#inauthentic — Public Fediverse posts

#Attacks on #Yandex #datacentres in Sasovo and Vladimir caused sharp #declines in #inauthentic #accountactivity on #Facebook and #Telegram on 8 and 12 October 2026. Activity recovered after partial damage in Kaluga. https://cpd.gov.ua/en/report/analytical-report-when-bots-go-silent-what-the-strikes-on-yandex-data-centers-affected/?eicker.news #tech #news #ainews

🧑‍💻📲📲🧑‍💻 ARTE just released its documentary on the "phone farm" phenomenon in Vietnam: industrial-scale online astroturfing enabled by specialized software providers and a market in hacked/boilerplate accounts. It features my and @marcowenjones' findings from our investigation last year of an influence operation that employed one of these outfits.
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjW-jdKpsw8 (👀 13:37)

#infops #phoneFarms #Vietnam #inauthentic #astroturfing #OSINT #TheQatarPlot #Meta #Facebook #platforms #socialMedia

🕵️🗯🔁🧑‍💻 "Replycator" accounts rip content off other accounts and repost as their own while reply spamming, attempting to farm and agitate Western right-wing audiences, including in the UK, while originating in places like India. I present three examples among those I identified and analysed using OSINT.
📑 https://sohandsouza.substack.com/p/spammy-vibes-and-monetized-jibes

#OSINT #SOCMINT #replycator #rightWing #spamming #Xitter #platforms #socialMedia #propaganda #inauthentic #India #UK #grifters #farRight #rightWing #xenophobia

〝The accounts Graphika identified bore many hallmarks of Spamouflage activity, including coordinated posting and sharing content that has previously been linked to the operation. Some accounts occasionally slipped up and posted in Chinese. One account on X, calling itself “Common fireman,” was previously branded as a pro-China media outlet, Graphika said.〞
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/03/nx-s1-5096151/china-tiktok-x-fake-voters-influence-campaign

#TikTok #platforms #disinfo #inauthentic #Spamouflage #China #PRC #America #USA #infops

From @bendobrown: 〝[…] influencers’ photos were not just stolen and repurposed as new online personas but were manipulated to make it look like they were wearing pro-Trump paraphernalia. […] Many of the accounts in the network appeared in 2024, some as recently as this month. At least 15 of the accounts have the blue tick verification badge.〞
https://www.info-res.org/post/unmasking-the-fake-maga-accounts-stolen-photos-and-digital-lies

#disinfo #inauthentic #astroturfing #influencers #Trump #elections #influenceOperation #Xitter #Twitter #socialMedia

🇬🇧🔥🎙 My thoughts on the role of online incentivized inauthentic inflammation of the ongoing UK anti-immigration riots, in an Al Jazeera English #InsideStory panel.
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnSRC1xpLvg

#UK #England #riots #Southport #immigration #propaganda #inauthentic #socialMedia #disinformation #TheQatarPlot

〝Based on software analysis, it appears that the Twitter/X account EndWokeness is likely operated by right-wing political pundit Jack Posobiec.
This is based on the predominance of the pejorative word "schlit", the presence of the polish "ę" and the tweet record of EndWokeness retweeting Jack Posobiec's tweets within one second.〞
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zZeZFs5KLQ

#propaganda #inauthentic #Twitter #influencer #farRight

Google Wins the Gold Medal for Worst Olympic Ad https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/07/google-dear-sydney-olympic-ad/679292/?utm_source=feed #Google #Olympics2024 #advertising #media #AI #Inauthentic #crass

🆕👹🌍🧑‍💻 A vast, costly online influence operation across platforms, popping up in Times Sq and at CPAC '24, employing Vietnamese CIB mercenaries exploiting and spreading xenophobia in the EU (esp. France), the UK, and the US, to attack Qatar. Thanks to @marcowenjones for collab.

https://sites.google.com/view/theqatarplotreport/

#infops #inauthentic #EU #Europe #UK #US #America #France #Qatar #xenophobia #Islamophobia #elections #platforms #socialMedia #OSINT #Facebook #Twitter #Wikipedia #Telegram #TikTok #YouTube

〝The pages were administered from Nigeria, which Meta has previously uncovered as a base of operations for Russian-linked influence efforts.〞

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-01/meta-shuts-down-pro-russian-facebook-pages-in-uk-elections/104045286

#Meta #Facebook #inauthentic #socialMedia #platforms #Kremlin #Russia #propaganda #UK #Britain #elections

〝The content, posted by users with fake identities, has appeared in replies to Mr. Deng’s posts on X, the social platform, as well as the accounts of public schools in their community, where the daughter, who is 16, has been falsely portrayed as a drug user, an arsonist and a prostitute.〞

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/business/china-disinformation-critics-harassment.html

#disinformation #inauthentic #astroturfing #China #PRC #propaganda #overseasChinese #dissidents #platforms

〝Specifically, the AI was provided with some background and a prompt to create several variants of messages expressing the same idea, and those variants were posted within and across accounts. The most direct evidence for this tactic comes from several leaks of the prompt from the AI’s response that were accidentally included in the posts. 〞

https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/mfh_reports/5/

#Rwanda #inauthentic #platforms #media #RwandaClassified #LLMs #ChatGPT #genAI #AI #infops

〝The amplification phases extended beyond X to Facebook, where sponsored posts and ads were created by disposable pages. These Facebook activities aimed to interfere in the elections using deceptive multi-stage URL redirects.〞

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/doppelganger-strikes-back-unveiling-fimi-activities-targeting-european-parliament-elections/

#Doppelganger #Kremlin #Russia #Europe #EU #elections #inauthentic #propaganda

From ISD Global: 〝Before Meta took enforcement action, Patriots Run Project was a network of 26 domains, 10 websites, 15 Facebook pages and 13 linked Facebook groups. […] The only street address linked to PRP is a mailbox at a UPS store in Washington, D.C. Its website offers no information about its leadership, funding or structure.〞

https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/patriots-run-project-network-exposes-metas-transparency-failures/

#inauthentic #politics #elections #America #infops #Meta #Facebook

JUL/02 15:30-17:30 CEST: The European Digital Media Observatory will run training on the new "Information Laundromat" tool, with Bret Schafer and Peter Benzoni

Apply to attend by JUN/24, at [ https://edmo.eu/edmo-news/edmo-online-training-the-information-laundromat/ ]

#laundering #propaganda #OSINT #tools #inauthentic

From @bendobrown: 〝The network identified in this research consists of at least 53 identities and more than 100 accounts across platforms. These accounts attempted to bolster their credibility by using believable Sikh names […]〞

https://www.info-res.org/post/return-of-the-realsikhs-the-fake-network-targeting-sikhs-across-the-world-despite-platform-takedown

#India #socialMedia #infops #inauthentic #CIB #Khalistan

From @DFRLab: 〝The tool also incorporates gaming elements in the form of a scoring system […] This functionality incentivizes the repeated use of the tool to reach daily participation target goals, employing a percentage-based points system that increases after each click until the user reaches their goal and receives a “Hasbara hero” badge.〞

https://dfrlab.org/2024/06/11/online-tool-helps-social-media-accounts-amplify-pro-israel-messages/

#OSINT #inauthentic #socialMedia #Israel #WordsOfIron #propaganda #infops #tech #Hasbara #gamification #crowdsourcing

〝The campaign began in October and remains active on the platform X. At its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments. The accounts focused on U.S. lawmakers, particularly ones who are Black and Democrats […]〞
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/technology/israel-campaign-gaza-social-media.html

#Israel #Gaza #infops #disinformation #America #politics #Twitter #Meta #Facebook #Instagram #inauthentic #astroturfing

Open AI recently revealed that Israeli firm Stoic used AI to generate pro-Israel posts about the Gaza war, targeting Canada, the US, and Israel. Meta removed 510 Facebook and 32 Instagram accounts after the @DFRLab uncovered the network on X.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/05/30/openai-disinfo-influence-operations-china-russia/

#inauthentic #AI #genAI #tech #Israel #Canada #America #Meta #Stoic #OpenAI

From ISD and CASM, a study of identification of Wikipedia sockpuppetry using semantic clustering.
https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/identifying-sock-puppets-on-wikipedia-a-semantic-clustering-approach/

#Wikipedia #Wikimedia #wikis #semantic #crowdsourcing #threatDetection #inauthentic #CIB #sockpuppet

From @DFRLab: 〝On Facebook, Instagram, and X, many accounts engaging with posts by UCC used verbatim or very similar language to amplify posts. Some of these were brief; for example, four accounts on Facebook used the phrase, “OMG can’t believe it!” while commenting on three UCC posts. Two of them also added the same “see no evil” monkey emoji at the start of the comment.〞
https://dfrlab.org/2024/03/28/inauthentic-campaign-amplifying-islamophobic-content-targeting-canadians/

#Canada #propaganda #inauthentic #Sharia #socialMedia

At @DFRLab: 〝At least seventeen of the identified twenty-eight accounts displayed signs of possible inauthenticity, including discrepancies between profile names and URLs, generic photos sourced from elsewhere on the internet, and multiple accounts with similar names.〞

https://dfrlab.org/2024/03/26/suspicious-facebook-assets-bulgarian-mushroom-websites/

#Bulgaria #Kremlin #inauthentic #infops

〝Some had a traditional setup with hundreds of manually operated phones, while others used a newer, compact method called “box farming” — a phrase used by the click farmers Latham visited — where several phones, without screens and batteries, are wired together and linked to a computer interface.〞
https://edition.cnn.com/style/vietnam-farms-jack-latham-beggars-honey/index.html

#Vietnam #clickFarms #socialMedia #tech #boxFarms #inauthentic #internet

DGAP event: 〝Please join us for a deep dive into the shadowy world of troll farms. In this discussion, we will dissect the intricate workings and motivations of these hubs of online manipulation.〞
2024/MAR/15
8:30 am - 9:45 am CET

#disinformation #trollFarms #inauthentic #socialMedia

〝All the outlets use the same WordPress software to build the sites and, as a result, have similar designs.
The outlets have logos and names that evoke a bygone era of American journalism, an effort to create a semblance of authenticity.〞
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/07/business/media/russia-us-news-sites.html

#Russia #America #propaganda #inauthentic #pinkSlime #media #news #PotemkinJournalism

〝The identified accounts exhibited multiple indicators coordinated inauthentic behavior, including overlapping account creation dates; consistent naming conventions; consistent use of stock images; and verbatim or near-identical text, sometimes published within the same minute.〞
https://dfrlab.org/2024/02/14/suspicious-accounts-on-x-amplify-allegations-against-unrwa/

#inauthentic #Israel #Gaza #Hamas #UNRWA #Twitter

From @marcowenjones: «Most of the accounts in the network were created on 25th September 2023. […] most became active somewhat later than September.»

https://marcowenjones.substack.com/p/scoop-massive-sock-puppet-network

#inauthentic #sockPuppetry #Israel #Gaza #war #propaganda #Hasbara

«More than 1m German-language posts were sent from an estimated 50,000 fake accounts, amounting to a rate of two every second. […] the foreign minister, appeared to be declaring from her own account on X that government support for Ukraine was crumbling.»
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/26/germany-unearths-pro-russia-disinformation-campaign-on-x

#disinfo #inauthentic #Russia #Germany #Europe #socialMedia #Ukraine #propaganda

«These accounts often posted the same content within minutes of each other. By looking at the dates when they were created, we also found that many had been set up on the very same day.»
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67803493

#inauthentic #Twitter #Facebook #Uganda #propaganda #politics

〝In recent years, the group has evolved. For instance, it adopted artificial intelligence-generated avatars last year to make their profiles seem more realistic and used deepfake news anchors to share bogus articles, according to Graphika.〞
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-15/pro-chinese-spamouflage-dragon-has-penetrated-social-media

#propaganda #inauthentic #Spamouflage #China #PRC #spam #socialMedia

Based on research by @marcowenjones: a clear division of labour between 22 “generals”, who post the content, and about 1,900 “minions” who amplify the post by liking them. These are divided into cells, so each post by a general is not simply liked by the entire 1,900 army of fakes […]〞
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2023/dec/09/cop-28-global-heating-could-hit-3c-warn-politicians-as-climate-summit-continues?page=with:block-65743ff88f08782fbd9a5f8b#block-65743ff88f08782fbd9a5f8b

#disinformation #inauthentic #UAE #COP28 #greenwashing #astroturfing

@mastodonmigration 👇🏼

Chaos reigns after Twitter’s blue checks vanish

https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/20/chaos-reigns-after-twitters-blue-checks-vanish

#PayForPlay #inauthentic #bs #Twitter

Because everyone can set up their own :mastodon: #server/ #instance, we're going to find #inauthentic/ #fake accounts. Pay attention to
1) what they have in the description
2) if they have green self-verification from their web
3) use basic critical thinking (when E.Macron creates an account on some @ france.lol instance...)

For example there are parody/fake accounts of #Biden and #Zelensky on the doubtful instance of twiukraine.com but I'm not 100% sure everybody understand it's fake.