#FBR lists are a perennially popular technique for gaining resistance followers, which also makes infiltrating them a perennially popular technique for folks who want to gain resistance followers under false pretenses. (The same is true of #MAGA trains, btw.)
We downloaded the most recent 200 tweets from each of 15402 accounts listed on #FBR/#FBRParty/#Resist followback lists since Aug 1st 2020, and looked for accounts that retweeted #MAGA accounts, foreign autocrats, or random spammers. Here are some of the more interesting ones. . .
First up: @ABirkshire, which transformed from #BlueWave2020 Democrat to enthusiastic Trump supporter in under two months, and is now being promoted on #MAGA trains. In that same time, it also went from knowing nothing about #QAnon to being a devotee/self-styled expert.
Next, we have @syrematz. Although it does retweet some resistance content, it also amplifies Trump and his enablers quite regularly, and additionally spams things like "hello pretty lady how are you doing today? If you don't mind can I be your friend" at random Twitter users.
Similarly, @MaryBro79317770 appears at first glance to be a resistance account based on its retweets, but if you scroll back far enough, you'll find it retweeting @realDonaldTrump and @MrAndyNgo, and even proclaiming Trump to be the best president the US has had to date.
We also found some accounts on #FBR lists that don't appear to even be pretending to oppose Trump. Some examples are @d7cam, @Rufusthedog66, and @1_just_a_nobody. @Juan6million, the account that made the list containing @d7cam, is one we've seen before.
Not all of the non-resistance accounts that appear on #FBR lists are #MAGA. Some, such as @JGallardo2020, are follower gain spammers that have no apparent political affiliation.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
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.
It's a great day to look at a network of Bluesky spam accounts with randomized names. #SundaySpam
cc: @ZellaQuixote
This spam network consists of (at least) 401 accounts, all of which were created (or added to the Bluesky app view) in August 2023. These accounts do not follow each other; rather, each one follows a small number of popular Bluesky accounts.
The accounts in this network cycle rhythmically between posting three types of content:
• reposts
• posts containing links to news articles
• posts containing links to news articles accompanied by images
Meet @thisisorange, a Twitter account created in February 2022 with a gold "verified organization" badge, thousands of batch-created fake followers, and a couple other interesting traits.
Verified organizations on Twitter can verify affiliated accounts (employees, teams, brand names, etc), which receive blue checkmarks as well as an organization badge (help.twitter.com/en/using-twitt…). The @thisisorange account has thousands of affiliates, mostly cryptocurrency accounts.
How did this come about? The website linked on @thisisorange's profile (orange dot associates) apparently allows one to become an affiliate simply by providing a Twitter account and a cryptocurrency wallet.