1. I've found a large, AI-driven bot network on X which is posting in support of Trump in the US election.
Thread.
Elise Thomas
15.8K posts
Elise Thomas
@elisethoma5
Senior OSINT Investigator at @Cen4infoRes. Opinions, hot takes, mistakes all my own. Mostly at @elisethomas.bsky.social these days.
- For me, the striking thing about so many of these images of rioters in the Capitol is that what they're doing - all of them - is creating content for social media. At least in their minds, the true seat of power is not actually in that building. It's online.This may be the lasting image of today
- Replying to @elisethoma5Why am I so confident that these are AI bots and not real people? Well for one thing, they told me so.
- Replying to @elisethoma5Sometimes, delightfully, they also argue WITH THEMSELVES. I have no idea what quirk of AI is making that happen but it's very funny.
- Replying to @elisethoma5Many are blue tick verified, which again is super standard for spam networks.
- Replying to @elisethoma5This network seems to be big but crude. The accounts are an eclectic mix of join dates, handles and personas which are mostly* not tailored to pro-Trump activity. This is pretty typical of crypto or spam networks, which tend to be cobbled together out of accounts like this.
- Replying to @elisethoma5Sometimes they get confused by the prompt. Here, for example, an originator posts 'Distinguished' and the amplifiers are mystified.
- I want to show you a truly incredible tweet. An amazing disinformation turducken. Here is Alex Jones, retweeting nonsense about Ukraine from Russia propaganda network RT. And that 'MAGA' account in the middle? That's a CCP influence op. Thread 1/
- Replying to @elisethoma5
- Replying to @elisethoma5Occasionally they post refusals, although it happens rarely enough that whoever built the network has clearly found a way around @OpenAI's safeguards which works fairly well.
- I'm so glad that Twitter lasted long enough to let us see Greta Thunberg effortlessly crush Andrew Tate.
- Replying to @elisethoma5A small number of accounts have more elaborate personas. These mostly appear to have been active since late June 2024 and act as central nodes in the network. I'd call these originators and the others amplifiers.
- Replying to @elisethoma5
- Replying to @elisethoma5Sidebar but this is an interesting post. I'm guessing this is some sort of guardrail within @OpenAI kicking in and preventing the bot from endorsing Musk's election fraud nonsense.
