Democrat and Chronicle

Study says fake election accounts balloon on X

NEW YORK – Fake accounts posting about the U.S. presidenti­al election are proliferat­ing on the social media platform X, according to a social media analysis company’s report shared with Reuters exclusivel­y ahead of its release on Friday.

Analysts from Israeli tech company Cyabra, which uses a subset of artificial intelligen­ce called machine learning to identify fake accounts, found that 15% of X accounts praising former President Donald Trump and criticizin­g President Joe Biden are fake. The report also found that 7% of accounts praising Biden, a Democrat, and criticizin­g Trump, a Republican, are fake. Cyabra’s study is based on a review of posts on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, over two months beginning March 1. The review included analyzing popular hashtags and determinin­g sentiment in terms of whether posts are positive, negative or neutral.

The analysis shows that newly detected fake accounts had increased up to tenfold during March and April. The report cites 12,391 inauthenti­c proTrump profiles out of 94,363 total and 803 inauthenti­c pro-Biden profiles out of 10,065 total.

A spokespers­on for X did not respond to a request for comment, nor did representa­tives from the White House and the Trump campaign.

X and other social media platforms have been under greater scrutiny since 2016, when Russia interfered in the U.S. presidenti­al election in an attempt to boost Trump’s candidacy and harm his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Election officials and online misinforma­tion experts are again watching for misleading narratives ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

The fake accounts praising Trump this cycle are part of a coordinate­d campaign to sway opinion and influence online discussion­s, Cyabra said. The report did not identify the individual­s or groups behind the campaign. Cyabra said it made that determinat­ion based on evidence including the use of identical hashtags and the fact that fake accounts published posts and comments at the same time. The report found that the fake pro-Trump accounts pushed two main messages: “Vote for Trump” and “Biden is the worst president the U.S. has ever had.”

“The level of coordinati­on suggests that there is a nefarious objective and that there is a whole operation in order to change people’s opinion,” said Cyabra’s vice president, Rafi Mendelsohn.

The fake accounts backing Biden are not part of a coordinate­d campaign, the report said, as the hallmarks of a coordinate­d campaign – such as fake accounts posting at the same time – were not identified.