Researchers discovered a network of 171 bot accounts on X using ChatGPT to generate posts promoting Ghana's incumbent political party NPP and candidate Mahamudu Bawumia ahead of the December 7 presidential election.
As Ghana approaches its December 7 presidential election, researchers from NewsGuard uncovered a network of 171 bot accounts on X (formerly Twitter) that use ChatGPT to write posts favorable to the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) and candidate Mahamudu Bawumia. The bot accounts, active since February, have AI-generated profile photos and names like 'Glenn Washington' and 'Netflix Series&Movies.' They uniformly promote NPP talking points using hashtags like #Bawumia2024, #NPP, and #ItIsPossible, while disparaging opposition candidate John Mahama with hashtags like #mahamaisaliar and #DrunkmaniMahama. The accounts post 10 or more times daily between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Ghana time at regular intervals, primarily receiving engagement from others in the bot network. NewsGuard fed all 171 posts into a Pangram Labs tool that concluded it was 'highly likely' all content was AI-generated by ChatGPT. This represents the first secretly partisan network using AI to influence elections in Ghana. At the time of reporting, only 2 of the 171 accounts had been suspended and 2 restricted, despite NewsGuard sharing findings with X and OpenAI. The context is particularly sensitive as 8 people were killed during Ghana's 2020 election cycle.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Using AI systems to conduct large-scale disinformation campaigns, malicious surveillance, or targeted and sophisticated automated censorship and propaganda, with the aim of manipulating political processes, public opinion, and behavior.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed