Trier, Germany
CNN
 — 

Luna, a self-described 32-year-old “MAGA Trump supporter” from the battleground state of Wisconsin, has gained a huge following since she joined X, formerly Twitter, in March. Her timeline has become a digital bullhorn for the “Make America Great Again” movement, praising former President Donald Trump’s re-election bid, promoting conspiracy theories about his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and touting Republican talking points to nearly 30,000 followers, who she addresses as “patriots.”

“Would You Support Trump Being The President forever? I wonder if you all support Trump for president just like me,” @Luna_2K24 posted on July 29, sharing a beach selfie in a white bikini and asking her followers to respond with an American flag emoji if they agreed. The post was viewed by around 54,000 people.

But Luna isn’t real. The photos of the smiling brunette posted periodically on @Luna_2K24’s timeline are of Debbie Nederlof, a German fashion influencer who lives across the Atlantic and won’t be voting in the US presidential election in November. When CNN reached out to the 32-year-old, a trained optician and single mother who is working two jobs – as a social media manager at an engineering firm and as a model to raise money for her child – she was angry and frustrated that her face was being used to push pro-Trump propaganda on X.

“To be honest, ‘what the f**k?’ was my reaction. That was my reaction, because I have nothing to do with the United States. With Trump, the political things over there. What the hell do I – from a small place in Germany – care about US politics?” she said.

Nederlof is one of 17 real European women — fashion and beauty influencers from the Netherlands, Denmark and as far away as Russia — whose online photos have been stolen by unknown actors to promote Trump and his pick as running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, on X, a CNN investigation in collaboration with the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) has found. CIR is an independent, non-profit social enterprise which describes itself as dedicated to exposing human rights abuses. It receives funding for individual projects from governments, NGOs and individuals.

The fake accounts are among 56 profiles on X identified by CNN and CIR, using a mixture of digital sleuthing and reverse image search tools, as appearing to be part of a coordinated campaign backing the Trump-Vance ticket ahead of the 2024 presidential election. There’s no indication that the Trump campaign is involved.

Experts say this could be just the tip of the iceberg. An analysis of the 56 pro-Trump accounts reveals a systematic pattern of inauthentic behavior. All of the accounts use photographs of beautiful, young women – many of them stolen, while others appear to be AI generated – who declare their support for Trump and use hashtags such as #MAGAPatriots, #MAGA2024 and #IFBAP (I Follow Back All Patriots). In many cases, CNN and CIR found the images had been manipulated to add Trump and MAGA slogans to otherwise unbranded clothing, all with captions that call to get out the vote.

The accounts also post similar messages, which often include English language errors (a potential sign of foreign interference, according to experts), and sometimes repost each other. Most have been created in the last few months and have seen their follower count grow rapidly; all give their location as being in the United States. Fifteen of the fake accounts have blue check marks – supposed to indicate that they have been verified – and eight of those have been identified as using stolen images.

CNN reached out to X regarding these accounts but did not receive a response. However, in the last 24 hours before publishing, X took down the majority of the accounts.

CNN also reached out to almost all of the real European women identified in the course of the joint investigation and was able to interview four of them.

Speaking to CNN from her home in the picture-postcard town of Trier, Germany, Nederlof said that it wasn’t the first time her images had been stolen and used without her consent. But she has never seen her likeness used to promote any sort of political agenda before this.

The fake profile using Nederlof’s photos has posted conspiracy-laden messages falsely claiming the US election is being rigged and that Trump has faced further assassination attempts, while also platforming anti-LGBTQ, anti-transgender, anti-vaccination, racist and xenophobic sentiments.

The appearance of the profiles on X comes as the 2024 presidential race between Harris and Trump heats up, and with foreign interference in the 2016 election still fresh in America’s collective memory. In the wake of Trump’s win in 2016, a debate emerged over the role Russian “trolls” played in helping to get him elected, by sharing disinformation and messages designed to sow division among the electorate on social media platforms like Facebook and what was then Twitter.

Fast forward eight years and both the political and digital landscapes look very different. Trump launched his own social media platform, Truth Social, and tech billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter, reinstating the former president’s account. The two men appeared in conversation in a recent X Spaces chat, discussing the 2024 election while sharing their mutual disdain for mainstream media. Musk preached the importance of unfettered free speech online, while Trump made at least 20 false claims, ranging from immigration to the economy, foreign policy and Harris’ record.

Under Musk’s leadership, X has dismantled many of the mechanisms and teams designed to safeguard against the distribution of falsehoods and conspiracy theories on the platform. The European Commission has been investigating X since last year over claims it is not in compliance with the bloc’s landmark Digital Services Act, a regulation that seeks to prevent harmful activities online and the spread of disinformation, while curtailing the power of social media platforms.

The legislation is designed to protect consumers like Nederlof, but she and other European influencers interviewed by CNN said they have struggled to get social platforms to take any action when they flag that their photos are being used without their consent, or their identities stolen, reflecting the challenges to enforcement and highlighting a growing threat to women’s bodily autonomy in the online sphere.

For 32-year-old Nederlof, every day is as jam-packed as the next. Throughout the week her time is taken up by four things: her 6-year-old son, her dog Lou, her day job in a firm in nearby Luxembourg and her side hustle as an Instagram influencer.

Walking through winding roads near her home in Trier with her dog, Nederlof told CNN how she decided to become an influencer. “The cost of living – it’s hard. And all I want is for my son to have a better future,” she said, adding that she hoped posting photos of herself on Instagram might lead to more modelling gigs. That desire for exposure is what drove her to start sharing her carefully curated photographs. Now she has over 74,000 followers on the platform, which is owned by Meta. CNN has reached out to Meta for comment on the issue of non-consensual lifting of images from its platform.

But with her growing reach came the spread of fake profiles across several platforms using her photos. “Not only did they use my photographs, but my son and my dog. How could they?” She told CNN that one impersonator had used photos of her dog to raise money for a supposed cataract surgery. “I am a trained optician – and that’s just crazy.”

She has tried reporting the fake accounts to platforms – but has repeatedly been disappointed, she said. “They always say there’s not enough proof that it’s fake.” She said the only time she was successful in getting a social platform to remove a profile was when a photographer friend who had taken the pictures threatened to sue over copyright violation.

Among the followers of the fake pro-Trump X profile that has been repurposing Nederlof’s photos is the official X profile of Republican Senator Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania – an early supporter of Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results. CNN has reached out to Mastriano’s office but has not heard back yet.

About the political messaging on the X account using her photos, Nederlof said: “I don’t give a damn about Trump.”

See the real women used in fake Trump accounts

Demi Maric, a 27-year-old business student and Instagram influencer based in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, is another of the women identified by CNN and CIR’s investigation. Her photographs were used by a fake “MAGA” profile on X under the name Gabriela and handle @queen0_gabriela.

The pinned tweet on her profile keeps changing: One day a photograph of Maric, sitting at what appears to be a restaurant table while holding a drink in her hand, is pinned to the top of the account, along with the message: “If you support RFK Jr joining our movement, I want to follow you! I hope all the patriots have a wonderful weekend.” The next day, it is a picture of her in what appears to be her bed, captioned: “Goodnight to everyone voting for Trump this November! See you all tomorrow.”

Maric, who grew up in the south of the Netherlands and moved to the capital seven years ago, told CNN she started focusing on her Instagram presence in 2020, and in the years since has had her photos stolen many times. One instance has had real-life impact. She said she was pulled into a lawsuit in the US after one of her many impersonators swindled money from a man while using her photographs. “It feels weird that I have to be part of a lawsuit even though I had nothing to do with the case,” she told CNN.

Another post on the fake Gabriela account declares “if you support Trump, I want to follow you” – language that is consistent with posts on almost all of the 56 fake accounts CNN and CIR analyzed. In addition to their apparent use of the same scripts, the accounts often retweet each other, attempting to amplify the messages, according to the analysis.

“By hijacking images of the influencers, these accounts clearly recognise the value of creating a believable human persona that followers can relate to – they share photographs of the women at the beach, out at a café, or doing their make-up,” Benjamin Strick, CIR’s director of investigation, told CNN. But beyond the fact of their theft, of most concern is the way that the images are edited and manipulated, he said. “Some of these accounts are also posting disinformation and conspiracy theories – which in some cases are accruing thousands of views.”

All four European women interviewed by CNN in relation to the use of their images on the fake pro-Trump X accounts say that impersonation is a growing problem on social media and that the trend has very real consequences: from reputational damage to significant emotional and psychological stress.

Neriah Tellerup Andersen, a 22-year-old influencer and digital marketing professional from Copenhagen in Denmark, whose photographs are being used by the fake pro-Trump account @eva_maga1996, told CNN: “I feel used, like someone is taking something from me. It’s my image. I don’t want to think people think that I do what those profiles are sometimes promoting.”

Kamilla Broberg, a 30-year-old fashion and fitness influencer from Copenhagen in Denmark, is similarly upset about the potential damage to her reputation.

She started posting snapshots of her life on Instagram to motivate herself to get into fitness and has since collaborated with fitness brands. She insists it’s not alright for people to just steal her photographs. But that’s exactly what the trained psychologist, who works with young people, has had to face over the last couple of years. Once, she told CNN, an impersonator took a photograph of her in which she was wearing a bikini and manipulated it to look like she was naked. “That was the worst,” she told CNN.

Since last year, the pro-Trump account @Alinamaga33 on X has been consistently lifting her photographs and posting them with pro-Republican messaging. “I have never even been to the US,” said Broberg when CNN presented her with its findings.

These accounts continue to thrive on X despite the platform’s Terms of Service clearly stating: “We reserve the right to remove Content that violates the User Agreement, including for example, copyright or trademark violations or other intellectual property misappropriation, impersonation, unlawful conduct, or harassment.” In its “misleading and deceptive identities” policy, X states: “You may not pose as someone who doesn’t exist to mislead others about who you are or who you represent.”

The surfacing of the fake accounts using European influencers’ photos comes amid a very public fight that has played out between Musk and Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, who has repeatedly questioned X’s adherence to the bloc’s Digital Services Act.

The law aims to protect “consumers and their fundamental rights online by setting clear and proportionate rules.” Under its provisions, online platforms need to make sure users are clearly identifiable, so that risks of deceitful impersonation that can harm individuals or mislead the public can be brought down, and to tackle impersonation.

In an open letter posted to X on August 12, just hours before Musk sat down with Trump, Breton warned him that he must prevent the “amplification of harmful content” and comply with the DSA, or face “interim measures”. In response, Musk tagged him in a GIF that said: “F**k your own face.”

In an interview with CNN, Thomas Regnier, European Commission spokesperson for digital economy, research and innovation, said in Europe, “stealing someone’s identity is forbidden, not by the DSA as such, but forbidden in EU law, international law, so this (the accounts identified in the investigation) would potentially be illegal, illegal behavior or illegal accounts, and this could then be taken into account in the current proceedings that we have against X.”

The posts from these accounts identified by CNN and CIR frequently echo one another, with identical or very similar messages being reposted across various platforms, amplifying their reach and making the misinformation appear more widespread than it is. This systematic approach suggests an orchestrated effort to influence voters, according to experts.

But who might be behind this campaign?

Emily Horne, former global head of policy communications at Twitter and a former senior director for press at the National Security Council in the Biden administration, said that these accounts have hallmarks that could be consistent with a state actor though she could not confirm a link. “This could be a state actor. The level of sophistication indicates it could be any of the hostile state actors, including Russia, Iran and China,” said Horne, who used to investigate fake accounts on X, then Twitter. “We know that there are multiple state actors who have been using social media to try and sow disinformation campaigns in the run up to the 2024 election,” she added.

The fact these accounts feature attractive young women in the profile picture, and are regularly updated with new posts supporting that fake persona, signals that there’s “probably some sustained, coordinated activity behind the scenes that’s going on, because that’s a difficult thing to do, and the level of the manipulation of individual images is again a difficult thing to automate and keep up in perpetuity,” she said.

Former Facebook public policy director Katie Harbath, meanwhile, raised concerns about the easy distribution of blue check marks on X, saying that the fact “a blue tick could be bought by anybody shows some real flaws in their system. And you’d obviously have to ask them the reason why. My assumption would be because of how much they’ve reduced the amount of trust and safety people.”

In December 2022, X, formerly Twitter, disbanded its Trust and Safety Council, an advisory body bringing together more than 100 people from external expert organizations. A company email to council members said it was “reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development work. As part of this process, we have decided that the Trust and Safety Council is not the best structure to do this.”

But what’s also interesting, both Harbath and Horne said, is the systemic misogyny that has led to these kinds of profiles gaining traction on social media.

“Posts featuring images of women do tend to generate higher engagement with some of the target audiences for this kind of content, particularly young and disaffected men who might be more politically inclined to engage with the kind of content that you’re describing,” Horne said.

CNN’s findings come against a backdrop of escalating debate between Harris and Trump over women’s rights.

Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has positioned herself as a defender of women’s rights, with her campaign hinting at restoration of abortion rights in response to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, has focused its messaging on “family values” and “protecting the unborn,” in an apparent attempt to win over evangelical Christians and other conservative groups pivotal to his electoral strategy – his campaign further bolstered by Musk’s support.

Back in Trier, Germany, where the US’ fight over women’s bodily autonomy has made an unexpected entrance, Nederlof – who has become a victim of this nonconsensual use of her image for political propaganda in a distant country – wonders if there will ever be policies that truly protect her online.

“Every day, my face and my body, my pictures, my identity is stolen, and that makes me very mad. That is definitely not me, definitely it was never me, and it will never be me, and (people) have to unfollow” the fake account.