United States | CNN: Images of European women are being used without permission by fake accounts supporting Trump

Republicans presidential candidate Donald Trump’s the presidential election campaign is being promoted by fake social media accounts whose identities and photos are fake or copied, US media finds out CNN’s and the Center for Information Resilience think tank from the report.

CNN tells, among other things, about a user who went by the name Luna 2K24, who refers to his 30,000 followers as “patriots”, promises to vote for Trump and J.D. Vance and spreading conspiracy theories about Democrats.

“Would you support Trump being president forever?” the user asked in the caption of a picture published on messaging service X. In the picture, the woman is posing in a white bikini.

According to CNN, the photo was seen by about 54,000 people before it was removed.

Lunahowever, there is no person named, but the photos used by the account were copied by a German by Debbie Nederlof From an Instagram account, CNN reveals.

Nederlof is one of seventeen European women whose photos have been copied for the purposes of promoting the Trump campaign. CNN identified at least 56 accounts that have acted in a similar manner.

The accounts’ texts and publications clearly resemble each other and they use the same subject tags. The fake accounts have also shared each other’s publications, which speaks of wider coordination.

“Honestly, my first reaction was ‘what the hell?’, because I have nothing to do with the United States. I’m from a small town in Germany, I’m not interested in American politics,” Nederlof tells CNN.

The publications have used photos from at least German, Dutch, Danish and Russian social media users. Some of the clothes worn by the women have had Trump tags added afterwards, such as the Make America Great Again slogan.

Fake accounts the founder or founders are unknown. Some of the texts in the accounts use poor English, which may be a sign of foreign influence.

In addition to copied photos, the accounts also use photos made by artificial intelligence.

According to Nederlof, this was not the first time his photos were used without permission, but it was the first time they were used for political purposes.

“In addition to my photos, they used photos of my little son and my dog. How could they?” Nederlof asks.

Message service X did not comment on the matter to CNN, but removed the relevant accounts from its service after CNN requested a statement on the matter.

The Luna fake account had been followed by, among others, a Republican senator Doug Mastriano. Mastriano did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.