Reporter creates social media accounts for fake Americans to show "how we're being targeted" with disinformation

Larry, a 71-year-old retired insurance broker and Donald Trump fan from Alabama, wouldn't be likely to run into the liberal Emma, a 25-year-old graphic designer from New York City, on social media - even if they were both real.

Each is a figment of BBC reporter Marianna Spring's imagination. She created five fake Americans and opened social media accounts for them, part of an attempt to illustrate how disinformation spreads on sites like Facebook, Twitter and TikTok despite efforts to stop it, and how that impacts American politics.

That's also left Spring and the BBC vulnerable to charges that the project is ethically suspect in using false information to uncover false information.