An Israeli influence campaign is using hundreds of online avatars and fake social media accounts to attack Democratic lawmakers critical of Israel and promote news articles disapproving of the United Nations Palestine refugee agency (Unrwa), according to a report by the Israeli online watchdog, Fake Reporter.
According to the report, the targeted campaign has used more than 600 avatars, sending out 58,000 tweets and social media posts to circulate articles published by The Guardian, CNN and Wall Street Journal, among other major news outlets that amplify Israel’s position on the war.
The campaign relies on three major social networks, UnFold Magazine, Non-Agenda and The Moral Alliance, which were created prior to the war in Gaza. But the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel sent the accounts into round-the-clock posting.
The sites, according to Fake Reporter, are geared specifically to a “progressive audience”, publishing content on climate change, AI regulation, and human rights, in addition to the war in Gaza. They have more than 43,000 followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The avatars promoting the content talk up their identity with lines like, “As a middle-aged African American woman” and use hashtags like #FaithJourney and #AfricanAmericanSpirituality.
Some examples from the report:
And continuing,
The avatars were all created on the same day and their profiles were written with the same formula, subbing out just a few words. The declared gender and ethnicity of the avatars don’t match the profile photos, which have been taken from websites selling headshots.
The campaign works to amplify news stories published by major media outlets. First, the fake news sites share the reports. Then, the avatars share them across social media, including on the official accounts of Democratic lawmakers.
Avatars also shared social media posts showing video clips of what appeared to be Pro-Palestinian protestors calling for "massacres to be normalised" and calling for the US to "go to hell", contrasting that with peaceful protests of pro-Israel protestors.
In other cases, Avatars simply reshared widely published video clips of US lawmakers questioning the heads of Ivy League schools about antisemitism on campus.
[...] According to the report, around 85 percent of all the US politicians targeted by the campaign were Democrats, and 90 percent of them were African Americans.
Ritchie Torres, a black Democratic Congressman with generally pro-Israel views, garnered the most social media engagement from the avatars. Other lawmakers targeted included Cori Bush; Lucy McBath; House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries; and Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock.
Israeli news site Haaretz reported in January that the Israeli government had launched an online influence campaign to respond to pro-Palestinian content and reports about Hamas.
It’s unclear whether the campaign revealed by Fake Reporter is part of that initiative.
. . . continues at MME (20 Mar 2024)
1K notes
·
View notes
"Leaving Heaven."
Manfred Thierry Mugler for Thierry Mugler.
One of the most original & creative take by fusing architecture with fashion to tell a story. I was captivated & mesmerized with this work of art. 😍
808 notes
·
View notes
the staggering amount of x-men 97 viewers utterly trashing on rogue all over the internet because she fumbled gambit and hurt him...
rogue has constantly lived in a nightmare scenario that no human being has ever had to try and navigate (being unable to physically touch anyone) wowwww!!! how could she make the inexcusable mistake of latching onto the first instance of physical contact in another person, but then actually realizing the mistake she had made once she'd actually got to live that experience (that she has never ever had before)
lmao. what a horrible evil bitchhh bro!!!! something something. media literacy
100 notes
·
View notes