{"id":1098,"date":"2026-04-08T22:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/1098\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T22:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:52:09","slug":"how-to-spot-a-bot-tips-for-identifying-fake-social-media-accounts-as-midterm-elections-ramp-up-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/1098\/","title":{"rendered":"How to spot a bot: Tips for identifying fake social media accounts as midterm elections ramp up :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Advancements in artificial intelligence could help bad actors influence political discourse ahead of the midterm elections, a former North Carolina cybersecurity official warns.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Improvements in AI technology are making it easier for people to create accounts on social media that are controlled by bots, says Torry Crass, a cybersecurity analyst who previously worked for North Carolina\u2019s Department of Information Technology and state Board of Elections. Those bots post about controversial political subjects in hopes of influencing North Carolina voters, Crass said Wednesday during a virtual presentation on the issue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is really a kind of transformation that has taken place in the last couple of years related to bots, as well as it pertaining to mis-and-disinformation,\u201d Crass said during the event, hosted by the Catawba College Center for North Carolina Politics and Public Service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we get closer to the election, I would expect to see the generated AI content go significantly higher than what it is today,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The November elections will determine who controls Congress, state legislatures and more. North Carolina\u2019s U.S. Senate race between Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley is expected to be among the tightest in the nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Federal laws don\u2019t prohibit the use of AI to create misleading audio or video in political ads. And AI-use by political groups has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/story\/can-you-spot-a-fake-ai-generated-political-attacks-ramp-up-as-elections-near\/21111028\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">increased in recent years<\/a>. People have used AI in subtle ways, such as to generate video of military jets flying over a candidate\u2019s campaign events. People have also used it to impersonate a candidate\u2019s image or voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>People have also created social media accounts with the sole purpose of generating outrage that influences a voter\u2019s opinion of a certain candidate or political party.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In previous elections, Crass said, bot-controlled social media accounts featured flaws that were easy to detect. Those accounts might feature only one photo of the alleged social media user or inconsistencies in the user\u2019s biographical information. Now, AI can create authentic-looking images and populate social media accounts with more consistent details.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Still, Crass said, voters can identify bot-operated social media accounts by finding certain clues:<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIf a social media account was created mere months before an election, that could indicate an intent to influence voters.If an account\u2019s posts are nearly identical to posts by other accounts, it might be operated by a bot.If an account regularly posts content at night when most people are sleeping, it might be operated by a bot or by someone from another country.\u00a0\u00a0If an account only posts political content \u2014 and doesn\u2019t it produce posts about the user\u2019s personal life or other topics \u2014 it might be a bot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is indicative of how AI functions, because it&#8217;s purpose-built,\u201d Crass said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach of these things is a breadcrumb and a red flag,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean something is malicious or bad, but when you start seeing these red flags, and you start adding them up, it starts becoming very clear that something more is going on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Advancements in artificial intelligence could help bad actors influence political discourse ahead of the midterm elections, a former&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,1394,1393,1392,1391,1388,1389,1390,1109],"class_list":{"0":"post-1098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ai","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-bots","11":"tag-cyber-security","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-michael-whatley","14":"tag-politifact","15":"tag-politifactnc","16":"tag-roy-cooper","17":"tag-social-media"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}