1. #TwitterFiles Extra: How the World's "No-Kidding Decision Makers" and the "Anti-Disinformation" Field Got Organized
2. In Costa Rica and Latvia today, the Atlantic Council is hosting its 360/OS Summit. We dug into the #TwitterFiles to further reveal the participation of their anti-disinformation arm, the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) in disinformation initiatives of its own
3. 360/OS is a convening of “no-kidding decision maker level” elites, as DFRLab Director Graham Brookie put it, highlighting the Head of Davos, Madeleine Albright and more, as he sought to secure 150k from Twitter and Jack Dorsey’s attendance.
4. Twitter had been developing a strong relationship with DFRLab for sometime. "I just arrived in Kyiv" Brookie notes in 2017 as he suggest Twitter Public Policy Director Nick Pickles meet with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, and the Hamilton 68 creators in DC.
5. 360/OS events are expensive ("around $1M") especially when combined with the off-the-record V25 "an exclusive group of decision makers ranging from the C-Suite to the Situation Room." Twitter contributes 150k to a series of events.
6. Among the 360/OS attendees are Matthias Dopfner (CEO of German media empire Axel Springer), a former President of Estonia and Poland, a former Swedish Prime Minister, billionaires Chris Sacca, Reid Hoffman (Linkedin co-founder), and Ev Williams (former CEO of Twitter)
7. Add to that Jim Clapper (former US Director of National Intelligence), Richard Edelman (CEO of the word’s largest PR company), along with Twitter and Facebook, HuffPo editor-in-chief, and soon to be Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa. All to discuss “disinformation”
8. CISA, DHS and Aspen Institute's "Information Disorder" Co-Chair Kris Krebs also attended to discuss "election integrity." Elliot Higgins of Bellingcat too joined the closed door gathering of intel, billionaires, and "peace-makers"
9. DFRLab's convening power is almost unmatched, but they are frequent partners on "anti-disinformation" initiatives including the Virality Project that worked with Big Tech to censor "stories of true vaccine side effects."
10. DFRLabs also partnered on the Election Integrity Partnership, which sought to “fill the gaps legally” that the government couldn’t. EIP and VP leader-to-be Renee DiResta also attended the 2018 360/OS.
11. Today at #RightsCon, DFRLabs position themselves as underdogs, but nothing could be less true. Like RightsCon (which I once mistakenly co-organised) they serve and merge with elites.
12. The degree to which the Atlantic Council militarists and the 1% have co-opted the human rights field should concern genuine activists, and that's only half of it. Read the full piece at racket.news/p/twitter-file…
13. With thanks to @mtaibbi and the Racket team
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