Erica Marsh / @ericareport

About

Erica Marsh, also known as @ericareport, is a Twitter account that many speculated to be an AI "bot account" in 2022 and 2023, which pretended to be a blonde, female, liberal reporter. The account inspired outrage and discourse during its 10-month span, eventually culminating in its July 2023 suspension that was covered by many news outlets, including the Washington Post. The suspension was related to discourse that the account engaged in regarding the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn affirmative action in late June 2023. Marsh's account was also purportedly linked to a consulting firm in Belgium and a digital marketing SEO named Michael Zachrau.

Online History

Erica Marsh's Twitter account @ericareport was created sometime in September 2022.^[1] The first time that the account was added to the Internet Archive was on October 27th, 2022, however, the first recoverable link on the Internet Archive was taken on October 31st, 2022.^[1] At that time, Erica Marsh's account had amassed roughly 14,700 followers and its bio read, "Proud Democrat: Former Field Organizer to elect President Biden, Volunteer for the Obama Foundation. (She/Her) 💙" (screenshot shown below, left). Erica Marsh's Twitter account first inspired viral discourse and outrage via a since-deleted tweet posted sometime on or before October 25th, 2022, evident in a slew of replies on Twitter.^[2] One Twitter^[3] user, @djfm_dot_com, included a screenshot in his reply of an Erica Marsh tweet, likely one of the viral tweets that inspired the discussion (shown below, right).

Going into November 2022, Erica Marsh's tweets continued to go viral, evident in screenshots that were reposted to Facebook^[4][5] by mostly pro-Democrat accounts, such as the Facebook^[4] page Progressive Democrats on November 2nd, 2022. In turn, Marsh's tweets gained more engagement, such as two tweets uploaded on November 9th,^[6] that earned upwards of 10,000 likes each (shown below). On November 11th, Twitter users, such as Twitter^[7] user @lschramp, tweeted some of the first replies to @ericareport that gained over 10,000 likes.

Going into 2023, Erica Marsh's Twitter account gained more followers, whereby in late March 2023,^[8] the account had amassed roughly 113,700 followers. By late June 2023,^[9] the account had amassed roughly 127,200 followers.

July 2023 Suspension

On June 29th, 2023, Erica Marsh posted a tweet^[10] about the U.S. Supreme Court's then-recent decision to overturn affirmative action, which gained roughly 11,000 likes in one day (shown below, left). The tweet led to a slew of reactions and memes from conservative pundits on Twitter^[11][12] and elsewhere that labeled Marsh as a covert racist due to her statement (example shown below, right).

Ultimately, the viral buzz that the tweet inspired led to increased attention regarding the authenticity of Marsh's account and real-world identity. Speculation as to whether or not Marsh was a bot account dated back to at least January 2023 on Twitter^[13] (example shown below, left), however, the speculation wasn't widespread until July 2023, mostly inspired by a viral tweet sent by Twitter^[14] user @RealGregBoulden on July 1st, 2023, that gained roughly 26,000 likes in four days (shown below, right). Twitter^[14] user @RealGregBoulden then started a thread with the tweet in which he attempted to link Marsh's account to a consulting firm in Belgium and a digital marketing SEO named Michael Zachrau, however, this claim is unconfirmed.

Due to the discourse, the Washington Post^[15] published an article on July 4th, 2023, titled, "A viral left-wing Twitter account may have been fake all along," in which it reported that Marsh was fake. The Washington Post stated that it "raised questions about the account with employees of Twitter’s trust and safety department," then, on July 2nd, 2023, the account was suspended for unknown reasons.

Search Interest

External References