⚠️ WARNING: This code is published as-is for reference and educational purposes in the field of deepfake detection. It represents a historical implementation by TrueMedia.org and is not actively maintained. The repository does not accept pull requests, issues, modifications, or support requests. The original TrueMedia.org organization has ceased operations.
TrueMedia.org's interactive bot for Twitter/X, which is extensible to other social platforms. It watches for mentions in responses to Tweets with media, submits that media for deepfake analysis, and replies to that mention with the results.
This social media bot was developed by TrueMedia.org, a non-profit service that detects deepfakes in social media.
When setting up this project for the first time, you'll need to search the code for OPEN-TODO-PLACEHOLDER and replace with your specific service information.
Make sure Golang is installed on your machine: https://go.dev/dl/
If you use VSCode, you'll want the extension. It'll prompt you to install some stuff later as well.
You can use the VSCode launch config to run main.go within VSCode.
This repo uses Task for build tasks.
Staticcheck is used for linting and can be installed using your favorite package manager
A great starting place is the guided tour of the language: https://go.dev/tour/welcome/1
Go By Example is another good resource for answering "How do I...?" https://gobyexample.com/
Standard library documentation can be found here: https://pkg.go.dev/std
task format will autoformat your code using gofmt, and task lint runs analysis tools. CI will enforce linting rules.
Build the binary using task build. task build && ./socialbot server will build and run the binary in one command.
Build and run the docker image using task docker-run, or use task docker to just build the image.
New images are automatically built and pushed to ECR when changes merged to main pass CI.
Deployment is manual. Go to the ECS service and force a redeploy.
Socialbot uses the same database as the TrueMedia.org API. Any necessary schema changes need to happen in the truemediaorg/deepfake-app repository first and be deployed before updated bot images can be deployed.
Documentation for the Postgres library pgx is here: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/jackc/pgx/v5
Socialbot uses an envfile (.env) kept next to the binary to store configuration settings. Here's an example envfile with sample values:
POSTGRES_URL=postgres://mylocaluser:deepfake@localhost/mydatabase
# Path in AWS Secrets Manager where the Twitter credentials are found
TWITTER_SECRETS_PATH=socialbot/dev/twitter
# Username of the bot, for monitoring mentions
TWITTER_USERNAME=PLACEHOLDER_test
# Path in AWS Secrets Manager where the TrueMedia credentials are found
TRUEMEDIA_SECRETS_PATH=socialbot/dev/truemedia
# Host for the TrueMedia API
TRUEMEDIA_API=http://localhost:3000/api
# How long to wait between checking for results
TRUEMEDIA_RESULTS_INTERVAL=5
# How long to wait between submitting posts for resolution
TRUEMEDIA_RESOLVE_INTERVAL=60
# Minimum log level (set to "debug" for more verbosity)
# Will default to "info" if not present
LOG_LEVEL=info
# How to format the log messages
# Will default to "text" if not present
LOG_FORMAT=json
The envfile is used by both commands, so you will need it even if you just want to run authorizer.
NOTE: When running in Docker against a local truemedia API, use host.docker.internal instead of localhost everywhere in .env
Production credentials are stored in AWS Secrets Manager under socialbot/prod/ keys, and developer creds under the socialbot/dev/ keys. These are used when running locally by ensuring TWITTER_SECRETS_PATH and TRUEMEDIA_SECRETS_PATH are pointing to dev paths.
socialbot/prod/twitter contains the five values needed for Twitter. bearerToken, consumerKey, and consumerSecret come from the Twitter application config. accessToken and accessTokenSecret are OAuth secrets used for posting tweets and are associated with the PLACEHOLDER_test account we use for posting in local testing environment.
socialbot/prod/truemedia contains the API key for the TrueMedia.org API.
socialbot/prod/postgres contains the secrets for postgres.
To set up an X account to post for testing:
- Update
TWITTER_USERNAMEin the .env file - Use
authorizerto generate the Access Token and Access Token Secret (see below), and update these two values insocialbot/prod/twitterinside AWS Secrets Manager.
You'll use two Twitter accounts for testing. One is the aforementioned PLACEHOLDER_test account that plays the role of the bot. And you'll need a separate Twitter account to play the role of the user interacting with the bot. This second account does not need an API subscription or anything like that.
Using your test user account, post some media. Then reply to that post including a tag for the configured TWITTER_USERNAME. During the next iteration of the Watcher loop (every 5 minutes), the bot should find and process the post.
Note that the URL in the posted analysis link is hardcoded to the web app URL (see OPEN-TODO-PLACEHOLDER). When running the bot against a local TrueMedia service (as configured in the example above), these links won't work, and they won't have correct thumbnails.
Ensure your AWS environment variables are set (e.g. AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY), as the bot uses AWS Secrets Manager to get credentials for the X/Twitter and TrueMedia APIs.
There are also launch configurations provided for running either command in the VSCode debugger.
socialbot server runs the bot itself as a continuously-running process. It will start monitoring Twitter for mentions of the configured username.
socialbot authorizer is a utility that generates the access token/secret pair for the account the bot should post under.
It will generate a URL for you to open in your browser. Ensuring you're signed in using the account you want the bot to use, follow the link to receive a PIN from Twitter.
Next, enter the PIN at the terminal prompt. The authorizer will complete the process with Twitter and output the secrets required to post.
% ./socialbot authorizer
Open this URL in your browser:
https://api.twitter.com/oauth/authorize?oauth_token=PLACEHOLDER
Paste your PIN here: PLACEHOLDER
Consumer was granted an access token to act on behalf of a user.
token: <token here>
secret: <secret here>
This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.
This TrueMedia.org service was built by Michael Langan, with contributions from Dawn Wright and Michael Bayne.