1. TWITTER FILES #17
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
New Knowledge, the Global Engagement Center, and State-Sponsored Blacklists pic.twitter.com/8LuoKY9zzA
2. On June 8, 2021, an analyst at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab wrote to Twitter:
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
“Hi guys. Attached you will find… around 40k twitter accounts that our researchers suspect are engaging in inauthentic behavior… and Hindu nationalism more broadly.” pic.twitter.com/0RpK3kyhHC
3. DFRLab said it suspected 40,000 accounts of being “paid employees or possibly volunteers” of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
But the list was full of ordinary Americans, many with no connection to India and no clue about Indian politics. https://t.co/B5L8KsY6ZH pic.twitter.com/vqijzp9BR2
4. “I have no connection to any Hindu folks… Just a Reagan Republican here in CT,” replied “Bobby Hailstone.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
“A Hindu nationalist? I’ve never even been out of this country. Let alone the state of NJ,” said “Lady_DI816.”
“These people are insane!” said “Krista Woods.”
5. Twitter agreed, one reason many of the accounts remain active. “Thanks, Andy,” replied Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth. “I spot-checked a number of these accounts, and virtually all appear to be real people.” pic.twitter.com/HCf1YPjpFa
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
7. DFRLab is funded by the U.S. Government, specifically the Global Engagement Center (GEC).
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Director Graham Brookie denies DFRLab it uses tax money to track Americans, saying its GEC grants have "an exclusively international focus.”
8. But Americans on DFR’s list, like Marysel Urbanik, are unconvinced its focus is “exclusively international.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
“This is un-American,” says Urbanik, who immigrated from Castro’s Cuba. “They do this in places that don’t believe in free speech.” pic.twitter.com/7MKySCe3XN
9. The Global Engagement Center is usually listed as a State Department entity.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
It's not.
Created in Obama’s last year, GEC is an interagency group “within” State, whose initial partners included FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA, DARPA, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and others. pic.twitter.com/rdezEFYRwI
10. GEC’s mandate: “To recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign… disinformation.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
On the surface, it’s the same mission the United States Information Agency (USIA) fulfilled for decades, with a catch. USIA focused on foreign “disinfo.”
GEC’s focus is wider. pic.twitter.com/upfxHqGjQ5
11. “It’s an incubator for the domestic disinformation complex,” says a former intelligence source. “All the shit we pulled in other countries since the Cold War, some morons decided to bring home.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
12.GEC could have avoided controversy by focusing on exposing/answering “disinformation” with research and a more public approach, as USIA did. Instead, it funded a secret list of subcontractors and helped pioneer an insidious – and idiotic – new form of blacklisting.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
https://t.co/0emM8JQDzO GEC asks Twitter to review 499 accounts as “foreign” disinformation, for reasons that include using Signal to communicate and tweeting the hashtag, #IraniansDebateWithBiden. https://t.co/Gz1ZAElqrI pic.twitter.com/31Di6SSI1D
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
14. Here are 5500 names GEC told Twitter it believed were “Chinese… accounts” engaged in “state-backed coordinated manipulation.” It takes about negative ten seconds to find non-Chinese figures: https://t.co/pkttqOL34S pic.twitter.com/wjyuJrUFpN
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
15. GEC’s “Chinese” list included multiple Western government accounts and at least three CNN employees based abroad. “Not exactly Anderson’s besties, but CNN assets if you will,” quipped Twitter’s Patrick Conlon.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
"A total crock,” added Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth. pic.twitter.com/vvvrjOxBfO
16.GEC passed some good information to Twitter, but mostly not. The root problem was exemplified by a much-circulated 2020 report, “Russian Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda.” pic.twitter.com/2Ws8NUDb7z
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
17.This GEC report was contradictory. On one hand, it offered reasoned evidence that a specific outlet like the “Strategic Culture Foundation” was partnered with the Russian Foreign Ministry, which would make it a true "proxy site." pic.twitter.com/7nFrJMjydW
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
18.The same report advanced a far lazier idea.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Along with state actors, groups that “generate their own momentum” should also be seen as parts of a propaganda “ecosystem."
Independence, GEC said, should not “confuse those trying to discern the truth.” pic.twitter.com/ikbOb9YQoj
19. The “ecosystem” is not a new concept. It’s been with us since Salem: guilt by association.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
As one Twitter exec put it: “‘If you retweet a news source linked to Russia, you become Russia-linked,’ does not exactly resonate as a sound research approach.” pic.twitter.com/H4RxQhgM3B
20.GEC sent Twitter a series of reports on a series of topics, often employing the “ecosystem” concept.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Its report on France “attributes membership in the yellow vest movement as being Russia-aligned,” is how Twitter’s Aaron Rodericks put it. pic.twitter.com/iDBZbr7GWg
21.GEC’s report on China was “more entertainment value than anything,” said Rodericks. “It equates anything pro-China, but also anything against China in Italy, as part of Russia's strategy.” pic.twitter.com/uH1nl7LMEU
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
22. Twitter staffers had professionalism. They tended to look at least once before declaring a thing foreign disinformation. This made them a tough crowd for GEC.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Fortunately, there's an easier mark: the news media.
23.GEC’s game: create an alarmist report, send it to the slower animals in journalism’s herd, and wait as reporters bang on Twitter’s door, demanding to know why this or that “ecosystem” isn’t obliterated.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Twitter emails ooze frustration at such queries. UGGG! reads one. pic.twitter.com/Xkw7fOKZXL
25.Twitter disagreed with GEC’s alert about Russian “disinfo” in South America, which appeared to confused cause and effect.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
As Rodericks put it, “I believe what they mean is: ‘there was a surge in accounts that agreed with Moscow-aligned narratives' = Moscow controlled.” pic.twitter.com/coMkbksWCO
26. Roth noted Bret Schafer of the Alliance for Securing Democracy was quoted in Frenkel’s story and said: “Seems like ASD are back at their old tricks.” pic.twitter.com/krrJLw0Ats
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
27. Roth was referring to the fact that the ASD created Hamilton 68, another guilt-by-association scheme detailed in Twitter Files #15. The Hamilton “dashboard” claimed to track accounts linked to “Russian influence activities,” but the list was largely made up of Americans. pic.twitter.com/VEKokQsdHx
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
28. The Hamilton 68 dashboard creator, J.M. Berger, was on the GEC payroll until June of 2017, just before the dashboard’s launch. Hamilton claimed the list was “the fruit of more than three years of observation.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Berger “unequivocally” denies working on Hamilton for GEC. pic.twitter.com/1QJpV39tIH
30. The Hamilton 68 dashboard employed digital alchemy to create streams of headlines tying Americans to “foreign” disinformation.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
The “ecosystem” reports GEC and many "disinformation" laboratories feed reporters are often just subtler versions of the same thing. pic.twitter.com/tfM2lh2PdJ
31. In a crucial in-house Q&A in mid-2017, Roth was asked if it was possible to detect “Russian fingerprints” using Twitter’s public data. Though “you can make inferences,” he said, “in short, no.” pic.twitter.com/vax9ODl0kV
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
32. Twitter therefore knew from the first days of the “foreign interference” mania that the media zone was flooded with bad actors playing up cyber-threats for political or financial reasons, GEC included.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
33. “GEC has doubled their budget by aggressively overstating threats through unverified accusations that can't be replicated either by external academics or by Twitter,” wrote Rodericks. pic.twitter.com/p7YSxoVq7T
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
34.The same is true of New Knowledge, the scandal-plagued company staffed by former NSA officials that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) hired to do “expert” assessments of the initial batches of “suspect” Facebook and Twitter accounts. pic.twitter.com/BkWR5uLiJg
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
35. When Twitter saw New Knowledge and its reporter-worshipped “disinformation” gurus like Jonathon Morgan and Renee DiResta were making analytical leaps they felt were impossible, they knew something was off.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
36. After Politico cited a New Knowledge report to the SSCI as evidence for what it called a “sweeping effort to sow divisions,” Twitter dug in. NK pointed to five supposedly Russian accounts it said were “relatively easy to find with the Twitter public API."
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Roth scoffed. pic.twitter.com/GZ6lVfOF0k
37. Roth said two of the five accounts were a “small Indonesian content farm… just commercial spam. (Would suspend but don’t want to throw fire on the NK report by making anyone think they’re correct.) Becca account is an American and not at all suspicious.” pic.twitter.com/BMzfIzjtsR
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
38.Twitter’s Nick Pickles: “New Knowledge’s pitch… pick accounts that they have deemed to be IRA controlled, and then spin up bigger macro analysis… stories about ‘2000 Russian accounts tweeting about Kavanagh/Walkway/Caravan’ [were] often based on media activity from NK.” pic.twitter.com/HbqMULcT16
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
39. Just like Hamilton 68, GEC and New Knowledge littered the media landscape with flawed or flat-out wrong news stories. Exacerbating matters, Americans in both cases paid taxes to become the subject of these manipulative operations. pic.twitter.com/9NxqGd22yu
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
40. Particularly egregious: a New Knowledge report to the Senate on Russian interference was leaked just days before it was outed in a scheme to fake Russian influence in an Alabama election, and no media outlets issued retractions.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
No SSCI staff have commented, either. pic.twitter.com/xnUG6f8pdo
41. Foreign cyber-threats exist, and there are sophisticated ways of detecting them. But GEC and its subcontractors don’t use those, instead deploying junk science that often lumps true bad actors in with organic opinion.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
42.“Disinformation studies” has mostly become a con, where non-experts mesmerize reporters with what one former GEC staffer calls “hairball” charts, usually measuring something idiotic – like who follows two Chinese diplomats, or shares an Iranian “FREE PALESTINE” meme. pic.twitter.com/YDS3HOSFoy
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
43.The Washington Examiner and @gekaminsky just profiled a GEC-funded NGO in the UK that algorithmically scores media outlets by "risk."
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
How does downranking the Daily Wire to help the New York Times get more ad revenue counter “foreign” disinformation? pic.twitter.com/KvCL5sM2HJ
https://t.co/nHnOyqlWrV IG report shows GEC was initially obligated $98.7 million, of which roughly $80 million came from the Pentagon. It reportedly gave to at least 39 different organizations, whose names were redacted.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Why is this list secret? pic.twitter.com/W8yUes75Ly
45. Twitter comms official Ian Plunkett wrote years ago that “misinformation, like [countering violent extremism, or CVE] before it, is becoming a cottage industry.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Disinformation is the counterterrorism mission, rebranded for domestic targets. pic.twitter.com/TElJC7Yrrl
46. Reauthorization for GEC’s funding is up for a vote this year. Can we at least stop paying to blacklist ourselves?
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
47. The #TwitterFiles were prepared by a third party, so material may have been left out. Thanks to @ShellenbergerMD and the team at https://t.co/FCrKr0tMPX, who’ll have more on this all month.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
48. NOTE: Just before publication, Graham Brookie of DFRLab wrote to clarify about the 40,000 India names: “We didn’t publish this from a former researcher because we lacked confidence in its findings.” pic.twitter.com/SUdsKoQRzb
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
49. I asked Brookie if he’d made this lack of confidence clear to the Reuters reporter whose story based on that research is still live and uncorrected online: https://t.co/jCfrSiGA6X
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
He hasn’t replied. pic.twitter.com/GE655CbDHz
50. For more on these and other #TwitterFiles topics, @ShellenbergerMD and I will be testifying in the House on Thursday, March 9, at 10 a.m. We're humbled and grateful to @Jim_Jordan and @JudiciaryGOP for the invitation.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
Again, apologies: here is the “India List” https://t.co/848us04x0Y
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
