Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Data Scientist/Musician/Participant in the General Confusion @trutherbotprop Resist autocracy and research/counter disinformation. I serve the realm.
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Oct 18 7 tweets 4 min read
None of these chefs exist, as they're all AI-generated images. This hasn't stopped them from racking up lots of engagement on Facebook by posting AI-generated images of food (and occasional thoughts and prayers), however.

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 11 AI-generated images of chefs, presently being used as the avatars of Facebook accounts These "chefs" are part of a network of 18 Facebook pages with names like "Cook Fastly" and "Emily Recipes" that continually post AI-generated images of food. While many of these pages claim to be US-based, they are have admins in Morocco per Facebook's Page Transparency feature. collage of the profiles of 18 Facebook "chef" pages that post AI-generated images of food
screenshots of Facebook page transparency info showing that the pages are run from Morocco
Sep 8 5 tweets 3 min read
Can simple text generation bots keep sophisticated LLM chatbots like ChatGPT engaged indefinitely? The answer is yes, which has some potentially interesting implications for distinguishing between conversational chatbots and humans.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
conspirator0.substack.com/p/baiting-the-…
screenshot of Substack post For this experiment, four simple chatbots were created:

• a bot that asks the same question over and over
• a bot that replies with random fragments of a work of fiction
• a bot that asks randomly generated questions
• a bot that repeatedly asks "what do you mean by <X>?"
Sep 3 4 tweets 2 min read
The spammers behind the "Barndominium Gallery" Facebook page have branched out into AI-generated video and started a YouTube channel with the catchy name "AY CUSTOM HOME". The results are just about as craptastic as you'd expect.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
screenshot of the AY CUSTOM HOME Youtube channel In this synthetically generated aerial video of a (nonexistent) barndominium under construction, the geometry of the roof changes, a blue building appears, and a tree vanishes, all in the course of just three seconds. still images from two different points in an AY CUSTOM HOME YouTube video, showing multiple impossible changes over the course of a few seconds
Aug 28 5 tweets 3 min read
Some observations regarding @Botted_Likes (permanent ID 1459592225952649221)...

First, "viral posts which don't result in follower growth and have very little engagement in the reply section" is not a useful heuristic for detecting botted likes. Why not?

cc: @ZellaQuixote screenshot of @Botted_Likes's profile with the text "THIS IS NOT AN EFFECTIVE METHOD OF DETECTING POSTS WITH BOTTED LIKES" overlaid in Comic Sans "Viral posts that do not result in follower growth" is not a valid test for botting, because posts from large accounts often go viral among the large account's existing followers but do not reach other audiences, resulting in high like/repost counts but little/no follower growth.
Aug 20 11 tweets 6 min read
A new account named @kamala_wins47 has racked up 56K followers in just three weeks, and is now claiming to be affiliated with the DNC.

In reality, this account appears to be nothing more than the latest version of a banned T-shirt spam account, @emywinst.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
screenshots of @kamala_wins47's profile and an August 19th post claiming affiliation with the DNC As with the banned @emywinst account, the @kamala_wins47 account farms engagement by reposting other people's videos, accompanied by bogus claims that the videos have been deleted from Twitter. These video posts frequently garner massive view counts.

screenshots of video posts from @kamala_wins47 falsely claiming that the videos therein have been deleted from Twitter
Aug 5 6 tweets 3 min read
What's up with all these similarly-worded enthusiastic posts about a Pierre Poilievre rally in Kirkland Lake, and are they all from accounts that are less than a month old? (Spoiler: yes, they are.) #Spamtastic

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 15 similarly-worded posts about the Pierre Poilievre rally in Kirkland Lake An X search for "Pierre Poilievre", "Kirkland Lake", and "refreshing" performed on August 4th, 2024 turned up 151 posts from 151 accounts. All are new accounts, with the oldest having been created less than a month ago, on July 7th, 2024. (Some have since been suspended by X.)
histogram of account creation dates for the 151 spam accounts
collage of the profile images of the 151 accounts
Jul 20 4 tweets 2 min read
Here's a look at how Community Notes handled misinformation regarding the Trump rally shooting. Short version: it's a mixed bag.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
conspirator0.substack.com/p/community-no…
screenshot of Substack post header THE GOOD:

• Community Notes successfully placed fact checks on some of the most viral false posts about the shooting
• ~42% of noted posts were subsequently deleted by their authors
• An effort to spread a misidentification of the shooter via Community Notes failed screenshot of three attempts by user Notable Grass Eagle to insert false Community Notes regarding the shooter's identity
May 29 12 tweets 5 min read
12 questions for @TheDailyBeast regarding @JakeLahut's false April 2023 story, "How Ron DeSantis Is Taking a Page Out of Nixon’s Playbook", which (among other things) falsely portrays an AI-generated face as a "sexually graphic meme" of a real child.

@JoannaColes @TracyConnor
four paragraphs from The Daily Beast containing a bizarre false anecdote about a "sexual meme" of a child (actually a GAN-generated face)
a GAN-generated face from thispersondoesnotexist.com that resembles a male child
First, some background and a couple debunks of the false article, for those unfamiliar with the situation:


conspirator0.substack.com/p/the-bot-farm…
medium.com/@EJGibney/how-…
Jan 25 14 tweets 5 min read
Meet @LovewinnLove (permanent ID 2707213009), a blue-check verified account with a GAN-generated face and a few additional odd characteristics. Despite being created in 2014, this account has no posts prior to October 2023.

cc: @ZellaQuixote screenshot of @LovewinnLove's profile, showing the account was created in 2014, and search results showing no posts from the account prior to October 10th, 2023 There are multiple indicators that @LovewinnLove's "face" is GAN-generated:

• unrealistic teeth (visible portion of bottom teeth is especially bizarre)
• odd texturing and seams in shirt fabric
• telltale eye positioning (more info in next post) @LovewinnLove's profile image, a GAN-generated face
Dec 31, 2023 11 tweets 6 min read
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 collage of 10 replies containing variations on "politics enthusiast" from accounts that use GAN-generated faces as avatars 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.
histogram of account creation dates
table of example accounts from the network
Dec 7, 2023 8 tweets 5 min read
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


3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
3 posts containing the same AI-generated image
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.

table of the 24 accounts in the network
screenshots of the profiles of the 12 female-presenting accounts in the network, all created in 2023
screenshots of the profiles of the 12 male-presenting accounts in the network, all created in 2013 or earlier
Sep 1, 2023 9 tweets 5 min read
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 screenshot of @ImJamesMiller's profile, screenshot of tweeterid.com lookup showing @ImJamesMiller's permanent ID, and closeup of @ImJamesMiller's profile image, a GAN-generated face 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.

web.archive.org/web/2023062319…
screenshot of wayback machine archive
Aug 27, 2023 6 tweets 3 min read
It's a great day to look at a network of Bluesky spam accounts with randomized names. #SundaySpam

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 16 bluesky accounts with random adjective + noun names 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. histogram of account creation dates for the 401 accounts in the network, all created in August 2023
Jun 18, 2023 7 tweets 5 min read
This #FathersDay2023 tweet from @PaulFox50854324 has gone somewhat viral, but both @PaulFox50854324's profile image and the alleged image of the neighbor's son are GAN-generated faces.

cc: @ZellaQuixote Image More on GAN-generated faces and their use on Twitter here:

Tips on recognizing GAN-generated faces here:
Jun 4, 2023 5 tweets 4 min read
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.

cc: @ZellaQuixote screenshots of @thisisorang...follow order by creation da... 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.
Jun 3, 2023 9 tweets 7 min read
If your interests include OnlyFans, pro-China propaganda, and social media accounts with artificially generated faces, then this is the botnet for you. (There's also cryptocurrency spam involved because of course there is.) #FridayShenaniGANs

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of "onlyfans l...collage of Chinese tweets a... This network consists of (at least) 1627 Twitter accounts created between April 30th and May 20th, 2023. All of them follow at least two of the following accounts: @AoTJewels, @BlackYellow, @Fenerbahce, and @elonmusk ,and tweet via Twitter for Android or the Twitter Web App. table of 30 example account...histogram of account creati...hourly tweet volume by sour...
May 13, 2023 6 tweets 4 min read
It's a Saturday in May, and a reply spam network is busy spamming people's replies with extremely similar tweets encouraging them to log into an obscure website with supplied login credentials. (The login info is the same in every reply.)

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 18 replies conta... The website promoted by the spam accounts (uu55111 dot com) describes itself as a "financial income platform" and claims to offer various crypto-related financial services. Needless to say, obscure financial websites promoted by spam networks should be approached with distrust. screenshot of uu55111 dot com
May 8, 2023 6 tweets 6 min read
It's a great day to look at a network of mutually interacting Twitter accounts that use TweetDeck to amplify one another's content, most (but not all) of which is Florida-related. #FloridaSpam

cc: @ZellaQuixote screenshots of the retweets... This network consists of seven accounts with similar tweet schedules and a focus on Florida that tweet the vast majority of their tweets via TweetDeck: @4_sarasota, @CalendarMad, @CapitalTales, @FreshStarSrq, @PublicGood2050, @TwartVader, and @lakesarasota. table of the seven accounts...tweet schedule plots for ea...weekly tweet volume by sour...
Apr 16, 2023 6 tweets 5 min read
Popular chatbot ChatGPT will sometimes return error messages when asked to produce offensive content. If you're a spam network operator who uses ChatGPT to generate spam and you're not paying attention, these messages will show up in the spam you generate.

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 12 tweets with t... This spam network consists of (at least) 59645 Twitter accounts, mostly created between 2010 and 2016. All of their recent tweets were sent via the Twitter Web App. Some accounts have old unrelated tweets followed by a multi-year gap, which suggests they were hijacked/purchased. histogram of account creati...table of 30 example account...hourly tweet volume by sour...monthly tweet volume by sou...
Apr 14, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
If you're someone with integrity at @thedailybeast, this is a good time to give the public a look at what's going on behind the scenes and why an article containing demonstrable falsehoods and harassment from a known cyberstalker is still on your website. Given the amount of time that has passed, the degree of pushback, and the repeated debunking of the article's primary source and elements, there is no scenario in which this is innocent. Someone at The Daily Beast is 100% aware the article is false and is keeping it up anyway.
Apr 12, 2023 33 tweets 14 min read
For the record, I have NEVER participated in any "online harassment campaigns" directed at opponents of Ron Desantis or anyone else.

I look forward to an immediate retraction from @TheDailyBeast of this false and defamatory reporting.
Image The author of this article, @JakeLahut, did not reach out to me before publishing false claims that I participate in "online harassment campaigns". If he had, I would have told him the claims were lies that originated with a pair of pathological liars.