Palestine activists are working overtime to win the propaganda war against Israel, including by paying so-called ‘bot farms’ to manipulate trends on Twitter/X.
Britain’s Campaign Against Antisemitism organisation has revealed that this activity, which employs automated programs to generate fake online activity, has resulted in the phrase “Famine in Gaza” becoming the number one trending hashtag on X timelines.
Explaining how this works, the group pointed to hundreds of phoney accounts posting phrases totally unrelated to the Israel-Hamas conflict—for example, “never underestimate the power of a good book and a cozy blanket on a cold day”—but also featuring the anti-Israeli hashtag, until “the hashtag reaches number one and real users weigh in.” It added that
Some bots are operated by state actors to pursue an agenda, but today’s bots are just bots for sale which post about anything.