Busted: Pro-Animal Research Group Using Fake Twitter Account to Follow Activists

From Animal Liberation Frontline

Notorious pro-vivisection group Americans for Medical Progress is exposed using “@Vegwashington”.

The famed animal research lobbying and public relations group American’s for Medical Progress may be following you on Twitter: they are currently using the Twitter name “Vegwashington” to follow over two-dozen activists.

View the Twitter profile here.

And if they take it down after this goes public, view a screenshot here.

Animal Liberation Frontline has received information AMP has been using this account for nearly two years to track the online activity of animal rights activists. Are they following you? I’ve posted the full list of who they are following below.

Who is Americans for Medical Progress?

If you’ve given any amount of attention to opponents of the animal liberation movement, you are aware American’s for Medical Progress. They work to promote animal research, or more accurately, combat the animal rights movement. They have an emphasis on speaking out against the work of the Animal Liberation Front, through their campaigns such as “Pro-Test”.

Who they follow

The list reads like a fairly typical who’s-who of people you might want to track if you are a pro-vivisection group (I’m flattered to have made the list). There is one suspicious exception: the Twitter feed for “@baconpatriot”, apparently having a pro-meat focus. This raises the question: Is this another secret disinformation / public relations-aimed Twitter account?

It should be no surprise that anti-animal rights groups are monitoring activists on the internet. It’s not just easy, it’s (mostly) anonymous. However, rarely do they get caught and exposed.

The few in recent memory who have been caught (primarily on Facebook), have all made a feeble attempt to cultivate an image of authenticity in their online activist persona. And in every attempt, including this one, it comes off as cartoonish caricature. Like a two-dimensional version of a real “activist”.

In this instance, there’s not much to go off of (they only posted two tweets), but look at the photo, tagline, and tweet content. The only word that comes to mind again is: cartoonish. (Oddly, their second tweet would seem to give them away, calling someone hypocritical for being anti-animal research but pro-chemotherapy.)

View a complete list of everyone they are following here

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