A MAGA bot network on X is divided over the Trump-Epstein backlash

Yahoo

2 days ago

A previously unreported network of hundreds of accounts on X is using artificial intelligence to automatically reply to conservatives with positive messages about people in the Trump administration, researchers say.
But with the MAGA movement split over the administration's handling of files involving deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the accounts' messaging has broken, offering contradictory statements on the issue and revealing the AI-fueled nature of the accounts.
The network, tracked for NBC News by both the social media analytics company Alethea and researchers at Clemson University, consists of more than 400 identified bot accounts, though the number could be far larger, the researchers say. Its accounts offer consistent praise for key Trump figures, particularly support for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
As often is the case with bot accounts, those viewed by NBC News tended to have only a few dozen followers, and their posts rarely get many views. But a large audience does not appear to be the point. Their effectiveness, if they have any, is in the hope that they contribute to a partisan echo chamber, and that en masse they can 'massage perceptions,' said Darren Linvill, the director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub, which studies online disinformation campaigns.
'They're not really there to get engagement. They're there to just be occasionally seen in those replies,' Linvill told NBC News.
The researchers declined to share specifics on how they identified the accounts, but noted they shared a number of distinct trends. All were created, seemingly in batches, around three specific days last year. They frequently punctuate their posts with hashtags, often ones that are irrelevant to the conversation. They post almost exclusively by replying to other users, often to people who pay X for verification and by repeating similarly worded sentiments over and over in short succession. At times, they will respond to someone's post by repeating it back to them verbatim.
It's unclear who is behind the network, or which of the multiple AI chatbots that are widely accessible to the public was used to power it.
The bots have posted support for conservative figures since 2024, including supporting Trump and other Republicans on the ballot in the lead-up to the election, and then afterward posting that they were excited for Trump to take office. Though they would occasionally mix their messages — some have professed affection for MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, for instance — their messaging was consistently in favor of MAGA figures until the recent Epstein files controversy.
A core constituency of Trump supporters voted for him on the belief that Trump, a former friend of Epstein's, would expose a list of supposed rich and powerful clients and bring justice to Epstein's victims.
It's only since earlier this month, when Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she would not release additional Epstein files, that the accounts' messaging has become so split, with some accounts telling different users opposite opinions almost concurrently.
During the same minute last Saturday morning, for example, one account in the network both cautioned a MAGA supporter from judging Bondi too harshly and told another that Bondi or FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino should resign over the scandal.
When Bondi first said she would not release additional files, another declared that she 'comes out clean as the DOJ confirms no Epstein client list found, while reaffirming his death by suicide.' Since then, it has since told multiple people on X that they should engage in full revolt against the Trump administration.
'Retweet if you believe that Trump & his cronies are lying to the public and treating us like we're stupid. We won't be fooled by their games,' it posted Friday.
While it's unknown what the accounts' prompts are, they appear to be trained on real MAGA social media accounts, whose messages tend to be more unified, said C. Shawn Eib, Alethea's head of investigations.
'This split reaction mimics the organic reaction among supporters of Trump's second administration,' Eib told NBC News. 'It's possible that the behavior of these automated accounts is influenced by content posted from prominent influencers, and this shift is reflective of the general change in tenor among many of Trump's supporters.'
For years, social media has been infested with inauthentic accounts designed to sway popular opinion, whether they're marketing firms pushing products or foreign governments and domestic groups pushing political propaganda. But that has become turbocharged with the rapid proliferation of AI chatbots that can write and post convincing messages without human intervention, and exacerbated by social media companies scaling back their moderation.
The White House declined to comment, and the Department of Health and Human Services and X did not respond to requests for comment.
The researchers believe X is likely rife with inauthentic accounts, though it's impossible to tell the scope. Last year, researchers found a different network of AI-driven pro-Trump accounts on X. But there is no way to grasp the scale of their presence on the network. X disbanded much of its trust and safety team when billionaire Elon Musk bought the site in 2022 and has since made it significantly harder for researchers to access data.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com