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29 Oct, 6 tweets, 4 min read
NEW from me + @BrandyZadrozny:

The Deepfake Peddling a Hunter Biden Dossier

nbcnews.com/tech/security/…
Months before the NY Post story, a document passed around far-right websites detailed a vast Hunter Biden conspiracy.

The document's creator, Martin Aspen, claimed to be a Swiss intel professional.

But Aspen's face was created by AI. He doesn't exist.

nbcnews.com/tech/security/…
A Hunter Biden-China dossier made the rounds among so many people in the rightwing internet. Steve Bannon, Newt Gingrich, even Q from QAnon.

It was created by a fake person with an AI-generated face.

nbcnews.com/tech/security/…
I'm not sure there was a more important piece of disinformation reporting in the last couple of years than this profile of a website that instantly makes AI-generated faces.

It's proving to be a big weapon in the information war.

cnn.com/2019/02/28/tec…
"Martin Aspen," who wrote a viral Hunter Biden dossier, wound up being an AI-generated persona.

The first tipoff he wasn't real? Disinformation researcher @elisethoma5 looked in his eyes.

"The most obvious tell was the irregular shape of the irises."

nbcnews.com/tech/security/…
Fake faces are becoming an easy (and free!) weapon in the info wars.

Before the fictional Martin Aspen's Hunter Biden dossier, Facebook took down AI-generated profiles tied to pro-Trump
sites like The Epoch Times and anti-Trump governments like China.

nbcnews.com/tech/security/…

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More from @oneunderscore__

Ben Collins Profile picture
29 Oct
Absolutely incredible.
Did the Magic 4Chan Document Fairy make a second copy? Find out tomorrow night!
So many tweets in my drafts right now Twitter’s server rack might explode.
Read 4 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
25 Oct
After a half-decade covering extremists and disinfo pipelines, this is the week the effects of this job really got to me.

The anonymous people want me dead, the named are desperate for me to fail.

Just going to keep going. No other way.
I really should’ve predicted this would be the week i started to feel it.

It’s a week before the election. The people who pushed Pizzagate are on TV now, their millions of followers going after a new target.

I remember them from the first time around. Not great news for them.
Disinfo pipelines are crumbling. They’re having a harder time on Facebook. They can’t manipulate mainstream media as well now.

It’s angrier and more vengeance-filled than before since they can see their flirtation with real power maybe ending.
Read 5 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
22 Oct
Tucker Carlson is devoting an entire segment to attacking my colleague, Brandy Zadrozny, for doing actual reporting, like using public records to confirm identities of people who create harassment campaigns.

It's disgraceful.

She's the best reporter I know. I'm with her 1000%.
Had Tucker looked into this, his guest was emailed by Brandy the day before about a story she's doing about his website. He spent the day tweeting retributively at her.

That wasn't mentioned. Seems pretty important to include.

And the guest is this guy.
cnn.com/2018/08/19/pol…
Anyways, that was a hideously unethical segment by Tucker Carlson, framing using basic reporting tools like public records searches as some sort of evil act.

To do it to a mom, and one of the best people I know, is disgusting. I won't forget it.
Read 4 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
21 Oct
Oh my god.

vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020…
Rudy Giuliani has spent the last week teasing multimedia of Hunter Biden doing something sexually nefarious on a hacked laptop. He's had this allegedly criminal evidence for a year. He's produced nothing.

That same thing, featuring himself, will be on Amazon Prime on Friday.
Really good point here.
Read 4 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
15 Oct
NEW from @BrandyZadrozny + me:

YouTube says it is banning QAnon, other conspiracy content that targets individuals

nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…
As far as we can tell, all of the major radicalization-driving QAnon videos — some of which have tens of millions of views — are still up at press time. YouTube said enforcement will take a minute.

We'll keep you updated.
nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…
In our reporting, YouTube was QAnon's largest remaining radicalization driver.

This enforcement action puts YouTube somewhere in between Twitter (make QAnon accounts harder to find, ban overt harassment) and Facebook (outright ban on QAnon content).

nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…
Read 5 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
11 Oct
More astroturfed fake African-American pro-Trump accounts. Almost 10,000 retweets in three hours.
Posing as Black users is a concerted disinformation effort by pro-Trump trolls in this election cycle, as noted in this story, and one that dates back more than a half-decade, discovered by Black women on Twitter, including @blackamazon and @digitalsista.
nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1…
This specific account was spotted by @BenCollins1776, my namesake and considerably better Ben Collins. Benception.
Read 4 tweets

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