PSA: These "fun" apps from roundyear(dot)fun ("My Twitter Family" etc) have a downside: they gain near-total control of your account and (at the very least) use it to follow other accounts without your knowledge. #FunAllYearRoundUntilYourAccountGetsCompromised
We had @DrunkAlexJones test some of the Round Year Fun apps. The list of permissions the apps request is extensive and encompasses pretty much every action one could possibly take with one's Twitter account. The apps produced the expected "My Twitter Crush" etc tweets.
How many accounts have been affected by Round Year Fun? We downloaded the latest 10 days' worth of tweets linking yearround(dot)fun, yielding 214830 tweets from 180402 accounts. The tweets were sent via 1091 distinct apps, most with names that are variations on "Round Year Fun".
The involuntary follow behavior of the Round Year Fun apps has resulted in massive infusions of followers since early April 2021 for its most frequent beneficiaries. Leading the pack is @GeoRebekah, with (at least) 20198 followers that have used Round Year Fun apps.
Here are follow order by create date plots for some accounts mass-followed by the Round Year Fun app. The plots show periods of massive growth where the majority of new followers are Round Year Fun users, and very few follows from Round Year Fun accounts outside those periods.
This analysis likely underestimates the number of accounts that have used the Round Year Fun apps and the number of follows that resulted, as the methods used would not detect accounts that were shadowbanned or had deleted their Round Year Fun tweets.
If you already used one or more of the Year Round Fun apps, you can revoke its access to your account and prevent it from taking further actions on your behalf. (Screenshots show the steps for revoking access using the Twitter website, phone apps are similar.)
Once more, with feeling: be careful what you click and be wary of giving third-party apps unnecessary access to your account.
Update: this thread apparently got a quick reaction.
• 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.