When German Debbie Nederlof discovered that there was one of her profiles on X (formerly Twitter) with the name Luna, and that she was a fan of Donald TrumpThere was no room for surprise: supposed supporters of the Republican candidate had appropriated his image to create the fake account @Luna_2K24 which, for weeks, has been sending messages of support for the Trump campaign to its nearly 30,000 followers, without Nederlof being involved.
That of this 32-year-old German fashion influencer This is not the only case. A joint investigation by CNN and the Center for Information Resilience (CIR) has discovered at least 17 fake accounts who use, without their consent, the real image of European influencers from countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark or Russia to promote Trump’s message to their potential voters in the United States, attack his opponent, Kamala Harris, and spread disinformation.
In addition to finding these profiles, the investigation discovered a total of 56 fake accounts on X with the same objective. In the case of those who do not use images stolen from known European influencers, they use artificial intelligenceThey all have in common that they are young and attractive women, used as decoys for the campaign of the Republican candidate and his running mate, JD Vance.
Some images were manipulated to “dress” the supposed young women with pro-Trump clothingsigns of support and even captions urging their deluded supporters to vote for the Republican leader.
As CNN reveals, there is no evidence directly linking the Trump campaign to these actions, and it is presumed that the authors behind the profiles are either anonymous followers of the candidate or foreign actors interested in his victoryTo support this last claim, the investigation relies on grammatical errors in English in many messages spread by these accounts, similar to each other and always under hashtags such as #MAGAPatriots, #MAGA2024 and #IFBAP (I Follow Back All Patriots).
Most of the accounts have already been deleted by X, but at least eight of those using stolen photos had the blue verification seal that users can purchase if they are X Premium (paid) users. In the case of accounts created with AI-generated images, the number of verified profiles rises to four.
In a conversation with the aforementioned American network, Nederlof confessed that this was not the first time he had been a victim of identity theft. But this time it is the first time his image was used for political purposesand not only that, but it spreads anti-vaccine, anti-homosexual or xenophobic content, in addition to echoing fake news, such as that Trump has suffered new assassination attempts supposedly hidden by the media.
“I couldn’t believe it. I have nothing to do with the United Statesnot with Trump, not with politics there. “How could I have anything to do with all this coming from a small town in Germany,” Nederlof said.
Difficulties to report
Regarding other similar previous experiences, the German complained that they even used her image along with that of her son: “Not only did they use my photographs, but also those of my son and my dog. How could they do that?” On another occasion, an imposter used images of her dog to raise money for a supposed cataract operation. “I’m an optician by training, it’s crazy.”
In line with the above, Nederlof, who mainly uses Instagram, regrets that the platform owned by Meta was unable to give you clear answers on how to combat fraud in profiles that profit from their image. She and other victims interviewed by CNN acknowledged having “difficulties” in denouncing this practice or asking for the fake accounts to be deleted each time they were identified.
“I am a mother and my son is the most important issue for me. No matter what happens in politics, in X, I I can’t do anything about it. I just want it to end.“concludes Nederlof.
