Thread by @marcowenjones

🧵1/ This is an analysis of all accounts using the terms '#Ukraine' and 'bio labs'. I wanted to see which accounts were pushing this narrative the most, & which were the most influential. This is an analysis of around 20k Twitter interactions from approx 17k unique accounts

2/ Broadly speaking there are two communities. Cluster 1 are those generally promoting the existence of 'biolabs', mostly with nefarious undertones. Cluster 2 are accounts reporting on the US rejection of biolabs conspiracies, e.g. @washingtonpost

3/ Within group one there are a few tight clusters mentioning biolabs, and seemingly helping push the conspiratorial narrative including numerous Americans, such as @JackPosobiec @ChuckCallesto @bennyjohnson

#Ukraine

4/ Some of their conspiratorial insinuations come from conflating US diplomat Victoria Nuland's mention of biological research labs with offensive biolabs, which the Kremlin are framing as some sort of bioweaponry nerve/covid/ethnicity based agent production facility
#Ukraine

5/ There's also a trope of evidence being 'deleted' re these biolabs, obviously to bolster the conspiracy. It's being pushed by blue ticks, and Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, - but it's false

#Ukraine

6/ Dilyana is falsely claiming that the US Embassy in Kyiv is deleting documents pertaining to its biological threat reduction program. This is not true, the documents are still there, and Dilyana's 'site can't be reached' screenshot contains a different URL from embassy website

7/ Interestingly, Dilyana's tweet, which remember is incorrect, was then retweeted by the Chinese Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, who asked her 1.1 million followers what the US was hiding? #Ukraine #UkraineWar

8/ Of course Tucker Carlson content features heavily on the hashtag... He's obviously using it, like many republicans, as a stick to beat Biden with. #Ukraine #misinformation

9/ The most influential account spreading the disinformation, which I managed to collect just in time, was @ASBMilitary - a very active Twitter account that has been spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda. An hour ago, it was suspended, this was one of its most recent tweets #ukraine

10/As @ThePlumLineGS and others such as @Shayan86 have pointed out, the biological labs are no secret, and officials were even debunking this during the Trump administration. Read here for more >

11/ There's a lot more highly followed accounts also spreading the outrage and fear, @PeoplesParty_US right wing social media apps like @getongab - but I'll leave it there for now.

Bed time. Solidarity and peace #ukraine #UkraineWar

12 / More great reading here by the awesome @katestarbird

13/ I just analysed the biographies of the accounts spreading the biolabs disinfo. The second most common word is MAGA, followed by Trump, god and conservative. MAGA appeared 655 times, so in around 6% of the sample with available bio data #Ukraine #UkraineRussiaWar

14/ Going to end with this meme I made