Fake Social Media Accounts Working To Help Netanyahu Reelection Bid

By Marcy Oster April 1, 2019

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hundreds of social media accounts, many of them fake, are working together to help the reelection efforts of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party, an Israeli watchdog group has found.

The watchdog group, called the Big Bots Project, found no links between the network of social media accounts and Netanyahu or the Likud Party, in its report due to be released on Monday, according to The New York Times, which saw an advance copy of the report.

Some 154 of the accounts in the network use fake names and another 400 accounts are suspected of being fake, but appear to be operated by actual people, which makes them harder to detect, according to the report. Their posts, all in Hebrew, have had over 2.5 million hits.

Their messages have been retweeted and reposted on Facebook by Likud campaign officials and by Netanyahu’s son, Yair.

The network could violate Israeli laws pertaining to elections, campaign finance, privacy and taxation, according to the report.

A spokesman for the Likud Party told the New York Times that the party does not run a network of fake accounts. “All of the Likud’s digital activity is entirely authentic and is based on the great support of the citizens of Israel for Prime Minister Netanyahu and the great achievements of the Likud,” the spokesman, Jonathan Urich, said.

The report was written by Noam Rotem and Yuval Adam, founders of the Big Bots Project. Their investigation was assisted by the Israeli Alliance, a liberal group calling for social change in Israel, and the investigation was financed through an Israeli online crowdfunding site, Drove.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO