#BanTheADL — An Organic Movement or a Coordinated Campaign?

We traced and investigated #BanTheADL, a campaign calling for the ban of the Anti-Defamation League from X (Twitter). The ADL is a US-based civil rights group that campaigns against antisemitism and bigotry. The #BanTheADL narrative broke out on August 31, 2023, after ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt posted about a conversation with X's @LindayaX regarding the platform's approach to hate. Conservative commentator Keith Woods responded: 'The ADL is an anti-White organisation which waged financial terrorism against this platform as soon as Elon Musk took over in an attempt to stifle free speech. It's time to #BanTheADL.' Within 24 hours, our system showed #BanTheADL was trending on Twitter. From August 31 to September 2, posts containing #BanTheADL gained at least 600,000 interactions — retweets, replies, and likes. As of September 10, #BanTheADL was still trending, with Elon Musk actively participating in conversation threads.

The top spreaders are mostly real, identifiable individuals — political commentators, reporters, and media personalities including Keith Woods (@KeithWoodsYT), Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj, former UFC champion), Sam Parker (@SamParkerSenate, Senate candidate), Lucas Gage (@Lucas_Gage_, USMC Veteran), and Chief Trumpster (@ChiefTrumpster, media personality). Common characteristics: strong interest in conservative and nationalist ideology; identification as Christian; background in journalism or media; willingness to challenge mainstream narratives. But the top spreaders tell only part of the story — the campaign was also amplified by clusters of inauthentic accounts that helped make #BanTheADL seem bigger than it was in reality.

We identified multiple clusters of coordinating inauthentic accounts. Group 1 used Trump's mugshot as their profile image — dozens of accounts created between October 2020 and September 2023, with many created in tight windows (multiple accounts created in the same month of 2022 and 2023). Group 2 used Pepe the Frog memes as profile images — Pepe was originally a harmless meme but later became a symbol of the alt-right movement, included in the ADL's hate symbol database in 2016. Account behaviors included: anonymous, unidentifiable descriptions using generic phrases like 'America First, Christian Futurist, Trump Supporter'; coordination through retweeting the same accounts like @KeithWoodsYT and @libsoftiktok; and bot-level spam behavior. For example, @sbossos, created in March 2022, had liked 334,700 posts as of September 10, 2023 — an average of 2,231 posts per day, or 1.55 posts per minute. This account is run by either automated software or a full-time operator.

“The #BanTheADL campaign exploded on X in August 2023, gaining 600,000+ interactions in three days. Information Tracer's …”

Our investigation reveals that the #BanTheADL narrative is both an organic movement among real conservative commentators and a manufactured amplification effort by clusters of inauthentic accounts. Those inauthentic accounts constantly spread hate speech, share conspiracy theories, and deepen discord around controversial issues. We recommend social media platforms to investigate and take action on those accounts. The case illustrates a broader pattern Information Tracer tracks across campaigns: real organic sentiment combined with coordinated inauthentic amplification creates the appearance of a much larger, more uniform movement than actually exists — making it difficult for platforms, journalists, and the public to assess the true scale and nature of any given narrative. This is a repost from the Information Tracer Blog by Zhouhan Chen.