Marc Owen Jones Profile picture
Aug 4, 2024 18 tweets 7 min read Read on X
1/ 🧵Just did a network analysis of the "far right thugs unite" hashtag. It largely seems to be a simulated scandal/outrage to promote the Reform Party and Nigel Farage and - while also being an attack on Keir Starmer. Image
2) The campaign is ostensibly a reaction to Starmer saying that the recent riots have been conducted by a 'tiny minority' of 'thugs'. He has also blamed the far right, although he never used the term 'far right thugs'. In fact, as we'll see later, this term was used by Farage. Image
3/ Starmer is the largest node in the network as many people are tagging him to express solidarity with the 'far right'. This is based on the false accusation that Starmer somehow called 'ordinary brits' far right thugs - which he didn't. #disinformation Image
4/ Weirdly now, it's led to people claiming to be in solidarity with the 'far right'. Indeed, the narrative almost seems to be trying to normalise the term 'far right', and make it synonymous with 'average Reform voter'
5/ An analysis of the biographies of the accounts tweeting on the hashtag reveals something interesting. Most are pro-Reform accounts. The most common biographical term is in fact 'Reform'. (Woke is there but only in the context of 'anti-woke'
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6/ The first known example of the trend came from a pro Reform account, who pasted a weird message that looks like a network-building attempt, "Apparently I’m a ‘Far Right Thug’ I want to follow fellow ‘Far Right Thuggish’ ordinary UK citizens Please, like, repost and follow❤️"
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7/ The same account also mentioned something that seemed like the underlying message of this campaign "anyone centrist is a mindless far right thug, apparently". Again, it seems like an attempt to create the idea that Starmer was calling ordinary citizens far right thugs Image
8/ Another bizarre element to this is that the majority of the content on the hashtag in terms of impressions is copy and paste. The copy and paste messages constitute 66% of all impressions. Image
9/ What's weird, it's not clear who told them to copy and paste.Why do people not just retweet. Is it normal behaviour to automatically copy and paste a message and post it? These copy and paste message got lots of impressions, despite the accounts not having that many followers Image
10/ Another interesting element is that the account with the most impressions on this hashtag is ReformUK member, @TalkTV Host, and former employee of Cambridge Analytica's parent company SCL Group @ThatAlexWoman (Alexandra Philips) Image
11/ Again this sequencing of tweets shows how many of those getting lots of impressions were simply copy and pasting the same content. Here you can see the green dot, which is Alexandra Philips. Image
12/ Another Reform element of this campaign was that although @nigel_Farage did not tweet the hashtag, his video directed at Keir Starmer was one of the most important nodes within the network.
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13/ In the video Farage falsely suggests that Starmer is blaming everything on the far right 'His Conclusion, is very simple, it's all the Far Right'. He goes on to justify the existence of the far right as a response to fear, discomfort and unease shared by 'tens of millions' Image
14/ Ironically, Farage also uses the term 'far right thugs' in this. But ultimately Farage is attempting to suggest Starmer is branding non-violent right-leaning voters as 'far right thugs' - which Starmer did not do. It's effectively an anti-Starmer disinfo campaign designed
15/ to falsely create a grievance and scandal. The copy and paste tweets, and huge engagement, look like an organized campaign. It's also an attempt to reposition those who support or endorse the violence as victims of a labour smear.
16/ If I didn't know better I would say this is a crafted campaign designed to help ReformUK deflect from the right-wing nature of the current violence by trying to reframe it as a Labour failure and Starmer attack on 'White British' values.
- Not all bad though - Someone created Starmer in a pride Abaya and Hijab. Deranged. Image
Also strange accounts like this. Joined in May 2023 but only 5 spammy TEMU tweets and then a tweet about "far right thugs unite" with what looks like an AI generated headshot #disinformation
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More from @marcowenjones

Oct 15
🧵1/🚨AI is learning Israel's disinformation.

On 13/08, a fake quote attributed to Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya circulated on X:

“The countdown to the next massacre has begun. Next time we will slaughter all the Jews"

It was debunked, but Gemini later stated it as fact > Image
2/ Firstly, this super sus account was the first I could find spreading the rumour on X (7.49 am UK time 13/08). @RonanMark572778 - whoever this 'pilot and physician' is has sent >113k tweets since July 2023. He also has a verified account (rememeber verification = algo boost). Image
3/ The narrative then was picked up on X by other accounts and influencers, changing ever so slightly. Accounts like @FleurHassanN @thevoicetruth1 (lol) got a lot of engagement and 'legitimised' the rumour.

NOTE: Not one of these accounts is providing a source to the quote. Image
Read 15 tweets
Oct 6
🧵🚨1/ This verified X account posing as an American doctor has been spreading pro-Israel propaganda, justifying the killing of journalists, and posting predominantly anti–Sudanese Armed Forces content. The account is fake.>
#disinformation #gazagenocide #Sudan Image
2/ The first clear red flags are the tweets versus creation date ratio.

The account was created in 2009, but has only tweeted 1090 times, and the first of those was on April 2025. This means the account has been appropriated/hacked/bought and its old tweets scrubbed. Image
3/ I located the unique user id of the account. I ran this user id via the botometer archive of bots and it tells me that in February 2023 the account was called 'sitaramks', not 'nate_jone' Image
Read 15 tweets
Oct 6
1/ Propaganda botnet alert! About 50 accounts, tweeting in English & Arabic, have pushed out thousands of posts about #Sudan’s war over the past few months. Almost all certainly using genAI, all pushing a pro-UAE, anti-SAF & anti Muslim (Brotherhood) narrative. #disinformation Image
2/ They all follow the same script:

> Blame Burhan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Muslim Brotherhood for Sudan’s suffering.
> Praise the UAE for “stability” and “humanitarian aid.”
> Wrap it all in moral language about peace, tolerance, and unity. Image
3/ Much of the phrasing is synthetic: with odd, weird idioms, and em dashes. Classic traces of Chat GPT or another LLM agent. The slogans repeat across accounts:

e.g. “Brotherhood’s Butler”, “Brotherhood in Uniform”, “Ministry of Brotherhood Enforcement”, "Sudan bleeds" Image
Read 14 tweets
May 22
🤖 1/ Ok this is pretty wild. I saw some sus pro-Israel astroturfing activity on a BBCNews Facebook post about aid arriving in Gaza. Lots of Hasbara comments like "Hamas will take the aid". The following 2 identical posts were side by side so I looked into it. #disinformation Image
2/ Specifically I looked at Dean O' Connor. Firstly up, there were two almost identical Dean O'connor pages, both created on consecutive days last week (15 + 16 May). The one that posted is the one on the right. Image
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3/ When I reverse image searched the picture I was inundated with dozens of pages from forums about romance scams asking about people using this same picture. A lot of people scammed out of thousands. Someone even asked on Quora about O'Connor! Image
Read 7 tweets
May 15
Macron Cocaine Thread/ - The first 10 hours of the @EmmanuelMacron @Keir_Starmer @ZelenskyyUa Cocaine disinformation.

Seemed to be promoted initially by a few dubious accounts like @Veritiste @SitgesFranck @99percentyouth @SilentlySirs @goddeketal

#disinformation Image
2/ Before being boosted by the right-wing ecosystem and conspiracy accounts e.g. @DineshDSouza @RealAlexJones @CollinRugg. No serious journalists reported this story (because it's absurd). Nonetheless, those tweeting in the first 10 hours generated over 103 million views on X! Image
3/ The boosting of the info by Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev was via Alex Jones, who as the above timeline shows - wasn't the first to put it out on X - but the most widely viewed. Image
Read 4 tweets
Apr 29
🚨1/ Fake News Alert: A number of accounts are spreading false information that a church in #Wales was burned down by two Pakistan migrants/muslims. There are other narratives, but this is the dominant one. It is false but has obtained millions of views. some data> #disinfo Image
2/ It is true that a church did burn down. It was set alight by two local teenagers. The South Wales police have tweeted that other rumours circulating are false - they are of course talking about the false info about the ethnicity of the attackers (right). Image
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3/ The most shared claim comes from 'RadioEuropes'. This is a 'Dysinfluencer' account - an account that repeatedly spreads false and malicious information - in this case xenophobic and anti-Muslim content. You can see its false tweet garnered over 3.6 million views Image
Read 12 tweets

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