Thread by @EoinLenihan

Going to do a long thread on the relationship between verified twitter accounts - focus on journalists - and Antifa. Warning, could be long.

We mapped the social interactions of 58,254 Antifa affiliated accounts on Twitter based on an initial seed of 16 self-identifying and verifiable Antifa accounts (and Mark Bray who chose not to confirm if he is a member of Antifa but whose book makes a solid case for inclusion).

We reduced the dataset to 1.65% of all 58,254 accounts - leaving us with 962 accounts. These were the 1.65% most connected Antifa and Antifa associated accounts on Twitter. Each had a minimum of 8 connections within the initial dataset, most having many more.

Here I just want to focus on those Twitter verified accounts that made it into this dataset of the most connected Antifa and Antifa associated accounts on Twitter. Here you can see them highlighted in green.

At 8 connections and above within the dataset the typical verified account is an openly self-identifying antifascist and an influential member of the Antifa movement on Twitter. For example....

Kit O'Connell, who points out his antfascist affiliation in his bio.

Patrick Strickland who specialises in reporting on the far right and writes (positively) on Antifa in Europe. Note the recommendation from Mark Bray, more on him in a moment.

Dylan Petrohilos an anarchist and self-identifying antifascist.

Dan Arel who self identifies as Anarchist Antifa in his bio...

Emily Gorcenski uses Twitter to dox those she deems fascist. Further she created the "First Vigil" website that processes court documents to share the personal information of suspected members of the far right. In cases where people are found innocent (50%), info is still shared.

The point here being that those verified accounts that remain in the dataset at a degree range of 8+ are highly connected and in most cases closely associated with or self-identifying members of Antifa. So...on to the apparent ties between @HuffPost and @guardian to Antifa.

Jason Wilson writes for the Guardian. In a recent piece in which he reports on an intelligence report by the ROCIC which states that Antifa are responsible for street violence just as the far right are, he heavily relies on Mark Bray as a primary source to attack the report.

Mark Bray - also in the top 2% of our dataset - & author of Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook (he donated 50% of profits to the Antifa International Defence Fund) is a recurring Wilson source in his columns. Together they downplay Antifa violence & extremism in The Guardian.

Christopher Mathias is a senior writer at @HuffPost who specialises in the Far Right. In a recent piece he wrote about members of Identity Europa he spread the doxes of several alleged members serving in the military.

At the time of writing he had no idea of their innocence or guilt and as of his pinned tweet, the matter is still only under investigation. How he came to dox these individuals before they were afforded any due process is interesting...

Antifascist news outlet @UR_Ninja leaked discord servers from an Identity Europa server in April and Mathias, took them from there. It's a common theme. Mattias lets Antifa doxers do the heavy work, he does the national level doxing. Nate Thayer, another fav of his.

Here he uses HuffPo to out a "Prominent white supremacist" & was instrumental (along with his Antifa network) in getting him investigated. It later turned out the man was cleared of any wrong doing & allowed back to work. Like the Europa case Mathias doxes first, facts later.

What happens here is that Mathias harvests info from his Antifa network to cast serious allegations against individuals with potentially career shattering consequences and, through doxing, opens up the real chance of violence and serious harm against them...

I dislike white supremacists & fascists. There is no place for them in society. The problem with Matthias' approach is that apart from having a poor conviction rate against the people he doxes, he's relying on doxes & info from people who's definition of fascist is questionable.

In the case of Identity Europa, many are despicable people and they have been labeled an extremist group by the @splcenter but again, among out top 2% is chief investigative reporter for the SPLC Matthew Hayden who's connections within Antifa are problematic.

Mathias is not alone in mining Antifa for doxes of individuals be they fascist or not. Policy at HuffPo (Luke O'Brien) seems to be to create a constant Nazi scare to fill headlines. I spoke to two defectors from a doxing collective who said a HuffPo writer offered cash for doxes.

Here the doxer who claimed he has an @HuffPost journalist on call admits that the individual they are doxing is not a white supremacist or fascist but they'll give it to the HuffPo writer because it have been incentivised.

A @huffpo writer incentivised Antifascist doxers to provide him with the doxes of Nazis. The doxer admitting here in DMs provided by a member of the group, clerly states they had no Nazis so people they had a grudge against will do.

Notice how the eager doxer states that "we got a major publication on his ass" after clearly stating the person they doxed isn't a Nazi. I can't confirm which HuffPo writer incentivised Nazi hunting but there's at least one whose bylines are all extended doxes.

*Michael

Mathias is the most connected journalist in the entire dataset. He has an incredible 14 degree range of connections within the dataset. That means he is in the top 0.15% of Antifa and Antifa associated accounts.

*Important - he was cleared of any wrong doing but he was not allowed back to work. Thanks everyone who clarified.

AntiFashGordon is an Antifa account dedicated to doxing. In this DM he talks about passing "dossiers" of doxes to journalists. He indicates that he has more than one national-level journalist he works with. I asked him to confirm the authenticity of the DM. He declined.

The tweet was publicly available on a TL, sent to me and I asked for authentication.

Here's a major issue with AntiFashGordon. In a recent interaction Gordon insinuated that @BretWeinstein, a progressive Jewish man, and @RubinReport are a fascists. This is an issue when individuals supplying doxes to reporters pursue political vendettas.

The biggest issue with AntiFashGordon and with Antifa doxers in general is that they do not believe in redemption. Here Gordon chases continues to harass a target from town to town, job to job. How does this end?

A major question then is, is AntifFashGordon, one of the best known Antifa doxers on Twitter a reliable source? His definitions of fascism are intentionally skewed and he affords no room for redemption. Why are "national-level" journalists using him as a source?

Wilson's reliance on extremist sources and passing them off as balanced or reliable is not isolated. He has collaborated with Alexander Reid Ross on several occasions. Ross is an anarchist who writes for It's Going Down News and "Earth First!" jorunal - an extremist collective.

***Important*** This 50% rate related to individual counts, not people but the majority of cases are indictments so the principle stands, the site & her twitter doxes people before they've had fair hearing poisoning the well & opening them up to risk from her Antifa network.