War, stock photos, and breaking news
A series of inauthentic social media accounts has been misrepresenting old photographs as current coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine for roughly a year
In July 2022, an allegedly New York-based pro-Russia Twitter account by the name of @marymodestus began tweeting “breaking news” regarding the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, accompanied by photographs and videos. The images used by this account as part of its coverage were often misrepresented or altered, however, and the “news” inaccurate or unverifiable. Although Twitter suspended the @marymodestus account in October 2022, this did not put an end to things. The operator of the account quickly returned as @marymodestus1 and @marymodestus2, and continued to create additional accounts despite multiple suspensions. As of the time of this writing, whoever is running these accounts has created at least nine Twitter accounts and one TikTok account, and this is likely an underestimate in terms of both the number of accounts and the number of platforms.
Many of the posts from the @marymodestus account and its successors feature old photographs falsely portrayed as images from the current war in Ukraine. For example, an image of a burning tank supposedly taken in Kherson in 2022 has been floating around the Internet since September 2016, a photo allegedly depicting Russian soldiers in Kherson in 2022 is a stock photo from 2021, and footage of an alleged rocket attack in western Ukraine in 2023 is actually from 2018. The @marymodestus accounts present these recycled images as evidence that the invasion of Ukraine is going well for Russia militarily.
Some of the claims made by this series of accounts are almost comically bizarre. In an October 7th, 2022 tweet that went reasonably viral (396 retweets, 1091 likes), the original @marymodestus account claimed that Russia had deployed a “laser weapon to blind all enemy satellites that pass over Russia”. This tweet was accompanied by two photographs, neither of which was taken in Russia; one depicts a telescope in the United Kingdom and the other a telescope in New Mexico.
On occasion, the operator of the @marymodestus series of accounts has posted modified photos. For instance, a May 2023 tweet from ban evasion account @ChiIke1990117 included an image of a tank with a Ukrainian flag on it allegedly taken in 2003 in the U.S./Iraq war. The flag, however, is not present in the original photo, which was actually taken in the 1990/1991 Gulf war rather than the 2003-2011 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
As mentioned earlier, Twitter permanently suspended the original @marymodestus account in October 2022. Around this time, the operator created at least four additional Twitter accounts: @marymodestus1, @marymodestus2, @ike1Caesar, and @modestuszz. These four accounts posted similar content to the original @marymodestus account, made multiple references to the prior suspension, and likewise claimed to reside in New York. At the time of this writing, these accounts are all suspended.
As of July 21st, 2023, at least three additional accounts likely operated by the same person or entity as the original @marymodestus account are active on Twitter. These include @ChiIke1990117, which reuses the name “Ike” from the previous @ike1Caeser incarnation, posts similar material to its predecessors, and likewise claims New York residence. The @ChiIke1990117 account follows two additional accounts that tweet similar content, both of which appear to be tributes to Russian Federation officials: @sergeylavrovs, based on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and @MZakharova2, based on Maria Zakharova, Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The @MZakharova2 account has multiple tweets indicating that a (presently suspended) account named @crusaderRU belongs to the same person, bringing the total number of Twitter accounts to nine.
The @MZakharova2 Twitter account has a corresponding @mzakharova TikTok account linked on its profile. This TikTok account unsurprisingly posts similar content to the @marymodestus Twitter accounts, and its videos have occasionally been embedded in their tweets. A Google search for the @mzakharova TikTok account reveals that the account previously had the display name “marymodestus” and provides an additional piece of evidence that connects the TikTok account and the current set of Twitter accounts to the original @marymodestus account.
It remains unclear who exactly is behind the @marymodestus series of social media propaganda accounts, but they appear to be dedicated to their misleading mission and undeterred by the loss of multiple Twitter accounts. Although some of these accounts have been removed quickly, many have managed to operate for months without being suspended. Most social media platforms (including Twitter) have strict policies prohibiting ban evasion, but in cases such as the @marymodestus accounts, the replacement accounts are often obvious to users familiar with the situation long before the platform’s moderators take action, and it might behoove platforms to consider providing convenient mechanisms for users to report serial ban evaders.
Much of the research in this article previously appeared in this Twitter thread by @ZellaQuixote and myself.