The accounts depicted in the previous tweet are part of a network of (at least) 1393 accounts, most of which were created in large batches in June/July 2021. All have GAN-generated faces as their profile pics (all female) and female display names.
Unmodified GAN-generated face pics (so far) have the telltale trait that the primary facial features (particularly the eyes) are rendered in the same location on each image. This property becomes quite visible when the images are blended together.
Despite the fact that one can generate new GAN-generated face pics to one's heart's content, 22 of the images used by this network show up on multiple accounts (@RamonaMoore1 and @PhyllisCave4, for example).
This network does two things: tweet and retweet. Retweets comprise the bulk of its output (95605 of 96809 tweets, 99.4%), and are mostly of music-related content. The network's original tweets are music promotion directed at new followers.
Thus far, this network has (allegedly) posted all of its tweets via the Twitter Web App, with the exception of a single tweet that was somehow sent via the Twitter Web Client (the old version of the Twitter website).
Normally, the timestamps of tweets sent via the Twitter Web App are roughly evenly distributed across all 60 seconds. This is not so with the tweets posted by this network, which were disproportionately sent between 45 and 49 seconds into the minute in which they were tweeted.
One more pattern: the network alternates between high volume 12 hour periods of only retweeting and low volume 12 hour periods of only posting original tweets. The combination of these anomalies suggest the accounts are automated, despite tweeting via the Twitter Web App.
We saw a network very similar to this back in May 2021. (All the accounts in the previous network are now suspended.)
Update: a few people replied to this thread indicating that they had received DMs from accounts in this network. For science, we had @DrunkAlexJones follow a few of the accounts, and indeed received a bunch of very similar-looking DMs promoting music.
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.