The BBC’s misinformation correspondent joked that she has a “new fan” after Donald Trump Jr denounced her new political experiment as “fake news”.
Marianna Spring of the BBC spoke to The Associated Press about the project. She created five fake Americans and created social media accounts for each of them, trying to show the spread of disinformation and how it affects US politics.
Mr Trump Jr latched onto the AP headline: “BBC tries to understand politics by creating fake Americans”
“And some still question if fake news exists,” he tweeted. “The BBC just admitted it created fake profiles across social media...”
“A new fan for #Americast‘s Undercover Voters! I’ve created social media accounts for five characters based on data. We investigate what the profiles are recommended and exposed to online,” Ms Spring tweeted on Wednesday and included a screenshot of Mr Trump Jr’s post.
“We’re doing it with very good intentions because it’s important to understand what is going on,” she told the AP.
“The US is the key battleground” when it comes to disinformation, she said.
The misinformation reporter collaborated with the Pew Research Center to build five profiles.
There’s Larry, a conservative from Alabama; Emma, a liberal from New York City; Britney, a Texas populist conservative; Gabriela, an independent from Miami; and Michael, a moderate Democrat from Milwaukee.
Ms Spring created accounts for each of them with computer-generated photos on several platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok.
The accounts are passive, which means that they don’t have friends on the platforms and they don’t make any public comments.
Ms Spring has a phone for each of the profiles, which all have various traits. Emma, for instance, follows women’s and LGBT+ issues, is pro-marijuana legalisation and follows outlets such as The New York Times and NPR.
The differences in the accounts and their interests are intended to reveal how the various social media platforms’ algorithms work and what type of content is promoted to each of the profiles.
Britney turned out to be sceptical of vaccines and anti-big business and was sent content connected to those views, Ms Spring told the AP. The account was sent content from groups rejecting the results of the 2020 election, some of which included violent rhetoric, among other baseless conspiracy theories.
Ms Spring said that even though social media companies work to restrict disinformation, a significant amount is still getting through, and it’s mostly from the point of view of the far-right.
Gabriela, a Latina mother who doesn’t follow political content, was still more likely to see GOP-supporting content in her feed.
“The best thing you can do is understand how this works,” Ms Spring told the AP. “It makes us more aware of how we’re being targeted.”
“My job is to investigate misinformation and I’m setting up fake accounts,” she added. “The irony is not lost on me.”
A retired ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, Bob Steele, told the AP that “by creating these false identities, she violates what I believe is a fairly clear ethical standard in journalism”.
“We should not pretend that we are someone other than ourselves, with very few exceptions,” he added.
Ms Spring argued that the public interest is stronger than the point outlined by Mr Steele.
“We take ethics extremely seriously and numerous processes are in place to ensure that our activity does not affect anyone else,” the BBC told the AP. “Our coverage is transparent and clearly states that the investigation does not offer exhaustive insight into what every US voter could be seeing on social media, but instead provides a snapshot of the important issues associated with the spread of online disinformation.”
