Fake Media Accounts Boost Netanyahu

To add to the already complicated webs in the upcoming Israel election, a new report has concluded fake social media accounts are boosting Netanyahu. The current prime minister of Israel is seeking reelection and has launched a campaign smearing his liberal opponent Benny Gantz.

The report by the watchdog group Big Bots Project was written with the help of the liberal organization Israeli Alliance. The watchdog group found no direct links to the accounts and Netanyahu or the Likud party. However, Big Bots Project did find the network of accounts work with Likud’s election campaign. 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. The posts, all in Hebrew, have had more than 2.5 million hits.