A coordinated network of fake accounts posed as Sikh personas to promote the Indian Govt, nationalism & label Sikh activists as terrorists.

They claimed they were #RealSikhs, but were far from it. News on our investigation: bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi… Here is an explainer thread👇
What we know is that their aims were to label Sikh political interests as extremist, stoke cultural tensions within India & overseas & promote the Indian Govt.

So WHO are the #RealSikhs?
WHAT was their aim?
And HOW did they attempt to distort perceptions?
First, WHO were these accounts trying to be and what did they look like?

The accounts were well-curated. They had relatively high follower numbers & were very active.

The personas were replicated across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Let's take a look at some of the accounts. The first pattern identified in this network is the profile images.

Most of the accounts in this network used the images of Bollywood actresses & celebrities.

Here is @jimmykaur3. It's actually an image of an actress.
Here is @Amarjot42854873? Again - fake. This person does exist and it's not Amarjot Kaur.
Next up @TanvirSandhu16. Again, also fake. This is actually an image of Isha Rikhi.
Let's take a look at @nupurkaur1. This is actually a photo of the sister of Mubashra Aslam.
Are we seeing a pattern here?

Here is @kaurgunjann with more than 7000 followers.

This is actually actress Mandy Takhar.
I call these accounts sock puppets. They are fictitious online identities attempting to be a specific persona.

And these ones have a story that doesn't just exist on Twitter - let's take a look.
These fake accounts carry their personas over to different platforms.

We found that 22 accounts that were the same personas on Twitter & Facebook. They used the same image, name, cover photo, and posted the same content.
Here is an example of 'Sanpreet' on both platforms.
And here is 'Gunjan' - also copied across to Facebook.
Many of the personas were present on Instagram as well.

Note: the accounts had significantly less success with metrics on Instagram and Facebook in comparison to the traction they gained on Twitter.
So WHAT was their aim?

We can glean some obvious details from the content the accounts post. Here is some of the Facebook activity we looked at. It shows a strong focus on countering Sikh independence. Note the prominence of tags such as #PakistanBehindKhalistan
That same tag, as seen on Twitter, shows extremely similar content. Again targeting Sikh independence.

You can see much of the content had few interactions.
However, some of the content gained significant traction. For example this tweet about independence groups overseas received more than 3000 retweets and 16,000 likes.

Not bad for a sock puppet with a set list of talking points to promote certain narratives.
The coordinated fake network also amplified concerning narratives that attempted to define what 'real Sikh' and a 'fake Sikh' is.
The fake network of accounts also attempted to push specific narratives about the farmers' protests using messaging claiming that ‘Khalistani terrorists’ hijacked the protests.
There was also a common theme throughout the network of fake personas to retweet or tweet about the Indian Armed Forces and Indian Army content.

This content was unique as it was not related to Sikh independence much like the other content.
While most of the content appears to push specific talking points, or narratives, some tweets (example below) went further in a call for 'nationalists' to 'counter & expose' groups this network labelled as extremists.
While the fake personas appeared to gain significant traction on Twitter, their tweets and images were also linked, embedded, or reposted on news sites and blogs indicating platform breakout.

Below are two examples of this.
Often with influence operations, looking at a network through visualised data helps with a lot of things - namely identifying how it operates, size, spread and also finding more accounts.

So let's take a look at that.
I captured data using the Twitter API on three tags used by the network: #RealSikhsAgainstKhalistan, #SikhsRejectKhalistan & #RealSikhs.

I've set out that data using @Gephi to show the core network of primarily fake accounts and the wider network of amplifiers in the outer ring.
Doing helps to visualise the interactions (likes, retweets) between accounts.

For example, here I have highlighted the interactions of @SimranK60419840 to show its personal spread within the network.
Though the captured activity was only a sample of these accounts, it did show that there was consistent amplification from smaller fake accounts (on right in inner circle).

Using those accounts on the right, we could find more that were being retweeted within the fake network
These findings are documented in a full transparent influence operations research report here @Cen4infoRes: info-res.org/post/revealed-…

This report was shared with teams at Twitter and Meta. All of the accounts identified in this research have subsequently been suspended 👊
Well done @FloraCarmichael @shrutimenon10 for turning this in-depth influence operations research into a newsworthy report. bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi…. Also a big thanks to @elisethoma5 and staff at @Cen4infoRes for reviewing this research.
For those wanting to view this piece in other languages, here are the translated versions from the BBC.
Punjabi bbc.com/punjabi/india-…
Urdu bbc.com/urdu/regional-…
Gujaratihttps://www.bbc.com/gujarati/india-59388510
Hindi bbc.com/hindi/india-59…
Telugu bbc.com/telugu/india-5…

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More from @BenDoBrown

25 Oct
There appears to be an internet blackout in Sudan today after members of the government were arrested during a military coup. @netblocks
Sudan is back on the streets in protest against the coup and the arrest of leaders, including PM Hamdock.

This footage is from Omdurman, near Khartoum #SudanUprising.
Here is a thread from my friend @Drsalmaa detailing who was detained, as well as reports of the Rapid Support Forces deployed in Khartoum (the same group responsible for a massacre in June 2019).
Read 16 tweets
17 Apr
The tag #Remove1991WorshipAct is trending in India today. In fact, it was sitting at #3 in the country a few hours ago.

There's a campaign pushing a specific narrative behind it in a very coordinated way.

Let's take a look at how it works👇 /1
The campaign is first circulated around in a WhatsApp message like this.

It has a directive, time, and a Google Drive link. If you're new to Indian social media campaigns - this is common practice to amplify specific issues, especially during elections. 2/
In the Google Drive is a few documents with lists of suggested tweet texts in English & Hindi.

What's interesting is that there's also a 'click to tweet' option, which fills out a tweet by clicking on the link. So it's not really copy and paste anymore, but click and click. 3/
Read 6 tweets
14 Mar
It’s been six weeks since the Myanmar coup. Despite deaths, violence by security forces, internet shutdowns and night raids, demonstrators brave the streets. This was Hledan, Yangon, last night ✊
For the 31st night in a row the internet has been cut in Myanmar. That, and cell networks have now been offline for two days - @netblocks reports. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar Image
Well-timed satellite image on Google Earth 13/2 of the demonstration in front of the City Hall in Yangon (ရန်ကုန်). Note the military transport tucked behind the trees on the right, on standby. Location: goo.gl/maps/FTqA35dC9…. ImageImage
Read 26 tweets
19 Feb
An influence operation was waged online yesterday to amplify pro-BJP text in the #AmitShahInBengal tag, attack opposition, and win over Indian voters. Full report: benjaminstrick.com/inside-an-infl…

This forensic thread details 🧵👇
- HOW it was done
- HOW it spread
- WHO runs them
1. HOW WAS THIS OPERATION CARRIED OUT?

Yesterday morning I came across these tweets, and was sent these WhatsApp messages from contacts in India.

What are they? They're links to a Google Drive, containing suggested tweets and graphics to use. Let's have a closer peek.
Here is the Google Drive with a Google Document containing text packets of suggested tweets, and a folder with images for the network to pump out through Twitter.
Read 24 tweets
17 Feb
Facebook just announced it will restrict publishers and users in Australia from sharing or viewing news content.

Here's the breakdown of what that entails 👇
about.fb.com/news/2021/02/c… Image
Also an important point. It's not just Australia. The restriction is international, on Australian news publishers.

"Globally, posting and sharing news links from Australian publishers is also restricted".

That will be crippling. Image
Oh no! They got the Albany Advertiser Facebook page!

I did my cadetship here in 2009. A great community-based newspaper. It's just one of the many Facebook pages that have become a staple for media in Australia that are now cleared. ImageImage
Read 7 tweets
31 Jan
Here we go again. Pro-BJP networks are again targeting West Bengali politics using copy and paste text packets to spam the tag #BJPGorbeSonarBangla.

CC @TwitterSafety
The copy and paste (copypasta) network is getting its text packets from this Google document. The tweets are in English, Hindi and Bangla.

Thank you to those who sent this through to me. It's an effective campaign to influence the topic of the coming elections.
The size of this sort of influence network? Well... I've just been collecting tweets under tag #BJPGorbeSonarBangla over the past 15 minutes. So far I've raked in 1789 tweets and growing 😅

Here's a visualisation of the main strand. The large nodes are: @AmitShah and @BJP4India
Read 5 tweets

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