This barndominium does not exist, part III

A prolific Facebook generative AI spam farm may be spreading to X

if you’re looking for real photos posted by an authentic account, you’ve come to the wrong place

For almost ten months, a hijacked Facebook account that originally belonged to an Oklahoma hair salon has been racking up massive engagement by posting an endless stream of AI-generated images of houses. This account, presently named “Barndominium Gallery”, has managed to accumulate over half a million followers subsequent to the account takeover, and its posts (along with a slew of similar AI image posts from other content farms) are recommended to users who do not follow it and have expressed no interest in barndominiums.

Beginning in late September 2024, some of this Facebook account’s posts started being duplicated on X (formerly Twitter) by a blue check account named @wendy_simin. This X account, much like the Barndominium Gallery Facebook page, has been repurposed at least once and has likely been hijacked, either by the same entity running the Facebook page or another spammer pushing the same content.

don’t look too closely at the furniture

On September 30th, 2024, the @wendy_simin X account starting posting AI-generated images of alleged barndominiums that previously appeared on the Barndominium Gallery Facebook page. Both the Facebook account and the X account are using the same set of phrases to describe the images, including identical emoji usage. The X posts generally lag behind the Facebook posts by a period of several hours to several days. While the Facebook image posts often rack up sizable numbers of likes, shares, and comments, the X equivalents have thus far failed to get any meaningful degree of engagement.

neither of these buildings exist, but they’re popular on Facebook anyway

This is not the first time that this account has copied AI-generated content from Facebook onto X. As with the barndominium posts, previous efforts of this sort have involved images of a variety of unrealistic buildings, some of which have added animation in the Facebook variants.

In addition to the AI image spam, the @wendy_simin account also reposts content somewhat regularly, and occasionally posts what appear to be personal photos, mostly of golf outings and other leisure activities. The accounts reposted are mostly large photo and meme accounts, usually cat-themed; exceptions include Elon Musk and the official CNN account. As for the golf photos, all is not quite as it seems…

a fake account that amplifies both Elon Musk and CNN? It all happens on X!

A bit of image searching reveals that the photos of golf outings and other excursions that the @wendy_simin X account has been posting are all plagiarized, and hence are unlikely to depict the actual operator of the account or their leisure activities. The photographs are stolen from various Instagram pages; the original posters generally claim to be based in Korea or Singapore, rather than the USA as claimed on the @wendy_simin account’s profile.

you’ll be unsurprised to learn that these photos are plagiarized

As it turns out, the X account currently known as @wendy_simin did not always bear that name. Until sometime in late 2022 or early 2023, the account, which has the permanent ID 83233982, had the handle @tinkerbell_lyp, accompanied by the display name “Robert S. Miller”. The earliest Wayback Machine archives under this handle are from 2021, as are the account’s earliest searchable posts, and the account was originally created back in 2009, so there is still over a decade of activity unaccounted for (and possibly additional name changes).

as with the Barndominium Gallery Facebook page, the @wendy_simin X account has been renamed at least once

Back when the @wendy_simin account was named @tinkerbell_lyp, the content was focused on cryptocurrency rather than AI-generated images, and the plagiarized golf photos were entirely absent. Some of the cryptocurrency content is quite spammy; for instance, the account posted at least 75 posts advertising the services of an alleged cryptocurrency trader named “Peter Blake” in late 2021 and early 2022. Most of these posts are still online, although a few have been deleted.

you probably shouldn’t take this particular bit of financial advice

Much like the photographs of golf adventures posted by the current operator of the @wendy_simin account, the profile photo used by the account back when it was named @tinkerbell_lyp/“Robert S. Miller” is plagiarized. TinEye reverse image search reveals that this particular image is available from Shutterstock as a stock photo, and also appears on a variety of sites across the internet. It is unclear whether this name change was the result of the account changing hands, or whether the same spammer simply decided to shift gears. It is highly likely, however, that the original owner is no longer in control of the account, given the 12 year gap between creation time and the first detectable activity.

life is tough when you’re a nature lover but you’re also a stock photo