Thread by @razhael

New: A deepfake disinformation operation is targeting UK lawyer Mazen Masri and Palestinian rights campaigner Ryvka Barnard - a sign of how this technology is being popularized as a propaganda-spreading tool.
reuters.com/article/us-cyb…

New: We're releasing a potted guide to recognizing GAN-created imagery in the wild, with input from @MuniraMustaffa, @HaoLi81, and others. Read it to understand how we determined Oliver Taylor was a fake - and how you can spot similar creations. graphics.reuters.com/CYBER-DEEPFAKE…

As far as I can tell, Oliver Taylor's writing career began late last year with a (now-deleted) article in the Jerusalem Post on Malaysia's Mahathir Mohammad web.archive.org/web/2020050521…

He also wrote a similar op-ed for the International Policy Digest (which, as of now, still carries his piece live.)
web.archive.org/web/2020050521…

He blogged a fair bit as well for the @TimesofIsrael. Much of his work was either innocuous or at least uncontroversial: light pieces about Jewish guilt, or how religious Jews could adapt to the coronavirus pandemic. See for example:
web.archive.org/web/2020031915…

Then, in April, Taylor singles out @WarOnWant's Ryvka Barnard and her husband, human rights lawyer and academic Mazen Masri, describing them both as "known terrorist sympathizers." The couple is appalled by the claim.
web.archive.org/web/2020041206…

Taylor - who describes himself as a poli-sci student at the University of Birmingham - seems pretty keen on attacking the couple. He also has a similar piece published by @ArutzSheva_En saying that Masri has "ties to many nefarious figures."
web.archive.org/web/2020050522…

It's then that Masri alerts me & I begin investigating.

Check out my piece here: reuters.com/article/us-cyb…

(Worth noting that I've tried to reach Taylor for comment, without success.)

Some of you - @MuniraMustaffa & @KeirGiles in particular - will remember the piece I wrote on "Katie Jones," another deepfake-enabled persona I wrote about last year for @AP .

At the time, this was pretty novel. No longer.
apnews.com/bc2f19097a4c4f…

Deepfakes have been used to populate profiles used in an alleged Epoch Times-linked disinformation campaign exposed by Facebook earlier this year, for example. And last week the excellent @arawnsley of @thedailybeast exposed not one but several deepfake op-ed writers like Taylor.

Here's the Graphika's report on "Fake Face Swarm" (CORRECTION: it was late last year, not earlier this year) graphika.com/reports/operat…

And here's @arawnsley's piece for The Beast, from last week:
thedailybeast.com/right-wing-med…

For the disinformation nerds, here's an list of archived content linked to the Oliver Taylor persona: pastebin.com/AiczXXvZ