Thread by @Dragnet_News

A thread on one aspect of online influence operations:

[1] Since most of the broadcast media doesn't seem to know how to cover this issue, someone should. And others have done some amazing work discussing aspects of this, but they don't get promoted nearly enough.

[2] To start, here is the recent Senate Report on these matters, based on studies of data from fraudulent accounts.

It should be read by anyone who is interested in ensuring that these ops do not continue to affect America or the 2020 elections.

intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/…

[3] There are numerous ways in which these fraudulent accounts can create ripples in our society. Without fully understanding what the big picture is, we can get lost in the weeds. And fraudulent accounts encourage us to do so. I've watched them do it.

When we find fraudulent -

[4] accounts purporting to support a particular candidate, fake accounts will come out of the woodwork to declare that 'X' candidate is using bots to attack supporters of 'Y' candidate.

They want us to falsely attribute these accounts to actual candidates, rather than their -

[5] real source. But, here's the reality. Many people are undoubtedly aware of what a false flag is. These accounts are constantly engaging in false flag attacks. They don't support any of the candidates that they very plainly rep in their profile & comments.

Many posts-

[6] they write are false flag ops. The rest of their posts are generally for recruitment.

Here is a recruitment post from earlier today. With this post, the fraudulent account was able to snag a few verified users. It was also retweeted by a verified, thus getting a big boost.

[7] And I know some folks will want to focus on who exactly got tricked this time. We've all been tricked. I've been tricked. You've been tricked. The media has been tricked.

These accounts are clever. At first glance, you wouldn't even know this account was fake. This one has-

[8] a build date of April 2009. Which lends it credibility. That's what they count on. They don't count on someone like me digging in and seeing what's what. The vast majority of people don't have time to do that. Here's an article which digs into that.

thedailybeast.com/i-bought-a-rus…

[9] Allow me to quote a section: "For $150, budding bot-herders can buy 1,000 “vintage” accounts, dating from between 2008 and 2013"

An April 2009 account falls into that "vintage" account range. Most people don't know this information so they assume that an older account is -

[10] somehow more legitimate. I've seen plenty of users pointing out newly created accounts as frauds, which they are. But they are missing so many more accounts.

The account I mentioned earlier was activated around October 9th, 2019. It sat unused for over 10 years.

[11] And once it became active, it began trying to lure in followers by advertising itself as a "Gold Star mother." It did this repeatedly in tweets and it has that listed in its bio. It is very important that the audience knows what the account is supposed to represent.

[12] And you'll notice that the tweet that really got this account some attention and followers was not a fact-based tweet. It was an emotional plea. It resulted in a number of replies saying, "Sorry for your loss."

There's nothing wrong with caring or any of that. That's not

[13] the issue. The issue is that this account knows how to appeal to people who oppose Trump and plays to that. Not with facts and logic. But with emotion. And it worked.

And the really effective part of this, is that when I tried to draw attention, verified users would -

[14] rather assume I'm being a jerk than to stop and consider that I might have a point. I'm pretty sure I got muted by one of those verified users.

One of the biggest issues at play here is that people's pride acts as a blindfold. They don't want to consider that they could be

[15] duped. They can easily imagine that others can be duped, but not themselves. This is how these accounts continue to infiltrate our ranks and put information into our Twitter feeds that they want us to see. We let them in, by following them.

We've all been duped. Finger-

[16] pointing is not the answer. I do not blame those folks who got duped today. These accounts are very clever. And if they introduce 100 fraudulent accounts into each of our feeds each day and we fall for just 1 of the 100, in a year, we're following 365 fraudulent accounts.

[17] And since they pretend to support what we do and virtual signal this all the time, it makes it even easier to trick us. This is one way they use our biases against us.

But, this is only one of the first steps. Simply getting us to follow is not the end-game. The end game -

[18] is to push us apart. For instance, they will do this by engaging in little puppet shows for us with other fake accounts. One account will pretend to be a supporter of Candidate A. The other will pretend to be a supporter of Candidate B. Then one account will say something -

[19] offensive or derogatory about some group of people. Whether that be supporters of the 'opposing' candidate or whether it be about a minority group.

The account that we follow will get in an 'argument' over this offensive thing and draw our attention. This is intended to -

[20] smear real supporters of X candidate. And they want you to pick a side and to think bad thoughts about the candidate's supporters which will, in turn, transfer to the candidate themselves, often subconsciously.

They do this day after day, week after week. It has a -

[21] cumulative effect on the audience. Another tactic that they've been using quite successfully is to divert our frustration from Trump and Republicans over their unwillingness to hold him accountable in the Senate and instead direct those frustrations at various Democrats. -

[22] They've been doing this for a long time. And it has had a huge influence on people. I see it every day. And what they'll never point out are the facts of the matter. They want us losing our cool and not thinking straight.

Furthermore, they want us to foolishly push -

[23] for Dems to hurry up with the impeachment process, when we all know that once it gets to the Senate, we will get a re-enactment of the Kavanaugh hearings, which surely made people want to pull their hair out.

Mitch & the Republicans will continually throw conspiracies at

[24] the audience (remember, Mitch controls it and the Republicans will get ample time to do what they did in the Kavanaugh hearings). Then they will not remove Trump.

They will then use this in advertising to convince those who weren't paying close attention that the Dems were

[25] always on a witch hunt and they made it all up to hurt the poor victim, Trump. And this will surely have an effect on the 2020 elections, especially because many people aren't paying close attention. But they will see the ads. And Dems won't necessarily be able to debunk it.

[26] Below is a thread on one way this "impeachment now" tactic works. There's plenty of other useful info in this thread which follows what I've been reporting on for awhile.

I've reached my conclusions independently & only found this thread today.

https://twitter.com/blakesmustache/status/1177171633380966400

.

[27] As this user mentions, you may have independently came to the conclusion that immediate impeachment is what's needed. And that's fine. But what these accounts do is try to make you frustrated and angry every chance they can get. They prey on your bias on this topic.

This -

[28] only feeds into their ultimate aim of dividing our party. As mentioned before, their are numerous other tactics they are using to keep us amped, to keep us frustrated, and to drive wedges.

They are doing the same in right-wing circles, minus the division of the party bit.

[29] On their side, they are trying to create conditions for unwavering fealty to Trump. Those who stray an inch out of line are traitors, just as Trump declares. They reinforce Trump's messaging constantly. They promote the 'tribe.' And they always seek to spell out that Dems -

[30] are the enemy. Thus keeping that wedge driven in between the right and the left. But they get this message reinforced from their sources of news, from Republicans leaders, and so on. It's just an additional step. Where they really focus in on is promotion of QAnon. Fake -

[31] accounts routinely pump QAnon. In one audit, I found that over 26% of a random sample of fake right-wing accounts were repping QAnon. This is not in line with the actual numbers of Q supporters, at all. They really want to recruit right-wing folks to join the QAnon movement.

[32] I could continue to go on with this thread, but I think this is a good place to take a break, for now.

The simplest summary I can give is that these fraudulent accounts are far more dangerous than most people realize and they are working hard to disrupt the 2020 elections.

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