If you woke up this morning hoping that somewhere in the world there was a Twitter botnet advertising multiplayer games by replying to tweets (many of them several years old) that have nothing to do with video games, this spam network's for you. #SundaySpam
This network consists of 45 accounts created between February and June 2020. Almost all of their content (23574 of 24125 tweets, 97.7%) is repetitive replies promoting video games, most of which link to gameexp(dot)com.
At least 23 (probably 25) of the accounts in this network use GAN-generated profile pics. (GAN = "generative adversarial network", the AI technique behind the fake faces produced by thispersondoesnotexist.com etc.) Many have had their colors edited, and 10 have been resized/cropped.
Some of the accounts have profile pics that at first appear to be solid colors. When one increases the level of contrast, two of them (@HannahS21386602 and @RachelA32981013) appear to be faces. We believe these are GAN-generated but due to the lack of detail can't be 100% sure.
Some of the GAN-generated face pics used by this network are used by multiple accounts, with modifications to make them superficially unique.
The resizing/cropping throws off techniques for detecting GAN-generated images that depend on the position of the major facial features, but other anomalies remain: some of the resized images feature nonsensical hats/clothing/earrings/glasses, for example.
Here's the result of blending all 25 GAN pics after reversing the modifications to the 10 that had been cropped/resized based on position of the left eye and the distance between eyes, which results in other facial features aligning as they would had the images not been modified.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
• 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.