Thread by @its_linus

🧵 Europe Invasion Investigation

1/ We dug into Europe Invasion, a blue tick X account spreading disinformation, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. @elonmusk has boosted it several times, and police say its fake news helped spark the riots in the UK earlier this summer.

2/ Our findings suggest the account is at least partly driven by financial motives. We traced its digital footprint to two Turkish entrepreneurs in Dubai, whose YouTube channel the account promoted. They claim it's run by an "ad agency"—more on this later.
svt.se/nyheter/utrike…

3/ Building on the research of @marcowenjones & @sohanDsouza, we also looked at Daily Reports—another account likely run by the same operator. The two accounts have interacted, cross-promoted, and boosted each other frequently.

4/ Using and Botometer, we found the accounts have been repurposed multiple times since March 2023. For example, Europe Invasion was once a cryptocurrency account, while Daily Reports has been a visa business. Both seem to have tweeted mainly in Turkish. Memory.lol

5/ Then, in February 2024, they scrubbed all their content, switched to English, and began posting xenophobic material. However, some evidence suggests a Turkish-speaking operator was still behind the accounts after this shift.

6/ For instance, these two tweets with Turkish letters (İ) and the word "tüm" ("all", in English), as well as the auto generated Turkish captions that show up on videos uploaded by both accounts.

7/ Daily Reports recently rebranded as Algorithm Coach, abruptly shifting its focus from immigration to offering advice on growing and monetizing X accounts. Meanwhile, Europe Invasion boasts about its rapid growth and urges followers to check out Algorithm Coach.

8/ Here, it's boasting about the amount of money it claims to make from X's ads revenue sharing system.

9/ What about the Turkish entrepreneurs I mentioned? After Europe Invasion became an English-language xenophobic account, it posted a video with AI-generated images and a narration by a woman with a Turkish accent, claiming Afghan migrants were "replacing" white Europeans.

11/ Underneath that video was a post promoting a YouTube channel belonging to "Alissa".

12/ The channel has just one video, featuring a woman who introduces herself with that name. However, she isn’t discussing immigration—the video focuses on the benefits of living and working in Dubai. Her voice perfectly matches the narration in Europe Invasion's AI video.

12/ But "Alissa" seems to be a fake name. We found the real LinkedIn profile of the woman. According to that profile, she runs a business with her husband in Dubai.

13/ We started looking into the husband, who also claims to run a visa service business that helps Turkish citizens obtain visas to Dubai.

14/ Interestingly, a previous iteration of Daily Reports/Algorithm Coach shared the same username as the Turkish man's company. An archived version of the profile description confirmed that this account was indeed the X account for that business.

15/ After we reached out to the couple, the AI-generated video and the post promoting the YouTube channel were deleted. When asked, they denied having any current involvement with the accounts, saying they had hired an ad agency to promote their business on the X accounts.

16/ We reached out via e-mail to the purported ad agency with an interview request, which it declined. Additionally, we couldn't find any online presence for the agency, so we were unable to verify its existence.

17/ While we can't be certain about who runs Europe Invasion, the evidence altogether suggests that it is driven by financial gain, possibly coupled with an ideological motive.

18/ Full investigation (in Swedish) below. Might put together an English version later.
svt.se/nyheter/utrike…

This was obviously a team effort – thanks to @henrikskold82 for some solid work.

UPDATE: 20/ After posting this thread, Europe Invasion responded, presenting itself as run by "Stefan," a Montenegrin of Serbian origin.

UPDATE: 21/ When we first contacted the supposed ad agency in early September, we did receive a response from a "Stefan," who declined our interview request. Notably, his email client was set to Turkish. After I pointed this out today, he switched it to English.