Trumped up image theft

Meet "Eva," "Sophia," and "Samantha" - fake accounts which pose as chic American women who support Donald Trump on the platform X, disguising themselves by using stolen photographs of European fashion and beauty influencers, according to a study published Wednesday and reported by AFP.

The report by the nonprofit Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) comes as researchers express alarm ahead of the US election in November that the site owned by Elon Musk –- who has endorsed Trump –- is plagued with fake accounts and political disinformation.

CIR said it uncovered 16 accounts that used images of European influencers –- without their permission –- to pose as young women promoting Trump and encouraging thousands of followers to vote for the Republican nominee. These accounts, which use stolen images of real people to appear authentic, were among 56 profiles that appear to be part of a coordinated campaign to push pro-Trump content, it added.

"By using images of the influencers, the accounts recognise the value of creating a believable human persona, steering clear of the generic photos and bot-like usernames usually associated with fake accounts," CIR's report said. It was unclear who was behind the digital deception or whether the accounts were pushing pro-Trump content for ideological or monetary gain.

The fake profiles use everyday images from the influencers' Instagram accounts - including pictures of them at the beach or walking their dog - which are captioned with MAGA-related hashtags or pledges to vote for Trump, CIR said. MAGA, or Make America Great Again, is a political slogan associated with Trump and his campaign.

Many of the accounts have attempted to spread misinformation about hot-button political subjects such as a recent assassination attempt against Trump, his Democratic rival Kamala Harris's ethnicity and US military aid to Ukraine, the report said. Some accounts also promote anti-vaccine and Covid-19 conspiracies, with some posts viewed hundreds of thousands of times. "They post about divisive issues in US politics in a bid to exploit pre-existing tensions," the report said.

The truth behind the screen

One X account that has since been deleted, @Luna_2k24, amassed a large following since it was created in March. Posing as a 32-year-old Trump supporter, the account praised the former president and she posted photos of "herself" to accompany the posts. But the photos Luna was posting were actually photos of German fashion influencer Debbie Nederlof, a single mother and trained optician in Trier, Germany.

"To be honest, I have nothing to do with the United States, with Trump, the political things over there. What the hell do I, from a small place in Germany, care about U.S. politics?" Nederlof told CNN.

Another account, @queen0_gabriela, used photos of 27-year-old Demi Maric, an Amsterdam-based business student. Another, @eva_maga1996, used photos of 22-year-old influencer Neriah Tellerup Andersen from Copenhagen, Denmark. "I feel used, like someone is taking something from me. It's my image. I don't want to think people think that I do what those profiles are sometimes promoting," Andersen told CNN.

A coordinated effort

The fake accounts seem to be part of a sophisticated, coordinated effort, Emily Horne, former global head of policy communications at Twitter, told CNN. She warned that the accounts could be a sign of foreign intervention in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, which is less than 70 days away. "This could be a state actor. The level of sophistication indicates it could be any of the hostile state actors, including Russia, Iran and China," she told CNN.

X did not respond to a request for comment. Impersonation is a violation of the platform's rules, and accounts posing as another person, group or organisation may be "permanently suspended," according to X's website.

Musk appears to exert an outsized influence on US voters through the platform and his own personal account, which is regularly flagged by fact-checkers for spreading political falsehoods to his nearly 196 million followers.

Since Musk's 2022 acquisition of X, the platform has gutted trust and safety teams and scaled back content moderation efforts once used to tame misinformation, making it what researchers call a haven for disinformation.