Thread by @marcowenjones

🧵🚨Discovered hundreds of sock puppets promoting Israeli propaganda on X, Threads, FB & Insta. It also includes 'fake' websites. Recently, it has been spreading anti-UNRWA #disinformation, & trying to undermine solidarity between Palestinians & Black people. #Gaza

Analysis 👉

2/ A few people noticed that influential accounts writing about Gaza were getting replies with people linking a @WSJ article about an Israeli 'intelligence' report claiming 10% of UNRWA staff have links to Hamas. One of the authors of the WSJ was a former IDF soldier.

3/ You may have noticed that the wording of the tweets was very similar. All of them focused on the '10%' figure. All of them uncritically embraced the 10% figure of UNRWA employees being 'linked' to Hamas.

Bots gonna bot

#disinformation

4/ I counted at least 81 sock puppet accounts. Most of them include stolen photos. There's 'Morris Roger', who appears to have stolen a photo from an American by the name of Jason Farr. 'Kyle Torres' is actually using the photo of a young Les Mis actor who tragically died in 2015!

5/ Most of the accounts in the network were created on 25th September 2023. It's probably a for hire sock puppet network, as most became active somewhat later than September. The below graph shows a spike in accounts created on Sept 25. Thanks @nodexl #disinformation

6/ Some of you may have noticed the network was promoting the WSJ article, but they were also promoting screenshots of the WSJ article shared by three accounts 'Unfold Magazine', 'The Moral Alliance' and 'Non Agenda'.

But what are these? #disinformation

7/ Well, they market themselves as news sources and magazines. Unfold Magazine is apparently a 'premier source for news and stories from Israel and the vibrant tapestry of the Jewish world', Non-agenda (lol) is a 'non-partisan, non-binary, non-conforming' outlet apparently.

8/ A reverse IP look -up shows that Unfold Magazine and Non-Agenda are linked. Both are hosted on the same web server and both were created in November 2023. This is despite them not being ostensibly connected - classic 'front' website's. #disinformation

9/ But what's really bizarre is that their original content focuses on the relationship between Jewish people and the civil rights movement. You can see some of the headlines in the slide below, e.g. "The role of Jews in the Civil Rights Movement'.

10/ The articles about the cooperation between the civil rights movements are being boosted by other sock puppets. Here you can see on X how 371 accounts liked the tweet from 'non-agenda' sharing the 'original content' about the civil rights movement and Jewish solidarity.

11/ Fake accounts in the network have also tried to drive a wedge between Black people & Palestinians. In this example (left), Powell Gregory is talking about Hamas targeting an 'African student from Tanzania', using the BLM hashtag. On the right are replies by more sock puppets

12/ In addition to trying to undermine solidarity coalitions, the network has generally focused on promoting specific Israel-aligned narratives. All of 'non agenda' is dedicated to stories about Hamas, Palestine, and the new Axis of Evil (Iran, Russia, China, Hamas).

13/ Non-agenda is the most active on social media and on its website. It has over 12k followers on Instagram, and over 6k followers on Facebook, with over 9k on X. It also has a presence on Threads, with over 9k followers!

14/ Its Facebook account shows a lot of engagement, but a lot of it is clearly astroturfing (fake engagement). Look at all the comments on this post - which has 1.5k likes! They are sockpuppets, with many focusing on criticizing Russia and Iran. #disinformation

15/ Despite that, some are also repeating narratives that have been important in trying to smear pro-Palestinian activists in the US. For example, this response to the non-agenda FB post talks about walking around on campus in fear.

16/ Non-agenda's account on Instagram gets a lot of engagement for a new account. They have created a few images and a reel. You can see the reel below about the Hamas attack on Oct 7th, and the 'Axis of Evil'. It's clearly not written by a native English speaker

17/ In the past, the network has rallied around certain pro-Israel narratives. It often retweets Visegrad24 (🤮), & shared a lot of content criticizing Ivy League schools during the McCarthy trials of late 2023. Another example is directing criticism to Egypt for not opening its border

18/ Whoever is running the influence operation has access to hundreds, likely thousands of assets across platforms. The 81 images below are from a subset of the more active elements of the network, but as I mentioned, hundreds of bots are also amplifying these accounts.

19/ While the influence operation is clearly aligned with Israel, it also seems more broadly focusing on attacking Iran, Russia China and Political Islam. It is relatively crude, so I'm amazed (not) it hasn't been suspended yet by X or Meta. #disinformation #gaza

20/ TLDR: Massive cross platform pro-Israel deception operation currently trying to smear and attack UNRWA as Israel seeks to get it defunded. The network uses fake websites, bots, sockpuppets and stolen photos to try and target influencers with anti-UNRWA disinfo #Gaza #disinfo

21/ That's it for now, but I might try and do some further network analysis on the sockpuppets to see their broader behavior!

@threadreaderapp unroll

22/ You can read the thread on substack open.substack.com/pub/marcowenjo…

23: This campaign has subsequently been linked to the Israeli firm STOIC, who ran the operation. It was also paid for by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs. nytimes.com/2024/06/05/tec…