Making astroturfing great again
How pro-Trump inauthentic accounts built large followings using plagiarized photos and follow trains
If it weren’t for the technological miracle of reverse image search, one might erroneously conclude that the twelve Twitter accounts in the above image (@1us45, @8_27J, @HawkCoopersmith, @Jexyka_3, @JuJuSkier, @MikkiLeigh3, @WickedTcher, @BethDuttonMills, @ItsJustMeRED, @JordanFun2, @goldisez, and @x2lala) belonged to genuine Trump supporters using their own photographs as avatars. In reality, these accounts used stock photos and plagiarized images from other people’s social media pages to confer a veneer of legitimacy on a set of inauthentic influencers. Several of these accounts also periodically renamed themselves and changed personas. These accounts used growth hacking techniques such as follow trains and mutual amplification to build audiences, with varying degrees of success.
In addition to using plagiarized profile photos, many of these accounts also frequently tweeted stolen images. The text of these tweets often falsely implied that the images depicted the account holder(s) engaged in or preparing for some activity (e.g., “Fireworks later tonight! Happy 4th of July!”). In many cases, the accounts retweeted one another’s stolen photo tweets. Both TinEye and Google reverse image searches were reasonably effective at finding previous instances of these photos on the internet.
Several of these accounts underwent periodic changes of persona wherein the account in question was renamed, the profile photo changed, and old tweets at least partially purged. An interesting example is the now-suspended @BethDuttonMills, which went by the name “John Connor” in 2021 (a possible Terminator reference given that the handle was @T900 at this point in time), “Lisa M.” in 2022, and finally “Beth Dutton Mills” in 2023. The “Lisa M” incarnation used a plagiarized photo of an entirely different person than the “Beth Dutton Mills” incarnation. At least four of the other accounts (@1us45, @8_27J, @MikkiLeigh3, and @x2lala, all presently suspended) experienced similar makeovers.
These accounts made extensive use of follow trains to grow their audiences. For the uninitiated, follow trains are tweets or threads containing lists of Twitter accounts to follow, generally presented with the expectation that the accounts on the list will follow back anyone who follows them or retweets the follow train. This technique is often used to rapidly build followings of thousands or tens of thousands of allegedly like-minded users, and although many of the accounts listed on trains are legitimate, the trains provide a tempting and effective avenue for inauthentic accounts to broaden their reach.
Although the usage of follow trains is not limited to right-wing accounts, it is a technique that has seen more frequent and effective use by the right than the left in the context of U.S. politics. (If you’re interested in more information on the topic of Trump follow trains, this article by social media researcher Erin Gallagher is a worthwhile read).
The stolen photographs, usage of follow trains, and potential multiple account abuse issues are all possible violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service. Twitter has indeed banned all twelve of these accounts at varying times, under the leadership of both Parag Agrawal and Elon Musk, and at the present time eleven of the twelve accounts remain suspended. The sole exception is @goldisez, which was reinstated at some point and is presently using artwork as an avatar rather than a plagiarized photo. This account has continued to profusely tweet and retweet follow trains, however.
The accounts discussed in this article were originally featured in this pair of Twitter threads: