[bots]

Dodgy, dodgy, dodgy .......


"Vote Reform UK", "Only Reform UK has a real plan for Britain" - an account on X has posted these and similar messages every couple of hours since the start of the election campaign.

The account, GenZBloomer, is one of dozens across X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok which the BBC has identified as posting hundreds of repeated messages in comment threads expressing support for Reform UK.

Their behaviour has prompted claims from other social media users that they are fake - automated "bot" accounts - and they are distorting the online conversation to try to exaggerate the popularity of Reform UK.

The BBC contacted people behind the accounts and found that some are genuine UK voters who believe they are helping the party through their own initiative. Others, however, failed to prove they were authentic.

I spotted this pattern of comments in posts recommended to the feeds of our Undercover Voters - 24 fictional people based around the UK with social media accounts, created to investigate what content is recommended to different types of voters during the election. The profiles are private, with no friends. They just like, follow and watch relevant content.

"The main purpose of my account at this time is to restore British culture and values," the GenZbloomer account told me in a message.

Following concerns about foreign interference in previous elections, some social media users have suggested that GenZbloomer - and other similar accounts - may not based in the UK. They have pointed out phrases a native speaker would be unlikely to use, such as "make an article" instead of "write an article" and "neighbourhood tavern" instead of "local pub".

Others are convinced the GenZbloomer profile must be parody - particularly referring to a blog post the account shared on X about how "young men are struggling out here to find traditional British women to date" because women think they are "better than everyone else because of Love Island and Starmer", referring to the Labour leader Sir Keir.

The person who claimed to be behind GenZbloomer told me they were based in "the Annesley England area" - an unusual way to describe the small village in Nottinghamshire - and gave me a UK mobile phone number.

They agreed to speak to me on the phone, but then did not answer any of my calls.

On WhatsApp, their account is labelled as a business account for a "consulting agency", and features a profile image of a faceless cartoon figure with a microphone headset on.

In messages with grammatical mistakes, they claimed to be a "generation Z voter" who wants a "proper Brexit but the conservatives party ruined".

The account claimed to be working "with Reform UK" in order to "help them win and spread their values across the UK".

The person who had been messaging me provided no evidence to support this claim - and a Reform UK spokesperson said this profile was not connected to the party at all. Reform UK told the BBC it had been in touch with social media companies about other accounts falsely purporting to be connected with the party.

Some responses to my messages from GenZbloomer sounded like parody - describing how they would have to speak to a Reform Party county organiser before they spoke to me, but adding that it "should not be an issue Reform has a super lax vetting process".

After a back-and-forth over text message, my phone number then appeared to have been blocked.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1335nj316lo