Teenagers, some of them minors, are being paid to pump out posts like “Don’t trust Dr. Fauci” and voting disinformation at the direction of an affiliate of Turning Point USA - copying the spam-like like behavior of bots and trolls washingtonpost.com/politics/turni…
“In 2016, there were Macedonian teenagers interfering in the election by running a troll farm and writing salacious articles for money. In this election, the troll farm is in Phoenix.” washingtonpost.com/politics/turni…
This is increasingly the story of 2020: “the scale and scope of domestic disinformation is far greater than anything a foreign adversary could do to us.” washingtonpost.com/politics/turni…
As @LissandraVilla and I wrote in the latest TIME, the greatest threat in 2020 is homegrown as Americans take a page from the Kremlin’s 2016 playbook to weaponize misinformation on social media (especially about voting) to advance their political goals time.com/5887438/trump-…
“2016 was the ‘fake news’ election, but 2020 makes it look like nothing in comparison. This infrastructure...has now become concretized under Donald Trump down to the state level, the city level. It’s the democratization of propaganda.” time.com/5887438/trump-…
Important to note that just like in 2016, a lot of this misinformation targets Black and Latino communities.
This is “the next major barrier to the right to vote...we see it in the same trajectory as a poll tax or a literacy tax,” @andre_banks told me time.com/5887438/trump-…
Laura Loomer’s campaign/“Twitter army” used messaging “squarely targeting Black and Latino voters,” according to an analysis shared with TIME, partly by seeding false claims using the hashtags #JohnLewis, #JimCrowJoe and #BlackLivesMattertime.com/5887438/trump-…
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Frank Carillo, a 66-year-old from Virginia, has been arrested & charged with threatening online to kill Vice President Kamala Harris along with a series of other violent threats against her and others (including President Biden & FBI Director Wray)
Amazing: When the feds showed up to arrest him (after threatening to kill VP Kamala Harris, "personally pluck out her eyes" and light her on fire), Carillo seems surprised.
"This is ridiculous, for a comment. I guess I'm gonna need a lawyer."
This is part of a recent pattern—online violent rhetoric against public officials has become so normalized that people are shocked (shocked!) when the feds show up at their door for threatening to murder politicians
New: How Prigozhin used Telegram to build an online platform that in just seven months allowed him to morph from an unofficial extension of the Kremlin to a prominent figure with his own online audience & direct channel to the Russian public time.com/6290378/yevgen…
Prigozhin built Wagner in the shadows for almost a decade and was rarely seen in public, denying his connection to the group and even suing news outlets for correctly linking him to Wagner. That all changed abruptly last September. time.com/6290378/yevgen…
Prigozhin used Telegram to circumvent the Kremlin’s state media apparatus, meeting Russians on the platform where they sought uncensored news from the war in Ukraine. https://t.co/7nWs5ojYyytime.com/6290378/yevgen…
The CIA launched a new Telegram channel today to recruit Russians who might be willing to provide state info, complete with a cinematic video in the gray tones of a Cold War thriller.
The video “goes from grainy sad life in Russia to what–grainy, sad life on the CIA side? Most Russians are suspicious of America & CIA in particular. So associating this with the CIA is only likely to reinforce the belief they’re the ones doing the lying.” time.com/6280190/cia-re…
“Are you a military officer? Do you work in intelligence, diplomacy, science, high technology or deal with people who do?” reads a message in the new CIA video, which ends with both Russian characters deciding to contact the agency on their phones. time.com/6280190/cia-re…
In 2021, I investigated how America’s Frontline Doctors, which despite its name is actually a right-wing political org created to support the Trump admin's reopening push, was making $$ off bogus Covid cures & anti-vax conspiracies. It only got worse.
As the US officially closes the book on the pandemic, many families have remained silent about this aspect of their loved ones’ deaths. Some are embarrassed or reluctant to tarnish their relatives’ memories.
FWIW, all the facts contradict the emerging whistleblower narrative.
- Teixeira didn’t actually do any whistleblowing - he didn’t expose docs to the public/the press
- He posted docs in group & told them not to share
- His friends in group vehemently deny he’s a whistleblower
"Two U.S. officials confirmed that investigators want to talk to Airman Teixeira about the leak of the government documents to the private online group. One official said Airman Teixeira might have information relevant to the investigation." nytimes.com/2023/04/13/wor…
"Members of Thug Shaker Central who spoke to The Times...who came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games" is both an incredible and completely predictable line re: a classified intel leak in 2023 nytimes.com/2023/04/13/wor…
"When asked if Airman Teixeira was there and willing to speak, the man said: “He needs to get an attorney if things are flowing the way they are going right now. The Feds will be around soon, I’m sure.” nytimes.com/2023/04/13/wor…