You’re going to face a tsunami of disinformation again this election cycle, experts warn – By Darrel Rowland (The Columbus Dispatch) / Feb 24 2020
Tammy Texoma’s Twitter feed shows lots of love for President Donald Trump, and lots of contempt for the president’s detractors.
Her highly partisan online missives even caught the attention of Newsweek last fall, which merely identified her as “a Twitter user.”
But a deeper dive reveals much more about this social media account — and provides a glimpse into a dark cyberworld of shadowy figures trying to influence American voters during another presidential campaign.
The same photo of the smiling, short-haired blonde that appears in “Tammy’s” Twitter profile also has been used for a porn actress named Kelsey Hess, shows a reverse-image search done by the Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA TODAY Network. And she shows up again as Kiara Owens on a Russian website that advertises for dates with Russian speakers.
In recent years, she also has been Dazi, ReginaLover120, Rose, Candy Lucas, Sandra Smith or Heather Benard, depending on the web link.
Many of those connections are no longer active, but one that remains live takes users to explicit poses of the same woman — except that in this account, she is “Patience” with a Las Vegas escort service.
Though “Tammy” seems unlikely to influence the 2020 U.S. election, the ease with which such disinformation can be disseminated – and even fool credible news organizations – shows how little has changed since Russia tried to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Continue to article: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2020/02/24/2020-election-disinformation-presidential-race/4725496002/
