The curious case of Mayson Burch

this person does not exist, but 21K people don’t seem to have noticedMeet “Mayson Burch”, a pro-Trump X account with the handle @anticatlady, a StyleGAN-generated face, and over 21,000 followers as of August 1st, 2024. This account, which has authored viral political posts with some regularity, was created back in January 2012, yet curiously has no visible posts prior to June 2023. The account doesn’t get any less suspect when examined more closely; in addition to the artificially generated face and eleven year gap in activity, the account has been renamed, redecorated, and purged of content on at least one occasion. Additionally, Google and DuckDuckGo searches turn up evidence that the account was used to promote dodgy cryptocurrency projects under a previous handle.until July 25th, the account had a blue checkmark and the handle @MaysonBurch The “Mayson Burch” account has sported a paid blue verification checkmark for much of its recent history, including various posts captured on archive sites. The verification checkmark is absent from posts made after July 25th, 2024, although it is unclear whether this is the result of a cancelled subscription, a recent handle change from @MaysonBurch to @anticatlady, or moderation actions taken against the account. Searching with the “filter:blue_verified” option confirms that the account was still verified at the time of its July 25th posts.some examples of the “Mayson Burch” account’s more popular postsThe “Mayson Burch” account primarily posts right-wing political content, and has been doing so on a regular basis since June 2023, prior to…The curious case of Mayson Burch

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