If you are a regular reader of the blog, you know this is a saga I follow with delight, since there is a genuine battle of influence under way. In previous episodes, I produced a full review of lobbying on social media, and I decoded Uber's #LaissezNousTravailler campaign. Very recently, I came across a rather questionable tactic among the anti-Uber camp. And for good reason, since it is a technique taken straight from the Islamic State's propaganda on the blue bird social network. I have found only two cases so far, but it is a safe bet that others are out there in the wild. A short decoding!
To begin with, a technique already seen with the Islamic State
The technique is well known to Islamic State propagandists. On Twitter, it is possible to change your username/alias while keeping all your followers, following and likes. The only thing you lose is your tweets. The manoeuvre is unlimited and very easy to carry out. All you need to do is go to preferences, account, and change your username: and there you go!
This allows Islamic State propagandists to tweet propaganda, but delete it before suffering Twitter's censorship, which wipes their account. I found this type of technique with two anti-Uber accounts. I observed them over many weeks. At the time we first crossed paths, the person was an economics journalist in the Web's opinion columns, then the official account of the MediaPart Fan Club. We can clearly see the similarity between the number of followers and the gradual evolution.
The second account is somewhat larger in audience. For some, note the very low number of tweets on the account. From a simple nobody with a username, I see him gradually become a lawyer, then even a doctor over time:
For his stint as a doctor, a surgeon, he takes the logic very far indeed:
Note that Touizane is the only username that was used by both accounts, which may indicate that we are dealing with one and the same person.
By digging into the tweet histories around these accounts, we have proof that all these accounts have disappeared:
What do these accounts do?
No need to beat around the bush, the accounts mostly produce anti-Uber propaganda:
They pass themselves off as people practising a profession they do not have while spreading false information:
As soon as the accounts reappear, they simply repost all the previous propaganda:
To what end?
Very curiously, the larger of the two accounts has many journalists among its followers. We thus find:
- You Martial, editor-in-chief of the economics desk at RTL
- Fabienne Sintes, journalist for Radio France
- Guillaume Daret, senior reporter at France 2
- Donald Hebert, journalist at L'Obs
- Corrine Lepage, former Minister for the Environment
- Anne Laure Jumet, deputy head of the economics desk at Europe 1.
- Nassira El Moaddem, journalist at Bondyblog
The manoeuvre makes it possible to slip into these journalists' timelines while appearing to be a different sender from the one the journalists chose to follow.
The targets and supports are also quite clear, as we observe activity mainly around two people: Jacques Rapoport, the mediator in the VTC conflict, and MP Grandguillaume, who has just drafted the 2016 law on VTCs.
To this universe we can add Simonnet2, better known as Simonnet Danielle, completely pro-taxi and anti-Uber. Taking the accounts I found in my investigation, I managed to delimit the universe in terms of followers as follows:
We find normal communities there (pink), while the green/ochre community is where the “dirty things” play out, with the latest identities of my two accounts with dubious techniques: Dreeft2 (now Boufiz06) and AlphaTaxisParis. Oh yes, did I not tell you? The famous surgeon seems to have settled on his latest identity:
And for yet another identity, since December he seems to have calmed down completely:
Incidentally, they forgot to take back their old name, since in the whole list of taxis, essentially one person is missing:
And let the traces not lie:
It has now been 3 months since the account stabilised, which makes me think it could well be them. I have seen many Trojan horses, but an entire entity that changes its official account, followed by many journalists, to carry out an operation and then return to its original identity as if nothing had happened goes beyond anything one could imagine. We imagined the lobbying army was on Uber's side. It has to be said that the taxis have their own highly dubious techniques too. In any case, this public affairs struggle on social media is fascinating, and it is quite possible that another article on the subject will come out in the near future!