Tobias Keller is a postdoctoral fellow in the Digital Media Research Center at Queensland University of Technology.Credit:QUT
"We found highly suspicious activity from the accounts,"said Mr Keller,who said many of the accounts also disseminated US news stories published by alternative media outlets.
Using a Twitter bot detection tool,the university research team detected bot-like characteristics from many of the accounts.
Mr Keller said the content was"co-ordinated,inauthentic behaviour"that aimed to"move the narrative away from linking climate change to bushfires and towards the crisis being the fault of arson."
A tweet by an account called"Labor and Greens Trash"claimed there were 183"total alleged Leftist arsonists"who were"presumed to be still active on social media."The tweet was liked almost 100 times and shared by almost 60 accounts.
Mr Keller said the accounts may be operated by political activists,or could be fake accounts controlled by software designers. He said there was a chance some accounts were run by a malign actor seeking to influence public debate.
"Similar activity has taken place in previous disinformation campaigns …[conducted by groups] such as Cambridge Analytica or other political entities."
"With each new news story about the bushfires,[the disinformation campaign] becomes more effective,because it gives these accounts a new link they can share and then blame the mainstream media or a left-wing journalist."