A barrage of social media disinformation has accompanied Turkey’s military incursion into Kurdish-held regions of northern Syria in what is the latest example of friendly Twitter bots backing a government at a time of international scrutiny. Thousands of Twitter accounts in recent weeks have sent tweets including the hashtag #BabyKillerPKK, according to findings published Wednesday by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. The hashtag is a reference to the Kurdistan’s Worker’s Party (PKK), which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization despite the PKK’s ties to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a traditional U.S. ally. Turkey does not make a distinction between the two groups, and Turkish-backed forces have assaulted Kurdish positions in the days since U.S. military personnel began withdrawing from the conflict at the direction of President Donald Trump. While Turkey’s military has launched airstrikes and backed militias that have killed civilians, bot-like Twitter accounts […]
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