A viral US left-wing ultraliberal account that was know for rage-baiting the right-wing, Erica Marsh, has been suspended on suspicions of being a fake account. In 2022, several left and right leaning fake profiles popped up on Twitter to make a quick buck

Twitter has suspended a popular left-wing account following concerns about its authenticity, according to a report by The Washington Post. The account in question belongs to Erica Marsh, who identifies as a “Proud Democrat,” claims to have worked as a field organizer for President Biden, and volunteered for the Obama Foundation

Over the span of eight months, Erica Marsh had garnered a significant following on Twitter, with over 130,000 followers. She gained popularity by sharing hyper-liberal and often exaggerated opinions on major topics in American news.

Did the American left-wing make a fake account one of their heroes?
Despite presenting herself as a proud Democrat, Erica Marsh’s identity could not be verified through local phone or voting records. Furthermore, there is no record of her involvement with the Biden presidential campaign or the Obama Foundation, where she claimed to have worked and volunteered, respectively.

Suspicion surrounding Marsh’s account grew due to potential signs of digital manipulation in the photos she posted. Her only other known social media profile on TikTok merely reposted her tweets without any videos or clear images of herself. Digital imaging experts have also noted that the three supposed selfies she shared on Twitter display characteristics of digital manipulation.

Marsh’s account often posted divisive and inflammatory messages designed to provoke responses and increase her online presence. This tactic, known as “rage baiting,” helped raise her public profile.

Experts specializing in detecting online misinformation had raised doubts about Marsh’s authenticity due to her lack of a real-world presence and her tendency to espouse exaggerated liberal viewpoints. They viewed her account as almost comically liberal.

An expert in using polarising topics for clout
In response to sceptics, Marsh repeatedly denied being a parody, fake person, or robot, although she once expressed a desire to be one to simplify her experience on Twitter. She refrained from sharing personal details, citing a “terrifying” social media stalker and stating that she had learned from past mistakes. When her legitimacy was questioned, she even asked her Twitter followers to recommend a defamation attorney.

Marsh used every polarizing news story as an opportunity to share her opinion and encourage her fans to promote her account to their own networks.

She created her account in September 2022, just before Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, and quickly gained traction by posting a series of left-leaning tweets and requesting retweets from those who agreed with her. By November and December, she was gaining over 1,000 followers per day.

John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto who studies online disinformation, expressed strong doubts about Erica Marsh’s existence, suggesting that it seemed as if she appeared out of nowhere with a fabricated narrative that made liberals appear foolish.

All this for ad money?
The Washington Post spoke to a former Twitter employee, who on the condition of anonymity, told them that Around October 2022, the company noticed a surge in accounts originating from North Macedonia. These accounts presented themselves as pro-Trump influencers and employed a similar style of sensationalist and clickbait tweets.

Troll farms from Eastern Europe, have been known to operate websites that generate sensationalist content with the aim of getting ad revenue from outraged readers in the United States, regardless of their political affiliations.

While it remains uncertain whether Marsh’s account was part of such a campaign, it exhibits many characteristics seen in networks of fake political accounts created during the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections.

These accounts were often managed from foreign countries and pretended to be politically active Americans while commenting on divisive current events. They typically used profile pictures sourced from various internet sources to create relatable or engaging personas, often portraying young women, teachers, and veterans. Their exaggerated political stances were designed to generate controversy, provoke readers’ anger, and build a following, sometimes to advance political agendas, but mostly to monetize the account by changing its name and content in the future.