Rishi Sunak has claimed Reform UK might be copying ‘malicious’ foreign states by using fake accounts on social media to influence voters.
The Prime Minister said Nigel Farage’s party had ‘serious questions to answer’ as the Government’s disinformation unit was revealed to have opened an investigation.
Officials are reportedly examining a series of pro-Russian talking points on Facebook pages posted in support of Reform.
But Mr Farage has branded claims that Russian-inspired bots might be posting on social media to interfere with the general election as ‘cobblers’.
Hitting out at ‘the Russia hoax’, the Reform leader also pointed to the Tories’ acceptance of cash from Russian-linked donors in recent years.
Rishi Sunak has claimed Reform UK might be copying ‘malicious’ foreign states by using fake accounts on social media to influence voters
Nigel Farage has branded claims that Russian-inspired bots might be posting on social media to interfere with the general election as ‘cobblers’
An analysis of Reform’s followers on TikTok – using the ‘Fake Follower Checker’ by Collabstr – found 27 per cent of the party’s followers were ‘suspicious’
The National Security Online Information Team is reportedly investigating suspected Russian-linked content on social media. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin
According to The Times, the National Security Online Information Team is investigating suspected Russian-linked content on social media.
The unit, part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, will try and establish the source of the content and whether it is more widespread.
It comes after an investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) found five co-ordinated Facebook pages spouting Kremlin talking points.
Some were posted in support of Reform with the network of pages having a combined 190,000 followers, the broadcaster said.
Meanwhile, an analysis of Reform’s followers on TikTok – using the ‘Fake Follower Checker’ by Collabstr – found 27 per cent of the party’s followers were ‘suspicious’.
This means they are described as accounts with suspicious/irregular behaviour and metrics.
By comparison, the figure is less than 4 per cent for both Labour and the Conservatives.
The Times reported that recent posts by Labour and the Conservatives on TikTok have been flooded with near-identical pro-Reform comments.
These were from apparently new accounts with no biographical information and little other engagement on the site.
The findings suggest these are fake accounts rather than real voters, the newspaper said.
Mr Sunak said: ‘We have already seen concerning evidence of malicious foreign actors trying to malign our democracy.
‘This has serious implications for the openness and fairness of our elections and needs to be called out.
‘It now appears as if Reform may be using the same tactics of using fake accounts to influence voters.
‘For the sake of the confidence people can have in our democracy and integrity in our politics, Reform has serious questions to answer.’
Reform were reported to deny the PM’s claims, while a TikTok spokesman said the company has expert teams focused on disrupting covert influence operations.
A separate study by Global Witness found the conversation on X, formerly known as Twitter, ahead of the election is being influenced by accounts that appear to be bots.
The investigation uncovered ten accounts that had shared more than 60,000 tweets, which had been seen an estimated 150million times in the last few weeks.
Many of the tweets contained extreme and violent hate speech, disinformation, conspiracy theories and praised Vladimir Putin, Global Witness said.
Two of the three accounts found using the hashtag #stoptheboats encouraged people to vote for Reform.
One bot-like account found using #climatecrisis encouraged people not to vote Conservative by, for example, including the hashtag #GetTheToriesOut in their account bio.
All of the five accounts using #labourlosing promoted Reform, the study said.
Ava Lee, Campaign Leader at Global Witness, said: ‘Political discussion online is often toxic – we all know that.
‘But when we go on social media, we believe we’re seeing what real people think.
‘While we might not agree with it, we trust that what we see are genuine views held by other voters.
‘When that’s not true, when the conversation may have been influenced by someone who has paid for bots to spread division or to get a particular party into power, our democracy is in jeopardy.
‘The UK is going to the polls in under a week. The US in four months. Half the world’s population this year.
‘X, and all social media companies, need to clean up their platforms and put our democracies before profit.’
On Sunday, Mr Farage was quizzed about claims that Russian-inspired bots might be posting on social media to interfere with the general election.
After Deputy PM Oliver Dowden described the findings of the ABC investigation as ‘gravely concerning’, Mr Farage told Sky News: ‘Oh, don’t talk cobblers.’
He added: ‘I mean you had this, this, this bland fellow on earlier who apparently is the Deputy PM, who no one knows who he is, and there he is saying, ‘oh, there are Russian bots involved’.
‘Hang on, did you ask him how many millions of pounds his party have taken from Russian sources over the course of the last few years? This is the Russia hoax.’