Radio Fake Europe and the Amazing Monetized Turk
Another xenophobia grifter carnival Xtravaganza, brought to you by OSINT!
Our information environment is getting more polluted still, and windows of transparency are closing still. The incentives are higher than ever, and the risks lower than ever, to reach for the big top on social media as a slop/grift account. Thankfully, at least some of those who attempt this cannot evade detection and exposure, thanks to tools OSINT investigators yet possess, and having trails reaching back into periods of time when we had more access to data for archival.
This is one such account, which has managed to get boosting from some relatively large accounts in the reactionary ecosystem on X. In this post, I will examine this account’s activity, expose its sordid past, and place it in a wider information environment context.
Suckers Per Minute
Especially following the year prior, during which many of these accounts went into overdrive, I’ve picked up a knack for noticing suspicious activity in their genre. Many telltale signs of grifterdom and inauthentic activity show up on even the profile page of this account.
There are, of course, the usual traffic retention call-to-action posts from accounts in the “Radio” genre, posted in reply to the odd especially popular post:
Then there’s all the “nudge posts”, which typically tack empty questions onto the ends of posts (example, example, example, example, example) to bait readers into engaging and algo-boosting.
Finally, there’s the liberal use of the reply spamming tactic, wherein account like this reply to more popular accounts with engagement bait in the same genres (sometimes with the larger account’s own content reposted or embedded) to draw traffic to their own accounts (example, example, example, example, example, example, example). Visegrad 24, Radio Genoa, and other big accounts in X’s xenophobia ragebait ecosystem feature prominently.
And aside from the standard-issue “immigrant crime” posts typical of this genre, this one also does the occassional fearmongering genAI propaganda
The Freak Show
A quick canonical ID lookup and handle archive lookup on “RadioEuropes” reveal an interesting past username “ZelisOzturk1”.
The earliest post under the current handle appears to date to JAN/27.
The posts under the earlier handle were scrubbed, but interactions with it under this handle from other accounts were preserved, including ones dating to just a couple of weeks before the scrub point.
We can see them going as far back as mid-2022.
As seen in the handle to which the replies are addressed in the above screenshots of the search for “ZelisOzturk1” replies, the old handle of “RadioEuropes” was indeed “ZelisOzturk1”.
This historical reply content is also all in Turkish. Most are “thirst” messages i.e. expressing sexual interest. A not insignificant number are pictures of (presumably the male account owners’) genitals.
The reason for this is not difficult to guess, but is confirmed in archives of the posts that can be found in searches of early content with the handle, when it went by “Zelişş”. This one, for example, reads “Hello everyone, I am 39 and my wife is 34 years old. We are married and looking for an active sex person. Is there anyone here who likes married couples?“.
Not my Circus
Interestingly, the “Radio Europe” account’s sole subscription is to the “Inevitable West” account. As can be seen in an earlier reply spam screenshot in this post, this highlights it in replies to posts of the account, which it accordingly reply-spams with empty bait bosts.
The “Inevitable West” account itself was recently exposed as a fellow inauthentic (xenophobic trad-nat PLUS crypto) grifter account run by some Indian guy in Dubai (though the account seems to have simply shrugged off the exposé, deleted the slip-up posts that gave its real identity away, and continued pushing anti-immigrant reactionary propaganda, including aggressive pro-AfD propaganda).
More closely, the “Radio Europe” account fits the type of “Europe Invasion” et al. While I and
were investigating the massive international covert influence operation “The Qatar Plot” last year, I noticed, investigated, and reported on this inauthentic account and its satellite accounts (page 49 in the investigation report), noting their past handles, their inorganic in-network cross-boosting, their heavy use of both reposted and genAI content, and the (also Turkish-language) extraneous-topic pre-scrub conversations with which they were involved until it was rebranded and repurposed early in the year.From the latter point in time, it became one of the most active and patronized participants in the Euro xenophobia ecosystem on X; joining other veteran stars like “Radio Genoa”; getting boosted and vouched for by the likes of Elon Musk; qualifying for and boasting of its monetization; and serving as a source and redistribution point for xenophobia ragebait (including for The Qatar Plot’s late-stage propaganda).
A follow-up investigation by Swedish channel SVT’s Verifierar investigative unit eventually traced the accounts to a Turkish couple who also happened to be based in Dubai. They have since been rebranded/rehandled/reshuffled yet again—after repeated denials of the findings, and even attempts to astroturf counter-evidence.
While looking into this further, I additionally came across Turkish ragebait content networks that apparently even have genAI templates that they re-use across audiences.
And while I and
were investigating the phenomenon of YouTube apolitical reaction channels flipping to MAGA in the run-up to the US presidential elections last year, I also came across some Turkish-language accounts facelessly offering sundry mundane lifestyle content videos, flipping to pro-Trump or otherwise election-related content shortly before Election Day.
All these signs point to the existence of a significant grey-market industry on the Turkish internet; farming, trading, and repurposing digital assets to turn on a dime for whatever grift is most profitable at the moment; inauthentically running and inorganically boosting even political propaganda and xenophobia across borders.
At the moment, “Radio Europe” and others in its ecosystem are busy rooting for AfD in the upcoming German elections.
The UK has also long been in their sights.
In this case, I was fortunate that its online trail had been archived, and could be confirmed. But not all online trails are traceable so, and we will lose even more as we move further ahead from the 2023 beginning of the Dark(er) Age of Platform Transparency. Without firm, strategically informed, and effectively enforced moves by governments to mandate platform-native transparency tools accessible to investigators, as well as basic transparency “nutritional labels” actively presented to users, more accounts will get away with thus defrauding users and evading exposure of their inauthentic conduct.