A new report by News Guard has revealed that over 700 posts declaring their intention not to re-elect the incumbent president of the United States, Joe Biden, on X are from fake accounts.
This finding was part of NewsGuard’s Reality Check report which examines how online misinformation is undermining trust and identifies the culprits behind it.
According to the report, the campaign began as an authentic, anti-Joe Biden trend on X with real people posting their headshots, providing a little personal information, and declaring that they will “not be voting for Joe Biden” but it was hijacked by swarms of inauthentic accounts primarily of young women.
“From May 5 to May 10, 2024, NewsGuard identified 739 nearly identical X posts with a recurring format: “Hi. I’m [name]. I’m [age] and live in [state] and I will NOT be voting for Biden,” each featuring a supposed personal photo,” the report stated.
Even though there were dozens of posts that were confirmed to be from legitimate users, News Guard found 739 posts that typically showed signs of inauthenticity, such as using a photo of a person with a different name than the one listed on the account, claiming to be a U.S. voter while the user’s bio listed a different country, or having a voter name in the post that did not match the name on the user’s profile.
“For example, “Amelia” claimed to be a 35-year-old U.S. voter. However, a reverse image search of her photo revealed that “Amelia” is actually a Russian woman named Irina Krasniak. Krasniak told NewsGuard in an Instagram message that she was not aware that her photo had been misappropriated,” part of the report stated.
“Tina Davis” from Illinois misappropriated the photo of Tatiana Batir, whose Facebook profile says she lives in China.”
Other accounts that joined in on the trend appeared to be using AI-generated images of young women.
According to a social media analytics tool used by NewsGuard, 53 of the fake anti-Biden posts were amplified by accounts based in Russia, with additional amplification from accounts in Poland, Nigeria, Brazil, India, Turkey, and Azerbaijan showing that the campaign was promoted globally, not just within the U.S.
Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.
