A GAN-generated face and no posts for the first nine years. Seems legit!Determining whether a given social media account is inauthentic is not always straightforward. Consider, for example, the case of X account @LovewinnLove, which commented on a variety of political topics between October 2023 and January 2024. This account, which sported an $8 blue verification checkmark alongside a StyleGAN-generated face, was created back in August 2014 but had no posts prior to October 2023, a gap of slightly over nine years. On their own these two attributes, while potentially suspicious, could have reasonable explanations. In combination, however, they suggest the possibility that an unused old account, possibly hijacked or purchased, was reactivated and redecorated to create this persona. (Since the account was created in 2014 and StyleGAN did not exist until 2018, it is impossible that the GAN-generated face is the account’s original profile image.)don’t look too closely at the teethThere are multiple indicators that @LovewinnLove’s “face” is GAN-generated, including the unrealistic teeth (particularly the visible portion of the bottom row), bizarre texturing and seams in the shirt fabric, and the telltale eye positioning characteristic of all StyleGAN-generated face images. As mentioned earlier, the use of an artificially generated face by a single social media account is not necessarily suspicious and does not on its own constitute proof that the account in question is inauthentic — perhaps the user wishes to remain anonymous, or simply finds a specific generated image aesthetically pleasing. In the case of this account, however,…Tall tales and fake faces