The aforementioned six accounts are part of an astroturf botnet consisting of 2841 similarly-named Twitter accounts with repetitive biographies created in May 2021. These accounts (allegedly) send all of their tweets via Twitter for iPhone.
All 2841 accounts in this network use GAN-generated face pics as their profile images.
(GAN = "generative adversarial network", the AI technique used by thispersondoesnotexist.com and similar tools to generate fake face pics.)
The facial features on GAN-generated face pics always appear in the same pixel position on the images. In an interesting twist, the pics used by this botnet have been shifted down and to the right, but since all were shifted by the same amount, the facial features line up anyway.
Here's an animated visualization of the process of blending the 2841 GAN-generated pics, demonstrating the identical facial feature placement (particularly the eyes).
As is often to be the case with network consisting of large numbers of GAN-generated profile pics, some rather glitchy images have made their way into the dataset. These are some of the more entertaining examples.
What does this botnet actually do? It mostly amplifies large cryptocurrency/blockchain accounts, via both retweets and quote tweets, with some retweets of news and sports tweets (and occasional other things) thrown in for good measure.
In addition to retweeting large cryptocurrency accounts, this botnet also follows them en masse: 16 of the accounts the network amplifies are also followed by at least 90% of the bots in the network.
What's up with all these similarly-worded enthusiastic posts about a Pierre Poilievre rally in Kirkland Lake, and are they all from accounts that are less than a month old? (Spoiler: yes, they are.) #Spamtastic
cc: @ZellaQuixote
An X search for "Pierre Poilievre", "Kirkland Lake", and "refreshing" performed on August 4th, 2024 turned up 151 posts from 151 accounts. All are new accounts, with the oldest having been created less than a month ago, on July 7th, 2024. (Some have since been suspended by X.)
The most intense period of activity for this group of accounts was on August 3rd, 2024, when the repetitive posts about the Poilievre rally were posted. Each account also has at least one earlier post on a random topic; some of these older posts seem to cut off abruptly.
• 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.