Thread by @BenDoBrown

A network of fake accounts are posing as young American women, posting pro-Trump content and disinformation, but they’re hiding behind, and manipulating, the images of European fashion influencers.

Our latest investigation at @Cen4infoRes. Details in this thread 🧵👇

Our full analysis can be seen at @Cen4infoRes here: . We also collaborated with @CNN to dig out the human stories behind those who had their photos stolen

Let's look at the some details below 👇info-res.org/post/unmasking…
edition.cnn.com/2024/08/28/eur…

One of the accounts is Eva. She lives in the US, and likes hanging out at the beach and posting to her 5000+ followers on X. Eva posts strong opinions against LGBTQ people and the US Democratic party and is a loyal supporter of former US president Donald Trump.

The blonde-haired woman pictured on Eva’s X profile, “eva_maga1996”, is not pro-Trump Eva, but a Danish fashion influencer whose images have been taken from her Instagram profile and used without her permission.

There are more of these fake accounts. We uncovered at least 17 others, some with thousands of followers each, posing as pro-Trump American women and hiding behind stolen and sometimes manipulated photographs. We found in total 56 matching the same appearance in the network.

Many of the photos stolen to create new personas on X, are from fashion influencers – most of whom are based in Europe.

Many of the fake accounts spread falsehoods and conspiracy theories. They praise Trump and Senator JD Vance, discredit Democratic Party members such as Biden and Harris and post divisive content in US politics, such as LGBTQ rights and aid to Ukraine.

Without insight into X’s data, it’s not clear who is behind these accounts, or to confirm whether they’re pushing pro-Trump content for ideological or monetary gain.

So let’s dig into what these accounts are doing, and how they are doing it.

In a number of cases, influencers’ photos were not just stolen and repurposed as new online personas but were manipulated to make it look like they were wearing pro-Trump paraphernalia.

Many of the accounts identified by CIR appeared in May and June this year. At least 13 accounts in the network had the blue tick verification badge which they obtained in either July or August 2024.

The criteria for achieving a blue tick states that accounts must have a name, a profile image, a phone number and active X premium sub, which requires processing of payment details. X also requires "no signs of being misleading or deceptive”. help.x.com/en/managing-yo…

The accounts share common traits such as listing their location as the US and often express support for President Trump and a love of God in their bios. Some of these accounts gained significant traction on X with some getting tens or even hundreds of thousands of views.

Some of the accounts attempted to establish ownership over the images by outing other accounts who they claim are using the images without their permission. In some cases, they claim they have reported and blocked these accounts, and call on their followers to do the same.

The content shared by the accounts is broad in subject, but much of it covers issues related to the election. CIR found posts mentioning the assassination attempt on President Trump, Vice President Harris’ ethnicity and defunding military aid to Ukraine.

Many of the accounts published or retweeted posts scrutinising Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, who was recently the centre of a gender eligibility row, despite the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirming her eligibility to compete in the games.

In a number of the posts, the fake accounts sought to exploit wedge issues and existing tensions, at times spreading misinfo and conspiracy theories, concerning in the run-up to the US election.

Read our full findings in this report. info-res.org/post/unmasking…

We worked with CNN to tell this story, who interviewed some of the women who had their photos stolen, and some of the specialists who gave important context as to how this fits into the bigger picture. H/T @katie_polglase @PallabiMunsi @ArvanitidisCNN

edition.cnn.com/2024/08/28/eur…

@katie_polglase @PallabiMunsi @ArvanitidisCNN For this story @CNN reached out to X regarding these accounts "but did not receive a response". However, in the last 24 hours before publishing, X took down the majority of the accounts.

@katie_polglase @PallabiMunsi @ArvanitidisCNN @CNN Even though X took down many of the accounts, the pro-Trump fake account @Luna_2K24 is still active with a large following. The photos stolen to create that persona are photos of the Instagram influencer that @CNN's @katie_polglase interviewed as part of this collaboration.

Good to see the account @Luna_2K24 was finally taken down over the past hour.

So the account @luna_2k24, that stole someone’s photos to make a new persona and was part of a pro-Trump operation, has now renamed their account and continues to post as @Princess_S2K.

They blocked me, but it doesn’t stop the community of watchers out there.