Thread by @BenDoBrown

For the past month I have been watching the tags #WestPapua & #PapuanLivesMatter.

What I found was a network of Dutch, German & English accounts with fake pics attempting to distort the narrative of independence.

Here's some of the findings in a 🧵👇
bellingcat.com/news/2020/11/1…

First, the most interesting trend of HOW.

Many of the accounts across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram used artificially-generated profile pictures (GAN) to disguise themselves. Here's an example from the accounts on Twitter - the detail is in the eyes 👀

Of course, if you're an influence researcher (or a news fanatic) this isn't the first time you would have seen fake accounts utilising GAN images. You might have seen examples from @elisethoma5 & @benimmo on them.
Here:

https://twitter.com/elisethoma5/status/1321230331270160385?s=20

and here:

https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/1311675568103084033?s=20

In looking at some of the GAN images in this network targeting West Papua, it's obvious someone didn't pay attention to the details in some of the images.

For instance, check out this one which was on a Twitter profile.

Or the blurring and uneven matches from profiles in the network on Facebook

But WHY is it important to research, call out these networks, stop them and share findings?

It's important because these accounts are influencing a narrative counter to West Papuan independence through a fake network amplifying posts like this below.

It's not the first time West Papuan independence has been the target of networks, last year @elisethoma5 and I revealed this one too, which saw a takedown from Twitter, Facebook and Google of about 1000 accounts and pages. bellingcat.com/news/rest-of-w…

Now I won't be misleading. This network is new and has had little impact in its influence. This is great, but it also means the people behind it are persistent. Especially when you consider the effort to create so many videos and posts for the the network to share

And while the network might be limited, it is important to look at some of the tactics of the accounts to understand HOW they operate.

For example, some attempted to hijack the hashtags of Dutch cities and towns - this is quite new. They even tagged my favorite: #Groningen

Taking a look at Instagram, the GAN accounts remain easy to identify, and their output is glaringly obvious - a never-ending realm of infographics about special autonomy, fake news, and ridiculing West Papuan activists.

Again, the Instagram network passed the fabled 'red box over the eyes' test to check for fake profiles, but as we looked at above, all of these are checked for the fine details of manipulation.

So what was the main source of this network?

Well most of the accounts in the network primarily linked out to this website: papuanlivesmatter.com.

The website also links to a YouTube channel with an overwhelming amount of short videos on special autonomy, West Papuan independence, and claims of 'fake news'.

This was also present on a number of other YouTube accounts dedicated to amplifying the same content.

On a side note, I don't feel sorry for the designers that have to keep coming up with this stuff each time I do a tweet.

Last time we looked into a network, they had their WHOIS details publicly available. (see here:

https://twitter.com/BenDoBrown/status/1182469783624802304?s=20

)

The papuanlivesmatter site has less details visible. The domaindataguard appears to be in Yogyakarta and the site is four months old.

By sharing this work, it encourages others to keep eyes on #WestPapua for influence. Yesterday, @JPeterBurger & @rudybouma also published findings picking up accounts in the network. Multiple eyes on these will stop them before they have serious impact 🔍

https://twitter.com/rudybouma/status/1326119283697586178?s=20

These are a just a summary of the findings of WHO, WHAT & HOW this network operated in its attempt to distort the narrative of West Papuan independence. Do read more on @bellingcat: bellingcat.com/news/2020/11/1…. + a massive H/T to @EoghanMacguire for making my research readable ✌️