Five days on and the reverberations of the video posted by ‘Emily Thompson’ on January 8 on ‘X’ are still being felt. The President’s close aid and brother-in-law has resigned, the First Lady has stepped down as head of the Social Support Body, police and intelligence services are investigating possible ‘hybrid activity’ against the state, the Attorney-general has appointed an independent criminal investigator, opposition parties are demanding answers, and coalition partners are getting anxious.

The video

Those caught on secret camera discussing issues of investment in Cyprus and allegedly the mechanisms for financial donations to gain access to power, argue that the video is a product of manipulation and malicious editing, with their words taken out of context.

Fact Check Cyprus carried out an investigation on the video and found, based on the evidence available so far, that the video does not show obvious technical traces of manipulation through artificial intelligence. In other words, the footage seems real, what is not known is the original sequence in which the dialogue took place.

The special unit of the Cyprus University of Technology also isolated the narrator’s voice in the video and checked it through the InVID-WeVerify tool, finding a 95% probability that the voice has been generated using artificial intelligence.

This law enforcement agencies of the Republic now have two parallel tasks: on the one hand, to find who made the video and why; and on the other, to ascertain whether both the making of and content indicate any possible criminal offences.

The ‘Emily Thompson’ account

One avenue of investigation that will surely be followed is the real identity of the person behind the ‘X’ account that ‘leaked’ the video.

At the time of writing, ‘Emily Thompson’ had not replied to a request for information sent to her by Politis on ‘X’.

For years, her account filled with reposts, limited original content, repeated phrases and duplicated posts. Then, on January 6, 2026, ‘Thompson’ posted about the Cyprus EU Presidency, and the possibility of the island's reunification given the new leadership in the north. The following day, coinciding with the Presidency’s opening ceremony, and in complete contrast to all previous style of writing, ‘Thompson’ refers to the nexus of the EU Presidency, shared energy interests, EastMed synergies and potential peace talks. And then, on January 8, again in a completely different writing style, ‘Thompson’ drops a ‘bombshell’.

So, who is ‘Emily Thompson’? Is she real? Is someone else behind the account? Or is it run by a bot on someone else’s behalf?

According to the available information, the UK-based account has been active on ‘X’ since 2022, but was only ‘verified’ in December 2025.

Anyone, anywhere

Speaking to Politis, Fact Check Cyprus’ Theophile Bloudanis said the ‘blue checkmark’ verification system does not mean anything. “When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he said the blue mark could be bought by anyone. It doesn’t certify if the account is original or not,” said Bloudanis.

The deceptive design of the blue checkmark system was one of the reasons behind the European Commission’s imposition of a €120 million fine against X last month.

As to whether the account is based in the UK, Bloudanis said: “This is easily modifiable with a VPN (Virtual Private Network).”

He added: “Really, it could be anyone, anywhere.”

Reposts and repeated comments

Emily Thompson’s profile on ‘X’ says: “I am an independent researcher, analyst and lecturer focused mainly on American domestic and foreign policies.”

Politis checked all posts on the account from 2025. While the user was very active in that period, the majority of posts were ‘retweets’ of articles posted online, usually from the same sources such as the Center for Strategic & International Studies, Carnegie Russia Eurasia, Cook Political Report and Politico Playbook.

On the occasion where ‘Thompson’ would actually make a comment, it was almost always on a retweet. The account holder used the same eight phrases ad nauseum on different posts, including: “wowowowow”, “hmmmm”, “this is going to matter more and more”, “exhausting”, “saving this for later” and “well well well”.

The ongoing investigation by Fact Check Cyprus also found, when examining older posts from this account, especially in 2023 and 2024, that many of the posts are largely repeated. It gave an example of two posts on ‘X’ from 2023 about Russia’s war in Ukraine that were repeated verbatim in 2024.

Bloudanis noted in his assessment that in this type of account, “the high frequency and repetitiveness of publications is an indication found in automated accounts”.

‘Original’ content

In the course of 2025, Politis only found three original posts on ‘X’ by ‘Thompson’, referring followers to her articles published in The Thinking Conservative, a right-wing US website publishing opinions heavily aligned with the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement.

An examination of the website found 78 articles published by ‘Emily Thompson’ from January 2024 to November 2025. Last year alone, ‘Thompson’ published 36 articles on The Thinking Conservative but only shared links to three of them on her ‘X’ account: on February 1, March 5 and June 5, 2025. The articles included titles such as: ‘Why Trump’s decision to pause military aid to Ukraine is prudent’ and ‘Why Recognizing a Palestinian State Now Undermines U.S. Interests’.

Have you seen my latest article on @TnKConservative ? https://t.co/hnvu7NLg38
— Emily Thompson (@EmilyTanalyst) March 6, 2025

This raises the question as to why an ‘independent analyst’, writing two to four ‘original’ articles a month – and with a limited following of only 300+ followers on ‘X’ on the day the video was leaked – promoted only three of her articles all year?

Profile shot and description

Her profile description on The Thinking Conservative says:

“Emily Thompson is an analyst on U.S. domestic and foreign affairs. Her work appears in various news publications including on the Activist Post, The Published Reporter, and here on TheThinkingConservative.com.”

Politis could find no articles of ‘Emily Thompson’ on the Activist Post or The Published Reporter. However, two more articles were found on The American Spectator, with the same profile photo and description as The Thinking Conservative.

Fact Check Cyprus checked the profile photo used on both websites using InVID-WeVerify, and found with 83% certainty that “the image may have been created using artificial intelligence”.

The same photo – but mirrored – also came up on a Russian online casino website, which claims that the person in the photo, in this case, ‘Elena Sidorova’, “writes interesting and helpful articles covering the principles of slot machine operation”.

The fact-checking unit also identified a profile with the same name but a different photo of a blonde woman on the website eurasiareview.com without it being possible to confirm with certainty it is the same person. Bloudanis explained that the resolution of the profile photo was too small to be able to ascertain whether it is AI-generated or not.

American website caught ‘unaware’

Fact Check Cyprus contacted The Thinking Conservative and spoke to its founder via email about ‘Emily Thompson’. The website manager said contributors are accepted as opinion writers based on their ability to write about topics they care about, without any background checks, and without their views necessarily reflecting the editorial line of the website.

“I do not conduct background checks, as this is my personal blog that has evolved into what is now TheThinkingConservative.com,” she said.

The manager noted she had no additional information about ‘Emily Thompson’ and that the only way she has to contact her is through an email address at proton.me. “I have no other information about Emily and her articles have never had this kind of reaction,” she wrote to Fact Check Cyprus.

An effort to contact ‘Thompson’ using an email address given proved unsuccessful while The American Spectator and eurasiareview.com also did not respond to emails sent either, said Bloudanis.

‘Hand of bot’ likely behind account

The fact checker told Politis investigations into the issue were ongoing. Based on what they’ve learnt so far, the team has “very strong suspicions” that the specific account was not handled by a person but a bot.

Hybrid Activity #