1/ Prepare for the pedophile #propaganda, it is coming out in full force (again). This blog post by @AdinaF2boys being shared by some on Twitter is stating that Putin is bombing a Biden owned villa in #Ukraine and hammering paedophile rings. She refers to Biden as 'Pedo Joe'.
2/ I came across an interesting Spanish language newsite called @DigitalSevilla . It also published a story about Zelensky releasing paedophiles to fight the Russian army. Rather than being purely batshit, it's based on a real story about soldiers imprisoned for child pornography
3/ However it was interesting that it decided to frame the news as Zelensky 'releasing paedophiles', as if it were specifically them, not just those with military experience. The newsite does have a distinctly pro-Russian slant . See below > I wonder if any Spanish journalists
4/ Know more about it. There isn't much information on the website about who runs the operation. It looks like one of those front news sites, although has a substantial following on Twitter, and some on Facebook (though not much engagement). #UkraineRussianWar
5/ Of course the paedophile narratives are going to suck in QAnon conspiracy theorists and their ilk more so than they were already. With Trump already praising Putin, expect Putin's image as a saviour of trafficked kids to get a boost. #disinformation
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Thread / Major pro-Putin troll klaxon reveal! Some of you who read my thread the other day will remember one of the most influential tweets on the 'i stand with putin' hashtag. It was by @Dr_Adhira and had +12k likes & +5k RTs
2/ 'Her' tweet was unequovical support for Putin. She also called Zelensky a clown. So strong words. At the time I said her profile picture looked like a stock photo, but could not confirm it.
Thread 1/ Important update on platform manipulation. Yesterday, Twitter announced they had banned over 100 accounts that pushed the 'I stand with Putin' hashtag 🥳. However, we can prove they missed many low hanging bots nbcnews.com/tech/internet/… #UkraineRussianWar #disinformation
2/ If you remember from the other day I highlighted this cluster of bots. There are approximately 149 accounts here. These are all hacked accounts that used to belong to real people.
3/ As you can see, they are real accounts, with diverse creation dates, profiles and bios. These indicators of authenticity probably make it harder for Twitter to automatically detect them.
🧵Thread 1/ OK, so we need to talk about Kevin (well, Steve Kevin)! Stand aside #TinderSwindler, meet the pro-Putin #TwitterSwindler. This is a thread about the wild crossover of romance scams & pro-Kremlin soc media propaganda
2/ Steve has it all. A doctor who specializes in elbows, knee, all the joints, and erm, low [sic] back. He obviously loves kids, adults and erm, 'teen'. Oh yeah, he also loves Putin, and despite being an American (methinks), his English ain't so hot.
Thread 1/ Small update. On the hashtags 'I stand with Putin' and 'I stand with Russia', a new bot network has joined the fray. I have marked the cluster below. There are approx 100 bots in this cluster #UkraineRussianWar#disinformation
2/ All the accounts tweet from Twitter Web App, and use appropriated accounts (sock puppets). Their modus operandi is to retweet a few central accounts that are, appropriately, services that offer fake followers, fake retweets etc #UkraineRussianWar
3/ The sockpuppets were real people whose accounts were hacked/sold. They come from everywhere. @VickiCotters for example, a British woman, who is now tweeting in Arabic. Her old tweets are still visible (there are photos but I won't include them). #UkraineUnderAttack
Thread 1/ This is a thread on pro-Russian propaganda & #disinformation. I analysed the hashtags "i stand with Putin" & "i stand with Russia'. I analysed around 20,000 Twitter interactions involving 9600 unique accounts
2/ The network graph shows Twitter accounts interacting. The nodes represent individual accounts, the lines between them tweets, RTs replies etc. Different colours are different communities (accounts that tend to interact with one another more) #UkraineRussiaWar#Ukraine
3/ Below. You can see three distinct clusters.
Cluster 1 (left) accounts that seem to support the hashtag (pro Putin and Russia)
Cluster 2 (middle) = accounts criticising the hashtag
Cluster 3 (bottom) = accounts and bots spamming hashtag and thus boosting it #UkraineRussianWar
[Thread] This is a short analysis of textbook war propaganda, mostly taken from Russian state-controlled media RT and Sputnik
1) First up, don't mention the war! Well almost, Russian websites don't like the term 'invasion', preferring 'special military operation' #Ukraine
2] Emphasise your own military prowess, and attempt to demoralise enemy by emphasizing their losses or weakness. Talk of their 'surrender' or lack of fighting spirit. This gives the idea that resistance is futile #Ukraine
3] After killing civilians make sure you emphasise that you never kill civilians, and that your weapons use those special explosives that only harm military infrastructure. (When this fails, you can claim opposition are using human shields) #UkraineInvasion