake was in NYC around the time of this sighting. But Brighton looks like a great place to spend some time, doesn't it? Especially for a guy whose husband loves to be near water.
Back to the subject at hand! Narnia is not throwing down the gauntlet on this suspicious activity. We also do not make this a practice to dissect and observe visits. However, this particular visitor stood out like a St. Bernard amongst a group of Weiner dogs so we took a closer look.
Narnia also does not hyper focus on visitors unless we are steadfastly confident of malicious intent or very suspicious activity. We enjoy sharing what we see and inviting others to come with open minds. History has shown that Jake's team is heavy-handed. This activity is like a sledgehammer.
But, they should know by now that we will not be intimidated by such tactics and we remain entertained, focused, determined, and most of all, in awe of all of our OTP's and honorary members.
Signed,
Prairie Girl
Methodical Muser
pic sources: Coast Magazine, MLB.com, wifflegif, FunTimesguide
our playlist: The Unicorn Song - The Irish Rovers
Black Velvet Band - The Irish Rovers
The Beer Medley - Darby O'Gill
Green Fields of France - The High Kings
Heartland - Celtic Thunder
