What's up with all these accounts with July 2020 creation dates and stated locations in the US retweeting @ARTEM_KLYUSHIN's tweets (in Russian) about the 2020 US election? #Spamtastic
We found 95 accounts that we believe to be part of a retweet network amplifying @ARTEM_KLYUSHIN (and others), all created in July 2020. Many list a US state on their profile, usually in all lowercase, and none has ever liked a tweet.
All of the accounts in this network theoretically tweet via the Twitter website ("Twitter Web App"). Although this hypothetically indicates the tweets are human-posted, there are multiple ways of automating websites so the accounts could well be automated.
The accounts in this network do three things:
• retweet accounts, primarily @ARTEM_KLYUSHIN and cryptocurrency accounts
• reply to cryptocurrency accounts
• tweet short phrases/aphorisms
The accounts in this network follow each other profusely (and notably follow very few other accounts), with each account following an average of 23 other members of the network.
As is the case more often than not with bot/sockpuppet networks on Twitter, these accounts use stolen pics. We had better luck with Google than TinEye or Yandex this time around.
(semi-related thread about a much larger, albeit dormant, botnet following @ARTEM_KLYUSHIN)
We took another look at @ARTEM_KLYUSHIN's account, and noticed several recent tweets with almost no retweets but lots of extremely generic-looking English replies from accounts that look suspiciously like those in the network described in this thread.
By exploring the follower networks of the repliers, we found a total of 225 accounts that we believe to be part of the network (including the 95 July 2020 creations we originally found). All but the oldest were created in batches, with the recent batches being larger.
All 225 accounts (allegedly) tweet via Twitter web products, with the earliest traffic being via "Twitter Web Client", followed by "Mobile Web (M2)", followed by "Twitter Web App". Volume has increase substantially over the last couple months.
Who do these accounts reply to? As with the accounts they retweet, it's mostly cryptocurrency accounts and @ARTEM_KLYUSHIN. We'll keep an eye on this network here and there and update this thread further if we notice anything else interesting.
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• Community Notes successfully placed fact checks on some of the most viral false posts about the shooting
• ~42% of noted posts were subsequently deleted by their authors
• An effort to spread a misidentification of the shooter via Community Notes failed
THE BAD:
• Community Notes fact checks take several hours to show up, which doesn't help much in the initial "breaking news" phase after a violent event
• Many notes never accumulate enough ratings to determine their fate
12 questions for @TheDailyBeast regarding @JakeLahut's false April 2023 story, "How Ron DeSantis Is Taking a Page Out of Nixon’s Playbook", which (among other things) falsely portrays an AI-generated face as a "sexually graphic meme" of a real child.
@JoannaColes @TracyConnor
First, some background and a couple debunks of the false article, for those unfamiliar with the situation:
1. How did the decision to use serial fabulist Steven Jarvis as a source for this article come about?
2. Was anyone employed by or affiliated with The Daily Beast at the time the article was published aware of Steven Jarvis's extensive history of making false claims?
Meet @LovewinnLove (permanent ID 2707213009), a blue-check verified account with a GAN-generated face and a few additional odd characteristics. Despite being created in 2014, this account has no posts prior to October 2023.
cc: @ZellaQuixote
There are multiple indicators that @LovewinnLove's "face" is GAN-generated:
• unrealistic teeth (visible portion of bottom teeth is especially bizarre)
• odd texturing and seams in shirt fabric
• telltale eye positioning (more info in next post)
@LovewinnLove All unmodified StyleGAN-generated face images have the property that the major facial features (particularly the eyes) are in the same position on each image. Blending @LovewinnLove's profile image with 99 other GAN-generated faces demonstrates this nicely.
It's New Year's Eve, and a bunch of politics enthusiasts with GAN-generated faces are enthusiastically replying to a variety of posts with similarly-worded replies. #NewYearShenaniGANs
cc: @ZellaQuixote
The politics enthusiasts are part of a spam network consisting of (at least) 575 accounts created between May and December 2023 with GAN-generated faces. Many of their handles, such as @Maairiuieinaaa and @eJooeiaAoneueer, contain long strings of vowels.
@Maairiuieinaaa @eJooeiaAoneueer All 575 of these accounts use StyleGAN-generated faces as profile images. Some of these, such as @MauMoiagaia's profile image, contain a tiny "StyleGAN 2 (Karras et al.)" watermark in the lower right corner.
It's a great day to look at a network of inauthentic accounts that post identical AI art images (with a side of good old fashioned T-shirt spam).
cc: @ZellaQuixote
This network consists of 24 X accounts. 12 of these accounts were created in the latter half of 2023 and have female avatars, while the other 12 were created in 2013 or earlier and have male avatars.
The 12 accounts with female avatars and 2023 creation dates regularly post AI-generated art images, and these image posts are quickly reposted by other accounts in the network (both female and male). The AI-generated images are often duplicated across accounts.
Meet @ImJamesMiller (permanent ID 1371651462153994242), an account with a GAN-generated face, 172K followers, and no tweets prior to two days ago. What's up with that?
cc: @ZellaQuixote
As it turns out, @ImJamesMiller wasn't always named @ImJamesMiller. In June, the account was named @/IamJimCaviezel in an apparent attempt to impersonate Sound of Freedom actor Jim Caviezel.
@ImJamesMiller Multiple prominent users appear to have accepted the fake Jim Caviezel account as legitimate, including Texas Congressman Brian Babin, right-wing influencer/ex-Game of Thrones blogger Jack Posobiec, and recently indicted ex-Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark.