A new research paper from a social media tracking company has found that Russian trolls have found a favorite celebrity to impersonate in Kid Rock.
Graphika and Stanford University’s Internet Observatory found that unofficial Kid Rock pages on far-right social media apps have fooled even former president Donald Trump’s son. Social platforms associated with conservatives include Gab, Gettr, Parler and Trump’s own, Truth Social.
The New York Times also found that ahead of midterm elections, alternative social media sites helped push false and misleading information due to Russian misinformation accounts that often use the guise of Kid Rock.
The paper says the “actors behind this activity use fake personas to pose as members of the community they are attempting to infiltrate and influence. The Kid Rock ‘fan page’ accounts were by far the most successful in this regard, building a large follower base and reportedly viewed online as genuine Kid Rock accounts. However, we also identified other personas presenting as authentic right-wing users.”
Kid Rock profiles will claim to be a “fan page,” but posts can appear on users feeds as simply being from Kid Rock.
In June, Donald Trump Jr. “shared a screenshot with his 6.1 million Instagram followers of a post by a Gettr account in the operation that purported to be a fan page for musician Kid Rock,” the paper showed.
“Due to an apparent lack of enforcement, the actors have established a degree of persistence unavailable on most mainstream platforms and are able to conduct their operations with relative ease.”
The paper continues to say that combined with other celebrity impersonations from Russian troll accounts, it “illustrates the extent to which suspected Russian actors are able to leverage social media platforms that lack robust policies on foreign IO.”
