Russian trolls duped Donald Trump Jr. with a fake Kid Rock account
Russian trolls spreading far-right conspiracy theories online have managed to trick Donald Trump Jr. into believing a fake Kid Rock post is real.
In one of the many attempts to meddle in the US election, the Russian trolls created a fake account pretending to be the MAGA musician. A post by the KidRockOfficial account spreading a conspiracy theory about ivermectin, a fake Covid cure and oil stocks caught the attention of the former president’s son.
Donald Trump Jr., who is said to be friends with Kid Rock in real life, took a screenshot of Gettr’s post and then posted it to Instagram with the caption “yup.”
The post is just a small part of a broader trend in which bad actors are taking advantage of social media apps like Gab, Gettr, and Truth Social, the platform created by former President Donald Trump, and using “for all” policies to their advantage.
The trolls have been posing as various American conservatives, posting across the various platforms, allegedly spreading pro-Russian propaganda, misinformation already popular with far-right groups, and conspiracy theories about Ukraine and the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
New report links accounts to Russia
These findings come from a new report by social media tracking firm Graphika and Stanford University’s Internet Observatory, which traced a series of 35 accounts to the Newsroom for American European Based Citizens (NAEBC) — a fake outlet linked to Russian trolls connected. Combined, the accounts have amassed around 33,000 unique followers across Truth Social, Gab, and Gettr.
Researchers discovered that “KidRockOfficial” was identical to another account on Gab that had been flagged by the FBI as operated by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm, back in 2020. It had simply reappeared on another platform with the same grip.
This isn’t the first time posts on right-wing platforms have been linked to Russian trolls; However, it is the first time such accounts have been identified on Truth Social.
“Due to an apparent lack of enforcement, actors have built a level of persistence unavailable on most mainstream platforms and are able to conduct their operations with relative ease,” the report said.
Gab founder Andrew Torba said in a statement that if the platform had been notified of such activity by law enforcement, “we would have investigated and taken action.”
Gettr’s CEO also said in a statement that the company “has taken a robust and proactive approach to moderation and earlier this year removed all Russia Today accounts for violations.” [its] Terms of Use. Our platform always complies with local law enforcement and has been repeatedly praised for its moderation approach by third parties such as Cristopher Bouzy, CEO of Bot Sentinel.”
Truth Social, Kid Rock and Donald Trump Jr. did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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