Trump's Twitter provokes huge following, trouble

[...] Trump's habit has also come with collateral damage— mostly because of the billionaire's penchant for elevating the comments of his fans to his 7.7 million followers, oftentimes without apparent concern for the source.

Whoever these mysterious users are, they sometimes provide Trump with information that migrates into his social media assertions, campaign speeches and media interviews.

—To demonstrate grass-roots opposition to the Republican delegate selection process, he cited a backer who described 1 million protest messages on postcards that had been sent to the Republican National Committee.

—After a man rushed the stage at a Michigan Trump rally, Trump repeated on television a follower's assertion that the man had ties to the Islamic State group.

Other accounts Trump has elevated include ones claiming to be end-times believers, researchers of time travel and a man who says he was devoted to the mystical significance of the number 11.

Patrick Ruffini, a Washington politics and media consultant opposing Trump, published an analysis of 465 followers of Trump on Twitter that had encouraged people to report unwanted Ted Cruz campaign phone messages to the Federal Communications Commission.

Many of the accounts appeared to have a sideline promoting business-to-business social media software, or in some instances pornography.