These images tweeted by five-month old Twitter account @diana_feinstein do not in fact depict the Jefferson Square Park shooter. Rather, they've been used repeatedly by 4chan trolls to falsely identify shooting suspects as "Sam Hyde." #ASeriesOfUn4chanateEvents
cc: @ZellaQuixote
cc: @ZellaQuixote
We took a closer look at @diana_feinstein and the accounts in its orbit. In an unsurprising plot twist, @diana_feinstein's profile photo is stolen. Among its recurring themes: outrage over @BernieSanders endorsing @JoeBiden in the 2020 US presidential race.
Although @diana_feinstein doesn't have many followers, some of those it does have are interesting. Several of its followers (and followers' followers) have faces that appear to have been generated by a neural network similar to thispersondoesnotexist.com.
Faces generated by neural networks generally have eyes, nose, and mouth in the exact same place on every generated image, and so it is with six accounts in @diana_feinstein's network: @sheldystein, @Tyrell__Green, @luddman, @JMoorsted, @ElijahGelber, and @b_socialist.
While looking through the follows and interactions of @diana_feinstein and the six accounts with AI-generated faces, we found one more suspicious account that interacts with them frequently: @JamarcusRabbi, which like @diana_feinstein boasts a stolen profile pic.
In addition to the stolen and AI-generated photos, these eight interacting accounts have other similarities. All but two are recent creations, and most have similar biographies. Most present as left-wing, with the exception of @Tyrell__Green (the only one with older tweets.)
Who's behind these accounts? Based on references to 4chan and the participation of several of the accounts in a 4chan op to troll Sanders supporters with claims that their donations will be refunded, we're guessing this network is a 4chan project. #ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents
(more on detecting the GAN-generated faces mentioned earlier in this thread here)
(Further exploration of the use of GAN-generated faces in a 4chan op)
