SPECIAL: The Twitter Files – New Knowledge, the Global Engagement Center, and State-Sponsored Blacklists, and the whole twitters are in the below:
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