Benjamin Strick
@BenDoBrown
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Investigations Director @Cen4infoRes. Past BBC & @Bellingcat. Tutorials: https://t.co/jwll4Af0ax. OSINT/GEOINT. Views = own.
Joined October 2017
Hi. I regularly get asked for free training sessions & workshops and love sharing research skills, so I've made these tutorials on YouTube with more coming. I hope it helps. Here is the #OSINT At Home playlist: This video is a snippet of the content ✌️
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I’ll never forget this video. It was Sasha's last meeting with his parents two years ago on 02/24/22. His parents saw him off as he went to fight Russia’s invading forces. His sister found the video on his iCloud after he died defending Ukraine’s Mariupol.
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In April, CNN journalists were led to the 'home' of Haitian gang lord Vitel’homme Innocent and interviewed him. He is on @FBIMostWanted's Top 10, with a bounty of up to $2 million. I mapped their drive and found his home here: 18.5278, -72.2314. Here's how👇🧵
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A network of fake accounts are posing as young American women, posting pro-Trump content and disinformation, but they’re hiding behind, and manipulating, the images of European fashion influencers. Our latest investigation at @Cen4infoRes. Details in this thread 🧵👇
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Today US DoJ announced seizure of two domains and the search of 968 accounts on X used in a "Russian-government backed campaign" to spread disinformation. Affidavit includes all of the accounts requested from X 👇
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A coordinated network of fake accounts posed as Sikh personas to promote the Indian Govt, nationalism & label Sikh activists as terrorists. They claimed they were #RealSikhs, but were far from it. News on our investigation: Here is an explainer thread👇
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A new 'immersive mode' is coming to Google Maps soon, which fuses together billions of street view and aerial images to create a digital model of the world. More here:
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@MAstronomers In 2018…
From yesterday's #IceBridge flight: A tabular iceberg can be seen on the right, floating among sea ice just off of the Larsen C ice shelf. The iceberg's sharp angles and flat surface indicate that it probably recently calved from the ice shelf.
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Six months ago Ukraine’s Kramatorsk train station was bombed, killing civilians trying to flee the war. The Kremlin denied responsibility. Today, at @Cen4infoRes, we publish this report, showing how the rockets were fired from a Russian-controlled area.
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India's Modi Government marketing team is in full drive today. More than 1 million tweets on #ModirSatheBrigade pushing it to #1 on Twitter today during Modi's visit to West Bengal (. As to expect, lots of copy&paste text.
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I was recently on a flight across Australia when I spotted this massive figure on the ground. It led me on a digital journey to find out what it was, how it got there and who made it. I'm going to explain a bit more about what it is in this thread, and how I found out. 👇🧵
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Huge backlog of trucks waiting to cross the Kerch seen in satellite imagery taken yesterday by @Maxar. Backlog is waiting at this abandoned airport: 45.3657456, 36.4088473.
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Google Earth has updated its satellite imagery of many parts of Sudan. Looking over West Darfur city of El Geneina, I am shocked at the level of destruction. In some parts, whole areas have been destroyed and cleared. Location: 13.4469, 22.4151 (dates: April 2023 & March 2024)
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Russian State broadcaster RT photoshopped weapons into an image of a refugee family from Afghanistan 😶
Nothing to see here, just Russian state broadcaster RT photoshopping weapons and explosives onto an image of an innocent Afghan refugee family to portray them as terrorists.
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An influence operation was waged online yesterday to amplify pro-BJP text in the #AmitShahInBengal tag, attack opposition, and win over Indian voters. Full report: This forensic thread details 🧵👇.- HOW it was done.- HOW it spread.- WHO runs them
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The results differ quite a lot between low and high nadir ranges, as you can see. This fundamental flaw by WarOnFakes comes down to very basic things. The 'proof' that WarOnFakes, and all of the other pro-Russian accounts are using, is proof that they cannot use simple tools.
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I captured five days of tweets using #WestPapua & #FreeWestPapua tags after a crackdown by Indonesian forces against Papuans in Aug. What I found was a bot network spreading pro-govt propaganda. Follow this thread for an #OSINT journey with a @Twitter network analysis.👇👇👇
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NEW @Maxar satellite imagery from today (July 30) shows Olenivka Prison in Ukraine's Donetsk where more than 50 reportedly died following an attack at the prison on Friday morning (July 29). Imagery shows before and after (27 & 29 of July). Location: 47.828530, 37.710802
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Claims are emerging of mass graves, civilian executions and disappearances from recently captured Vysokopillia and its surrounding area in Kherson oblast after six months of Russian occupation.
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The DoJ announcement said the campaign used elements of AI to create fictitious social media profiles purporting to belong to individuals in the United States, which the operators then used to promote messages in support of Russian government objectives.
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A copypasta campaign in India is targeting politically-sensitive tags #TMCHataoBanglaBachao & #KrishokSurokhaAbhijan on Twitter. I captured data over the past week for analysis. Report: CC @TwitterSafety . Here's some findings in this #OSINT thread 🧵👇
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What we know is that their aims were to label Sikh political interests as extremist, stoke cultural tensions within India & overseas & promote the Indian Govt. So WHO are the #RealSikhs? .WHAT was their aim? .And HOW did they attempt to distort perceptions?
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Geolocation of Kadyrov Chechen fighters in Babyntsi (Бабинці). Location: 50.640541, 30.023239 about 35km NW of Kyiv.
Chechens (Kadyrov) in Kiev. According to them, this is an eviction. According to the words, there is no resistance.
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The 'evidence' presented by the Russian MoD claiming Ukraine is creating dirty bombs is completely unreliable. Image on the right if from as far back as 2016, if not more.
💬 Russian Defence Ministry: According to the information at hand, two organisations of Ukraine have been ❗ directly ordered to create the so-called #dirtybomb. ☢️ The works are at their concluding stage.
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And they're right. It doesn't show March 19 imagery there. Why? Because they have failed to select the filter option of the range of nadir to show all available imagery.
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Our full analysis can be seen at @Cen4infoRes here: We also collaborated with @CNN to dig out the human stories behind those who had their photos stolen . Let's look at the some details below 👇.
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According to the affidavit, the development of the 'bot farm' was organised by the leader of the directorate of digital journalism within the Russian Government backed news outlet Russia Today (RT).
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Blatant denialism coming from a @FoxNews staffer on what’s happening in Ukraine. Here’s 8000+ verified videos and photos documenting Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine:
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This pro-Kremlin 'fact checking' site WarOnFakes appears to be the source of much of the attempts to raise doubt, and promote pro-Russian narratives. The site published an article claiming Maxar had no satellite coverage of Bucha at that time.
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This grim video surfaced online on Jan 4, 2020, just after 9pm. It shows a group of young cadets in #Libya hit by a strike for which no one has ever claimed responsibility. #BBCAfricaEye & @BBCArabic investigated this case for months, and this is what we found. [THREAD]
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The blonde-haired woman pictured on Eva’s X profile, “eva_maga1996”, is not pro-Trump Eva, but a Danish fashion influencer whose images have been taken from her Instagram profile and used without her permission.
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There are more of these fake accounts. We uncovered at least 17 others, some with thousands of followers each, posing as pro-Trump American women and hiding behind stolen and sometimes manipulated photographs. We found in total 56 matching the same appearance in the network.
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For the past month I have been watching the tags #WestPapua & #PapuanLivesMatter. What I found was a network of Dutch, German & English accounts with fake pics attempting to distort the narrative of independence. Here's some of the findings in a 🧵👇.
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One clear look at the source site of @Maxar's archive (where they got their screenshot) shows that there is indeed March 19 imagery.
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Racial hate speech has surged on Twitter, Telegram and other platforms to incite, promote and justify violence against Ukrainians since Feb 2022. Our research at @Cen4infoRes has identified these networks, who they are and how they spread. Full report:
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Footage from @nytimes shows Russian soldiers leading a group of Ukrainian captives to a courtyard where they were executed on March 4 in Ukraine's Bucha. Such an important piece from @malachybrowne & team. Full report:
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The affidavit for the accounts on X shows that all of the accounts were registered to email addresses that were either using the domain 'otanmail' or 'mlrtr'
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Geolocation of footage showing what appears to be 10+ bodies on Al-Rashid Street, 7km SW of Gaza. Location: 31.482964, 34.395413. Footage in comment below.
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Russian forces firing heavily from Trostyanets (Тростянець) in Sumy Oblast yesterday. Location of launch area: 50.481108, 34.965646.
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First, WHO were these accounts trying to be and what did they look like?. The accounts were well-curated. They had relatively high follower numbers & were very active. The personas were replicated across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
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Well done @FloraCarmichael @shrutimenon10 for turning this in-depth influence operations research into a newsworthy report. Also a big thanks to @elisethoma5 and staff at @Cen4infoRes for reviewing this research.
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The Government promoted the #IndiaAgainstPropaganda tag earlier this year. Does that count for the West Bengal elections?
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So how did they make this mistake? When you open up the search filters, by default the library only shows imagery at 30% off nadir (the angle in which the satellite is at when it takes the image, basically). They forgot to open up that range.
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This is the footage I used to geolocate Vitel'Homme Innocent's house, where the interview was conducted. I'll go through some of the scenes to provide proofs of how I made the geographical matches, using Google Earth. Source:
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Good morning. I've been asked by many to explain how I found @officialmcafee and his security team. So I did this case study on geoprofiling and imagery analysis for the #OSINT community. This should help if you are trying to geolocate a traveler✌️.
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Many of the fake accounts spread falsehoods and conspiracy theories. They praise Trump and Senator JD Vance, discredit Democratic Party members such as Biden and Harris and post divisive content in US politics, such as LGBTQ rights and aid to Ukraine.
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This is brilliant work by the team at @thesundaytimes using verification work from our Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map from @Cen4infoRes to create this piece telling the story of the war through the eyes of Ukrainians
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Many of the photos stolen to create new personas on X, are from fashion influencers – most of whom are based in Europe.
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Without insight into X’s data, it’s not clear who is behind these accounts, or to confirm whether they’re pushing pro-Trump content for ideological or monetary gain. So let’s dig into what these accounts are doing, and how they are doing it.
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Let's take a look at some of the accounts. The first pattern identified in this network is the profile images. Most of the accounts in this network used the images of Bollywood actresses & celebrities. Here is @jimmykaur3. It's actually an image of an actress.
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In a number of cases, influencers’ photos were not just stolen and repurposed as new online personas but were manipulated to make it look like they were wearing pro-Trump paraphernalia.
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One of the things that made this geolocation easier was a reference image I made of what the area would look like on a map, from what I could see in the footage. The image below shows just how much can be gleaned from footage alone, in comparison to the satellite image.
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The first geolocation, and the easiest one thanks to the majestic mountain range surrounding Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, was at 01:04 of the video. We see a big wall, large factory roof, turn in the road, and a lovely mountain range. Location: 18.5447, -72.2359
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New satellite imagery taken this morning shows smoke coming from the contested Snake Island (45.255721, 30.204173) which Russia announced its withdrawal from today: 📸 @Maxar
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First, I did this because knowing the location of where a gang lord responsible for horrible violence is helpful, even if he might not be there after CNN visited. Vitel is the leader of Kraze Barye and is on the @FBIMostWanted list for taking hostages, and sanctioned by UN.
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Closer view of the imagery from today shows the very targeted location on that specific building, located at: 47.828530, 37.710802. 📸@Maxar. Ukraine's President Zelensky says this prison attack was a 'deliberate war crime by the Russians'.
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This investigation I did in 2021 is getting lots of new attention after recent claims of networks attempting to influence perceptions in India. Stay alert for tactics and accounts like those seen here, especially where the info targets minority groups.
A coordinated network of fake accounts posed as Sikh personas to promote the Indian Govt, nationalism & label Sikh activists as terrorists. They claimed they were #RealSikhs, but were far from it. News on our investigation: Here is an explainer thread👇
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@katie_polglase @PallabiMunsi @ArvanitidisCNN For this story @CNN reached out to X regarding these accounts "but did not receive a response". However, in the last 24 hours before publishing, X took down the majority of the accounts.
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Many accounts have posted these claims that Maxar didn't have satellites running over Bucha on March 19.
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It’s been six weeks since the Myanmar coup. Despite deaths, violence by security forces, internet shutdowns and night raids, demonstrators brave the streets. This was Hledan, Yangon, last night ✊
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“Where do you get all of that satellite imagery from?” this is a question I get asked a lot, so here is a #GEOINT tutorial on my four fav satellite imagery tools (& their cool features) to help. Oh, and they’re all free and publicly available ✌️ .
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A brilliant visualisation by @FT based on the data we've been collecting, verifying and mapping at @Cen4infoRes on the Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map: Well done @neggeen_s & @sdbernard. Here's the FT piece:
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The criteria for achieving a blue tick states that accounts must have a name, a profile image, a phone number and active X premium sub, which requires processing of payment details. X also requires "no signs of being misleading or deceptive”.
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In a joint release today, the FBI, Dutch AIVD and Canada's CCCS also published technical details of the Russian network architecture. It used Meliorator to generate accounts en masse through a Brigadir UI, then Taras to control the personas on X.
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Many of the accounts identified by CIR appeared in May and June this year. At least 13 accounts in the network had the blue tick verification badge which they obtained in either July or August 2024.
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A good reminder to always double check your satellite sources, here's Korea's Naver Maps with an entire fake forest covering a defence area in Seoul's Yongsan area. The fake forest can be clearly seen when compared against Google Maps.
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One of the accounts mentioned in the affidavit didn't use the two domains seized by DoJ, but rather an address provided by a disposable email service. The account @tblock1999xe is still available. Note the GAN-generated profile image.
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One of the accounts is Eva. She lives in the US, and likes hanging out at the beach and posting to her 5000+ followers on X. Eva posts strong opinions against LGBTQ people and the US Democratic party and is a loyal supporter of former US president Donald Trump.
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Our Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map is now updated with more than 400 entries, specifically locations and details of units amassed along Ukraine's border. You can see the map we've been working on at @Cen4infoRes (with support form the community) here:
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So WHAT was their aim? . We can glean some obvious details from the content the accounts post. Here is some of the Facebook activity we looked at. It shows a strong focus on countering Sikh independence. Note the prominence of tags such as #PakistanBehindKhalistan
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@katie_polglase @PallabiMunsi @ArvanitidisCNN @CNN Even though X took down many of the accounts, the pro-Trump fake account @Luna_2K24 is still active with a large following. The photos stolen to create that persona are photos of the Instagram influencer that @CNN's @katie_polglase interviewed as part of this collaboration.
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This account, included in the RT network, appeared to post videos of Putin as replies to posts on X, specifically posts about Ukraine, Palestine or US politics. Not very great influence content, barely any traction, and pretty much just there to promote Putin.
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The developer of the architecture behind the network putting out RT content on X inserted code to allow for the server to bypass X verification methods, the ones put in place to prevent bot capabilities.
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Over the past 20 minutes, almost 2000 tweets have been uploaded using the hashtags of major Chinese cities (such as #杭州), all with the text "I'm single, can I get a husband on Twitter". All of the accounts have been made in the past two months, and have zero or few followers.
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I call these accounts sock puppets. They are fictitious online identities attempting to be a specific persona. And these ones have a story that doesn't just exist on Twitter - let's take a look.
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We worked with CNN to tell this story, who interviewed some of the women who had their photos stolen, and some of the specialists who gave important context as to how this fits into the bigger picture. H/T @katie_polglase @PallabiMunsi @ArvanitidisCNN .
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The accounts share common traits such as listing their location as the US and often express support for President Trump and a love of God in their bios. Some of these accounts gained significant traction on X with some getting tens or even hundreds of thousands of views.
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Grim reporting from Ukraine’s Bucha where bodies are seen lying in the streets, some with hands tied, and reports of large mass graves in the area.
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These fake accounts carry their personas over to different platforms. We found that 22 accounts that were the same personas on Twitter & Facebook. They used the same image, name, cover photo, and posted the same content. Here is an example of 'Sanpreet' on both platforms.
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These findings are documented in a full transparent influence operations research report here @Cen4infoRes: This report was shared with teams at Twitter and Meta. All of the accounts identified in this research have subsequently been suspended 👊.
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Wow this thread on geolocating a Haitian gang lord got a lot of traction. Final note, this took me a few hours, and can be done by anyone willing to put in the time. If you want to learn how to do this type of research, I make free YouTube tutorials 👇.
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Let's take a look at @nupurkaur1. This is actually a photo of the sister of Mubashra Aslam.
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Are we seeing a pattern here? . Here is @kaurgunjann with more than 7000 followers. This is actually actress Mandy Takhar.
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Some of the accounts attempted to establish ownership over the images by outing other accounts who they claim are using the images without their permission. In some cases, they claim they have reported and blocked these accounts, and call on their followers to do the same.
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However, some of the content gained significant traction. For example this tweet about independence groups overseas received more than 3000 retweets and 16,000 likes. Not bad for a sock puppet with a set list of talking points to promote certain narratives.
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In a number of the posts, the fake accounts sought to exploit wedge issues and existing tensions, at times spreading misinfo and conspiracy theories, concerning in the run-up to the US election. Read our full findings in this report.
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The second geolocation was this brilliant little architectural oddity of the little street wall, that served its geolocatable purpose well.
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Important analysis by @bellingcat to counter the numerous posters spreading disinformation about Russia's strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv yesterday.
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NEW Satellite imagery taken over Ukraine's Mariupol on November 30 shows Mariupol's bombed drama theatre surrounded by a large protective screen. Images below show before (29 March) & after (Nov 30).📸 @Maxar
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Our Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map now has more than 1100 verified entries and a new 'munitions' category. This has been a big effort by our team of volunteers at @Cen4infoRes, @bellingcat & the community working on this.
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