City Research Online

Abstract

Successful disinformation campaigns depend on the availability of fake social media profiles used for coordinated inauthentic behavior with networks of false accounts including bots, trolls, and sockpuppets. This study presents a scalable and unsupervised framework to identify visual elements in user profiles strategically exploited in nearly 60 influence operations, including camera angle, photo composition, gender, and race, but also more context-dependent categories like sensuality and emotion. We leverage Google’s Teachable Machine and the DeepFace Library to classify fake user accounts in the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium database, a large repository of social media accounts linked to foreign influence operations. We discuss the performance of these classifiers against manually coded data and their applicability in large-scale data analysis. The proposed framework demonstrates promising results for the identification of fake online profiles used in influence operations and by the cottage industry specialized in crafting desirable online personas.

Publication Type:	Other (Preprint)
Additional Information:	Published in final form George, N., Sham, A., Ajith, T. & Bastos, M., Contribution Title, Social science computer review. Copyright © 2024, the authors.
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity School of Communication & Creativity > Media, Culture & Creative Industries
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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