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Dave Troy

@davetroy

14 Feb

THREAD: QAnon was enabled in part by former military and intelligence professionals "gone wild." They lent credibility to the myth and laundered QAnon messaging to the public, sometimes via E-list "influencers." Here are some of the key personnel.

2/MICHAEL T. FLYNN is at the very center of the Q operation. As a US Army Lt. General and as former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he has extensive knowledge of military/intel ops and the mechanics of insurgency. He also deeply resents his treatment by USG – a theme.

@GenMhayden

3/BILL BINNEY retired in protest from NSA in 2001 after spat with @GenMhayden. He collaborated with Putinphile Oliver Stone (A Good American; Snowden), and has appeared on many Q content channels re: child sex abuse, directed energy weapons; he is part of intj.org

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Dave Troy

@davetroy

4 Feb

The #Parler meltdown, a timeline:

Nov 13: I exposed opaque funding and Matze’s Russia ties

Nov 14: WSJ exposes Rebekah Mercer as funder and co-founder

Jan 6: Parler used to organize and amplify insurrection

Jan 8-9: Google and Apple remove app from stores

Jan 11: Amazon AWS terminates hosting; researchers harvest data

Jan 17: Parler puts up static page on Epik/DDOS Guard/Russian IP

Jan 21: House Oversight Chairwoman Maloney asks FBI to investigate Parler, its funding, and Matze’s Russia ties

Jan 29: Mercer + board fire Matze

Feb 3: Matze reveals he has been fired; Bongino denies, incorrectly

Even if it can somehow get back online, it will never be a viable company without implementing real moderation practices. Mercer seems intent not to do so. Parler is, without a serious upheaval, over.

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Dave Troy

@davetroy

30 Jan

Investigating networked disinformation and influence campaigns is hard. SIGINT is often scarce, and encrypted. But people are sloppy; HUMINT is vital, and developing it requires an iterative approach. Each cycle of reporting exposes more players, which attracts more sources.

Campaigns like QAnon will ultimately collapse through iterative reporting, as human sources are amassed and facts are laid bare. This was an evolutionary and organic effort with many players. People talk. The next few iterations will result in more and more human sources.

To accelerate the collapse of this and other networked scams, we should increase our speed of iteration with the specific goal of exposing various network participants, and developing human sources around them.

Read 12 tweets

Dave Troy

@davetroy

28 Jan

1/ Hey guys, remember that time Steve Bannon ran an army of game virtual currency miners in Asia, for sale to westerners at discount prices, arbitraging attention for profit?

That was awesome...
wired.com/2016/09/trumps…

2/ “The company was founded by former child star Brock Pierce, and Bannon was an investor. Bannon managed to convince Goldman Sachs to plow $60 million into a company that sold imaginary goods in an imaginary world.”

In 2020, Brock Pierce ran for President. Guess who...

3/ was Pierce’s campaign manager?

Brittany Kaiser, the fake whistleblower who left Cambridge Analytica in late March 2018 — right *after* it blew up.

prnewswire.com/news-releases/…

Read 25 tweets

Dave Troy

@davetroy

26 Jan

Four years ago this month, there was an uproar among analysts (and the public) about whether Cambridge Analytica was a PSYOP. The word is triggering; it tends to get people animated, makes people think of conspiracy theories, implies a grand master plan, shadowy operators, etc.

I have a good memory of that. What's happening now re: QAnon and whether it was a PSYOP and by whom is comparable. And it's a pointless debate. Any operation that 1) does target audience analysis, 2) deploys messaging against audiences, 3) tries to alter behavior, is a PSYOP.

The origin of this particular operation is complicated, networked, and muddied by people who wish to both claim and disclaim it. But it is functionally a PSYOP, has borrowed from that heritage, and can be analyzed in those terms. Miss me with claims to the contrary.

Read 12 tweets

Dave Troy

@davetroy

24 Jan

Opinion: Chris Miller, Kash Patel, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Anthony Tata, Michael Ellis, Michael Flynn + family, and Devin Nunes tried to overthrow the USG, less than three weeks ago...

Now they are deploying a host of resources from their network — lawyers, ex-spooks, writers — to scramble the narratives and create FUD about their involvement, and to inject plausible deniability. This is a disinfo campaign.

Various analysts and journalists have picked up on the deception and know what this is. Had things gone differently... <waves hands> these folks would be at the center of power; they thought.

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