Last Wednesday, as much of the press was hailing as heroes the rapidly expanding list of anonymous Twitter accounts claiming to be US Government employees gone “rogue,” I raised the concern that by shifting science communication from verified scientists to shadowy anonymous social media accounts, we ran the very real risk that climate deniers and hackers would hijack the movement to distribute viruses or false climate information and that in the absence of neutral third party verification the movement would likely begin to fragment and fight amongst itself. In fact, it has already happened.
On Saturday @RogueNASA was forced to issue a warning to its followers about a new account with a similar name, @NASAGoneRogue, that it alleges is “a fake anti-climate change troll account.” While it has just 711 followers compared with @RogueNASA’s 750,000 followers, the new account similarly claims in its biography to be “NASA Employees taking a stand. Not an official account of NASA.” Like its larger brother, it has not limited itself to climate change, tweeting about a variety of political and other issues. The only difference is that while @RogueNASA’s tweets defend and support climate change science, those of @NASAGoneRogue attack and question climate change.
By building upon the rogue movement’s “brand” and similarly claiming to be actual US Government NASA scientists going “rogue” to speak the truth, the account shows how the anonymity of the "rogue movement" makes it possible for anyone to launch a new account and claim to be speaking on behalf of government climate scientists.
In fact, if this account had been created earlier, at the same time the @RogueNASA account was rapidly growing and if it had initially tweeted pro-climate change content to appear in step with the rest of the rogue movement, it could have likely accumulated half a million or more followers and then gradually and subtly shifted to more critical posts, likely without raising any major suspicions until it had done a fair job sowing discourse discord.
By using a similar name, the new account also raises fascinating questions about trademark and copyright when it comes to social media parody accounts. Could someone register @RealRogueNASA or @RogueNASA2 and adopt an almost identical logo and tweet very similar content such that people confuse it for the “real rogue” account? While @RogueNASA now has its own very distinct logo, could a new parody account simply copy that logo and operate for a few days as an almost identical clone to build a follower base, just as @RogueNASA did to the official NASA account?
Making things even more confusing, there is also a “Rogue NASA” Facebook account. The Facebook version has a different logo and indeed appears to be run by a different group of people. Thus, there are now Rogue NASA’s on both Twitter and Facebook, but representing totally different groups. In fact, as the “rogue movement” spreads across social media platforms, both good and nefarious actors will reuse the same names, creating widespread confusion as to whether a given “Rogue NASA” group is legitimate or a scammer hoping to make a quick buck by riding off the others’ goodwill.
We are also starting to see the rise of fundraising by these rogue groups. @RogueNASA is selling tshirts with their logo on it, donating the proceeds to Girls Who Code and the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI). I reached out to Cotton Bureau, the company they are using to print and sell the tshirts and the company stated that even it does not know the identities of those operating the @RogueNASA account, but confirmed that it has been instructed to donate proceeds directly to the Girls Who Code and NMSI, ensuring that funds go where they are promised.
@RogueNASA also announced yesterday that through all of its fundraising efforts it had raised more than $100,000 for Girls Who Code and NMSI. I reached out to both organizations for comment on this fundraiser and whether they had received any of these funds yet. NMSI said it forwarded my request to its partnerships staff, but after repeated requests, including to their CEO, the company ultimately did not respond as to whether it had received any of these funds. A spokesperson for Girls Who Code said the organization looked into the matter after my inquiry and said that as of this afternoon it had not received any of the funds and that no-one had been in contact with it about the fundraiser. It did, however, note that organizations do run fundraisers on its behalf without coordinating or contacting it first and so the fact that it has not been in contact with anyone representing @RogueNASA or received any funds to date could simply indicate that the processor handling the fundraiser is still preparing to transfer the funds.
This does, however raise concerns that as “rogue” accounts proliferate (most recently adding @RoguePOTUSStaff to the roster), nefarious individuals will take advantage of this trend not just to register trolling, spam or virus-distributing accounts, but to ride on the brand’s current goodwill to run fake fundraisers and pocket the money. The anonymity and distribution power of the Internet has elevated “charity scams” to a new level and it is likely that we will see such fundraising scams hit the rogue Twitter world (if they haven’t already). One can imagine all sorts of fundraisers being run on behalf of major scientific organizations in which the funds are actually pocketed by criminal actors who quickly cash out and pop up with a new account and new fundraising call before anyone is the wiser.
To avoid this danger, legitimate “rogue” accounts wishing to fundraise on behalf of scientific or other organizations might wish to just link to the organization’s preexisting fundraising page so that users can feel safe and secure that their donation is really going where they think it is going. For organizations that don’t have existing fundraising links, they might coordinate with the organization to use a trusted third party processor like PayPal’s fundraising offerings and have the organization issue an official statement with the official donation link and then simply promote that link.
Putting this all together, the “rogue” movement is starting to devolve in precisely the way I warned, with accounts copying each other with similar names, different groups operating accounts with the same names on different platforms, accounts attacking each other claiming that the other is fake and the rise of anonymous fundraising efforts where donors have little assurance that their money is going to the organization it is supposed to. Welcome to the “rogue wars.”
