The ongoing saga of a persistent fake persona
If at first you don't succeed, create a new inauthentic account with minor tweaks
Over the last three years, an unknown entity has created a series of very similar-looking inauthentic Twitter accounts, each with the same persona and behaviors (with minor tweaks). These accounts have a number of recurring characteristics:
profile images are stolen photos, usually of random models
account operator claims to be a healthcare worker or military service member (or both)
account operator claims to be a female Democratic voter in New York City
recurring linguistic errors (“Ebstein” instead of “Epstein” when referring to deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, “Indonesian” rather than “Indian” as a synonym for Native American, etc)
builds an audience by following large followback accounts, being included on follow lists, and spamming the replies of popular liberal accounts
tweets plagiarized photos of alleged pets
tweets plagiarized photos of protests and other events as “evidence” of attendance
The first known incarnation of this fake persona, @cheecierom, turned up in a July 2020 analysis by @ZellaQuixote and I of an unsubstantiated viral rumor that (former) U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr attempted to visit sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in jail shortly after her arrest but was rebuffed by Maxwell’s attorney. The @cheecierom account, which played a role in the early propagation of the Barr/Maxwell rumor by spamming large accounts with the phrase “Maxwell’s lawyer said she does not want Bill Barr to visit her client in jail”, claimed to be a healthcare worker in either the ICU or ER at an unspecified New York City hospital. The profile photo used by the account, however, was not of a nurse in New York City; rather, it was pilfered from a Georgian model’s social media posts. The @cheecierom account was suspended by Twitter on July 9th, 2020, a few days after being outed as inauthentic.
Less than 24 hours after @cheecierom was suspended, a new account by the name of @romanochee69 was created. As with @cheecierom, the @romanochee69 account claimed to be a New York City healthcare worker (specifically, a nurse), and as with @cheecierom, this account used stolen profile photos — this time, of multiple people. On August 16th, 2020, the @romanochee69 account posted a photograph of a locked mailbox that went viral, garnering thousands of retweets and quote tweets (including one from The Lincoln Project) and fueling suspicions on the left that a nefarious plot was afoot to prevent mail-in voting. Not long after that, the account changed handles to @MollyJucee091 and was subsequently suspended by Twitter.
In August 2021, another inauthentic New York City nurse account with some very familiar characteristics was created: @CheiaKeeta. This account used stolen photographs of at least six different people over its four months of existence. In addition to the plagiarized images of humans, the operator of the account threw in stolen photographs of alleged pets (both cats and dogs) and multiple Christmas trees as well. This also may have been the first account in the series that tweeted a plagiarized photo as evidence of attending a protest — in this case, a photograph from 2017 which @CheiaKeeta misrepresented as a photograph of a demonstration in 2021. Despite this and other signs of inauthenticity, @CheiaKeeta was regularly included in tweets suggesting liberal Twitter accounts to follow.
As was the case with the original @cheecierom account, the @CheiaKeeta account replied to popular liberal accounts with false information and conspiracy theories. Bogus allegations and insinuations that Senators Joe Manchin (check his text messages!) and Ted Cruz (a member of the Proud Boys, according to @CheiaKeeta) were involved in planning the January 6th insurrection were recurring themes. @CheiaKeeta was suspended by Twitter on December 22nd, 2021, and immediately replaced by the short-lived @ranna3643, which unsurprisingly used a stolen profile image. In a departure from the previous accounts, @ranna3643 claimed to be a law student rather than a nurse.
Yet another incarnation of this fake persona emerged in May 2022, in the form of @APPLE01903644. As with the previous accounts, @APPLE01903644 used stolen profile photos. Much like the preceding @CheiaKeeta account, @APPLE01903644 also tweeted plagiarized photos of pets and protests, with the latter falsely presented as evidence of attendance. (The stolen protest photo would likely have been more convincing if whoever was running the @CheiaKeeta account had paid attention to the fact that Washington, DC and Boston are two different cities.)
The @APPLE01903644 account upheld its predecessors’ tradition of replying to popular accounts with misleading claims — specifically, a false story that Senator Marco Rubio was arrested in 1990 with a male prostitute. (Rubio was in fact arrested in 1990, but it was for drinking in a closed park, rather than anything to do with prostitution.) @APPLE01903644 also appears to be the first account in the series to erroneously use the word “Indonesian” (as opposed to “Indian”) as a synonym for Native American, although its short-lived replacement @addie2194 quickly followed suit. (@APPLE01903644 was suspended by Twitter on June 30th, 2022; @addie2194 was created immediately afterward and was itself suspended within 24 hours.)
On December 11th, 2022, the seventh known incarnation of this fake persona was created: @SophiaM98566027. As with previous accounts in the series, this account used a stolen profile photo and also tweeted plagiarized photos of cats and dogs, which were falsely represented as the account operator’s pets. As with the @APPLE01903644 and @addie2194 accounts, @SophiaM98566027 used the word “Indonesian” in a context in which they are apparently referring to Native Americans. This account was suspended on January 3rd, 2023, and replaced in under an hour by @CoraZ53053464, which as of January 4th at 9:20 PM CST is still active and has already gone through multiple profile photos, at least one of which is demonstrably stolen.
Both the @SophiaM98566027 and @CoraZ53053464 accounts replied to various large accounts with images suggesting that QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was the person who placed pipe bombs outside DNC and RNC headquarters on January 5th, 2021. Neither of the images contains any evidence that the hooded and masked figure caught on camera is Greene, however, and it’s unclear how the blurry black-and-white photo tweeted by @CoraZ53053464 demonstrates that the suspect has blond hair.
What is the goal of this three-year long effort to repeatedly recreate the same obviously fake persona? One possibility (and a possibility that has in fact happened): bait liberal Twitter users into amplifying and spreading false, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims. The operator of these accounts has, with varying degrees of success, managed to promote the following rumors:
Bill Barr attempted to visit Ghislaine Maxwell in jail but was deterred by her lawyer
Mailboxes were nefariously locked in 2020 to interfere with voting
Joe Manchin and Ted Cruz participated in the January 6th insurrection
Marco Rubio was arrested with a male prostitute in 1990
Marjorie Taylor Greene placed the pipe bombs at DNC and RNC headquarters on January 5th, 2021
In the cases where these fake accounts have been successful in spreading narratives such as those listed above, they have done so with the aid and amplification of popular accounts that they picked up as followers, either via followback lists or by replying directly to a popular account until the popular account in question notices. Although Twitter has thus far eventually suspended every incarnation of this fake persona, the accounts would be less likely to get traction in the first place if popular users were to do a bit more reverse image searching before retweeting new, obscure accounts.
This article may be updated if/when the situation evolves further.
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