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With a display photo of a smiling middle-aged white man clad in a grey suit and tie, a background image of a sitting of the US Congress, and consistent commentary on politics and economic issues, X account user, Scott Bolshevik (@scottbolsheik), has presented itself as an international financial analyst and economist who has special interest in Ghana.
And some media outlets in Ghana and social media pages have fallen for it.
The tags–“financial analyst”, “economist” and “historian”-were for a long time the information in his bio on X until it was changed recently.
Similarly, X account @_JHopkins_ has a user name Dr John Hopkins and the display photo of a white-bearded, casually-dressed white man. The account also has a sitting of the UK’s House of Commons as its background image and a location set at Londonderry, Northern Ireland. With the bio description “Bringing you insights on the global economy and more”, the so-called Dr Hopkins presents himself as an economist.
However, analysis by Fact-Check Ghana shows that the two accounts mentioned are fake identities being used to deceive the public and influence narratives towards their political biases. Sometimes these burner accounts also peddle disinformation.
Impersonation and fake identities
@scottbolshevik joined X in September 2015 and currently has over 34,000 followers. He makes a lot of posts about Ghana’s economic analysis, political commentary, corruption, and historical references. Other times, he talks about Africa and a bit of international politics.
A reverse image search of Bolshevik’s profile picture on X did not show any relationship between the man in the picture and the name Scott Bolshevik. Rather, we found that the man whose profile picture has been used to represent Scott Bolshevik on X is a popular Australian lawyer, Matthew Johnson, with experience in mergers and acquisitions and securities law.
Further search showed that Matthew Johnson was the Global Head of Mining at Hogan Lovells, a law company, but now with A&O Shearman in Australia. We did not find any records of him as a financial analyst, an economist, or a politician.
To further verify the identity of Scott Bolshevik, we searched for his name and profession on search engines, but that did not yield any significant results except his social media space, apart from his social media posts and a few news stories. This is surprising, considering the calibre and status of the user attempts to portray on X.
We found that the account @scottbolshevik was originally identified as @scottoppong. This was as of March 05, 2023, when a user replied to his post by mentioning the account name, saying “@scottoppong, did you read Steve’s post? ‘… Nigerians say that Tinubu lacks legitimacy…(and) are demanding a rerun? Read carefully before you opine. And please, if you can, lend your voice. We are in a battle against this rape of our democracy.”
This means that previously, the account used to be called Scott Oppong. The name “Oppong” is a popular name of Akan heritage, according to MyHeritage. This, therefore, suggests that the person behind the account is likely Ghanaian and not American, as the account is attempting to make users on the platform believe.
Beyond the apparent fake identity, the account also sometimes engages in stealing posts from other social media pages and passes them off as his.
On September 24, 2024, @scottbolshevik posted an image on X
“Am enjoying this book and I feels you should read too. You can get a pdf or audiobook from YouTube,” he posted.
The picture had in its frame the image of the book, a notebook and pen and a mini bag. It is suggested that he was the one who took the photo while he was reading. However, Fact-Check found that this pic was originally posted on LinkedIn in 2022, more than two years prior, by a Philippines-based attorney.
It is difficult to identify the real person (s) behind the account due to the nature of X. It has a no-real-name policy that makes it possible for many users to remain anonymous. However, the facts above prove that the account Scott Bolshevik (@scottbolshevik) is not an American Financial Economist.
About @_JHopkins__’s account
John Hopkins is a very common name. When Fact-Check Ghana conducted an online search on X for users with such a name, the results revealed so many profiles named John Hopkins. counted well over 100 accounts.
However, @_JHopkins__ was one account that seemed to have so much interest in the events in Ghana’s political space.
A reverse image search on John Hopkins’ (@_JHopkins__) profile picture showed that the display photo is a stock image which had been used on several platforms for advertising purposes (See here). The image in the profile picture was also identified to be a model who has taken many photos for advertising purposes.
A stock image is a photograph, illustration or graphic which is licensed for specific use only. These images are either for sale or free, and individuals can use them as and when they want, for varying purposes.
The use of a stock image for a profile picture on social media is quite suspicious, as many “real people” would not use a stock image to identify themselves, not when they claim to be “economic gurus”.
Further checks by Fact-check Ghana did not find any internationally acclaimed Economist by the name John Hopkins.
However, like Scott Bolshevik, who changed his previous handle, the team realised that John Hopkins also adopted the strategy of changing handles. His account was previously @DrJohn_Hopkins. That was the handle of the account when it was opened in January 2017. It remained the account’s handle until at least January 25, 2023.
Between January 2017 to January 2023, Fact-check Ghana observed that the John Hopkins account (@_JHopkins__ or @DrJohn_Hopkins) commented at least twice on posts that revealed that it was indeed not a foreigner but a Ghanaian.
On January 30, 2017, when President Akufo-Addo made a post to congratulate the appointment of Ambassador Kwesi Quartey as Vice Chair of the AU Commission, @DrJohn_Hopkins replied with the comment “We patriotic Ghanaians are bold behind you, Sir!”.
Also, on January 25, 2023, @DrJohn_Hopkins replied to a post by General Buhari, a known NPP activist, with a hashtag #ndcisagainstmuslimsandnortherners.
The post not only suggests that the account was engaged in spreading a hate speech narrative, but it also indicates that the account may be one of the trolls engaged in propagating smear campaigns during the period leading up to the elections.
The changes in the handle from @DrJohn_Hopkins to @_JHopkins__, Fact-check Ghana has observed, are to hide its previous trail of engaging in trolling activities.
Influencing political narratives disguised as international experts
On Sunday, April 20, 2025, GhanaWeb published a news article titled ‘More arrests in 3 months than in 8 years’—Economist praises government’s galamsey fight. The news article, which was carried by other websites, referred to a social media post by @scottbolshevik whose bio details claim that he is a “financial analyst” and “economist”.
Scott had shared a post on President Mahama’s efforts in dealing with illegal mining, popularly called galamsey. That X post had significant attention, gaining over 10,000 views and many comments and reshares.
“H.E. Mahama deserves commendation for the bold STEM-led crackdown on galamsey. It’s deeply rooted in the economy and tied to unemployment, not an issue to fix in a year. In just 3 months, more arrests have been made than in the past 8 years. The message is clear: it’s illegal,” he said.
That is not the first time @scottbolshevik ‘s tweets have featured in the news in Ghana. There are several instances where posts from the account have been carried as stories by different news portals (here, here, here, here, here).
This affirms that some of the Ghanaian media have been deceived by his fake identity for many years.
Beyond Ghanaian politics, this Scott Bolshevik account also comments on issues in Nigeria. A Nigeria-based news portal, mynigeria.com, equally published a report on a post this “economist” made, hailing President Tinubu’s policy of allocating 500,000 hectares of farmland for jobless Nigerian youths.
Although we found many articles and blog posts about this account, we did not find any trace of a media house that had an in-person interview with him following his posts on X. The news articles were all produced from his posts on X.
Unlike @scottbolshevik, @_JHopkins__ has not featured much in the news.
Sharing false information
In August 2024, Dubawa Ghana fact-checked a claim made by Scott Bolshevik about the amount of money the New Patriotic Party borrowed. The claim, which was widely interacted with, was found to be false. At the time, the post had about 400,000 views, 800 bookmarks, 2,000 reposts, and 4,000 likes on X.
Political bias
@scottbolshevik tweeted a lot about corruption and what he believed was a mismanagement of Ghana’s economy by former President Akufo-Addo. Although this user has been on X since 2015, his posts were more frequent in 2023 and 2024.
Fact-Check Ghana used Twitter Wrapped Exa.ai to analyse this user’s posts. Twitter Wrapped Exa.ai summarises a user’s activity on X in a year, giving a lot of insights into post engagements, virality, and overall posts performance.
The annual wrap showed that @scottbolshevik’s top 3 posts were all about Ghana’s political and economic situation, adding that the user was “obsessed with Nana Akufo-Addo on Twitter!”
“You’ve mentioned Ghana’s president in over 200 tweets, consistently critiquing his economic policies and governance style,” the Wrapped revealed.
According to data from Twitter Wrapped Exa.ai, @scottbolshevik’s five most used words on X in 2024 were “Ghana”‘, “Galamsey”, “Nkrumah”, “Economy” and “Corruption. Three of the five most used words of the account–Ghana, Galamsey and Nkrumah–are uniquely Ghanaian. This further butresses the point that the account does not belong to an American financial analyst but a Ghanaian.
For now, the oldest post on the timeline is from April 02, 2023. It is surprising that for a so-called American financial economist, his first post is about a book that led to Nkrumah being overthrown. Most of the account’s posts from 2023 to date are about African leaders (See here), particularly Ghanaian leaders. The account often gives pieces of advice to Ghanaian leaders and calling out leaders for corruption.
Fact-Check Ghana analysed @_JHopkins__’s 2024 tweets using Twitter.exa.ai and found that the user talked more about Ghana’s “economy, politics, and corruption.”
The user of the account “called out corruption in Ghana’s airport deals, praised Ghana for switching to electric cars, and shared your thoughts on African politics,” said Twitter. exa.ai.
The Wrap also showed that @_JHopkins__ is “obsessed with @JDMahama on Twitter! You’ve mentioned him multiple times. You seem to have a love-hate relationship with his policies.”
In July 2024, six months before Ghana’s general elections, the account started posting more about Ghanaian politics, sharing thoughts and opinions on the government’s policies, decisions, and leaders, than it had before.
On August 27, 2024, the user posted on X “I have followed African politics from the 90s, I’ve observed how Opposition parties come in harder with manifestos/campaign messages that offer real solutions to existing problems but, sadly, I’m not seeing that in Ghana’s opposition party, this isn’t giving hope to the voters.”
Some X users have, on several occasions, accused the account of being a scam, a bot account, and a propagandist, with some raising questions about the account users’ credibility.
Breach of X’s guidelines on Authenticity
The activities of the two accounts, @scottbolshevik and @_JHopkins__, breach X’s policy on Authenticity.
On misleading and deceptive identities, X’s policy states that, “You may not impersonate individuals, groups, or organisations to mislead, confuse, or deceive others, nor use a fake identity in a manner that disrupts the experience of others on X.”
Also, given the contributions of the two accounts to political discourse during last year’s elections, they may be deemed to have breached the civil integrity rule.
The rule states that, “You may not use X’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes. This includes posting or sharing content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process.”
In conclusion, these two accounts on X, @scottbolshevik and @_JHopkins__are burner accounts being used to influence public discourse, push false narratives and political agendas. They masquerade as credible, international voices to mislead the public and contribute to the spread of disinformation.
