Today seems like a good day to do another case study. A Twitter user pointed out this acct to me.

Typically, when I find anonymous accts that are trying to baselessly smear various Americans like John Cusack or Jane Fonda by calling them pedos, such accts are pro-Kremlin.

1/
And while some may be inclined to focus on the MAGA costume, sometimes it is just a costume. They may tepidly support someone like Trump due to the damage he causes to the West, rather than any other reason.

America ain't rootin for Putin, troll.

2/
Of course, this acct has promoted QAnon. Very unsurprising.

4/
And this acct has targeted McCain. While certain people may not agree with McCain, there's a different reason for a particular type of troll to target McCain. He was one of the few who understood what Putin was up to and who took it seriously years ago.

5/
And how could I go without mentioning that this acct was promoted by the Internet Research Agency's trolls, almost as if this acct is one of theirs or something. 🤔

6/
The problem, I fear, is that we have yet to take these trolls as seriously as we should. It seems that people may falsely believe that Twitter has taken care of the problem. Unfortunately, ban evasion is all too easy. It's routine.

Influencers should take this problem seriously.
Note: the folks who spotted this acct and its smear campaign initially were @MarinaGipps and @TAPSTRIMEDIA.

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More from @Dragnet_News

Feb 2, 2022
While you might've heard the phrase 'influence operations', some readers may not have seen specific examples.

Therefore, I decided to create this thread to cover a specific influence op.

We start with Step 4, where Infowars offered a carrot ($1000 or $2500) to their audience.
Why am I starting with Step 4? I'll come back to that question later.

It is June 3, 2017. It is a Saturday, a day when more people have free time to do many things, including protest. A pretty standard protest about the Paris Agreement has been organized by conservatives.

2/
Step 5: Then, these guys show up. They aren't actually protesters. They have nothing to do with the protest that's going on. They are simply trying to make some quick money, as Infowars offered a *potential* reward for them to go out there with those signs. That was Step 4.

3/
Read 19 tweets
Aug 30, 2021
This thread is sponsored by [redacted]. Visit [redacted].com for all your [redacted] needs.

This is another QAnon-boosting, Kremlin-talking-point-promoting acct which cosplayed as a progressive.

The closest thing to an honest remark from this acct was the following tweet.

1/
"If USA suffers from a Trump POTUS" . . . "I'm down."

This acct was part of a network of accts posing as Bernie supporters in order to depress Democratic turnout in 2016. Some such accts, like this one, went so far as to encourage Bernie supporters to vote for Trump.

2/
And this wasn't *just* about encouraging Bernie supporters to vote for Trump. As seen above, it was also about being very obvious and divisive about it, to include using Bernie's name in the acct handle.

The intent is to spark hostility and drive a wedge between us.

3/
Read 11 tweets
Aug 28, 2021
Extremely brief thread on two Q posts, one which referred to JFK Jr and the other which referred to JFK.

These are two additional instances where Q referred to topics that had been previously promoted by Project Lakhta.

First, we have JFK Jr's death.

1/
Next, we have JFK's speech to the press, which has been cherry-picked & relabeled to fool people about the context. I've done another thread mentioning that narrative, which I'll link to in the next tweet.

Despite Q's spelling error, we can deduce what was meant there.

2/
While the linked thread below is in reference to a particular pro-Kremlin acct, the final two tweets in the thread cover that and the relevant context.

3/

Read 4 tweets
Aug 21, 2021
Jan 6, 2021

"Death to tyranny" (Owen Shroyer) very much "Death to America" vibes, but remixed

"They just breached the Capitol" (unk)

"It's only the shit of your dreams" (unk)

"We gotta call this right" (Alex Jones)

*see attempted audio cleanup in next tweet

1/
I'm absolutely certain someone can do a better cleanup of this audio than my attempt.

Especially to try to figure out what is being said near the end . . .

"if we bring a big old crowd and show a peaceful demonstration and confuse" [unintelligible]
Within a minute and a half from the end of the last clip, they were marching on the Capitol, at InfoWars' instruction. The crowd didn't decide. InfoWars did.

And although you can't see him yet, you can hear someone in the crowd call out to Ali Alexander.

3/
Read 9 tweets
Aug 20, 2021
I've put together a little comparison of Anna Khait bragging right before her Survivor appearance in 2015 and her later assertions when the media started reporting on her 'undercover' work for Project Veritas, and the many contradictions/deceptions therein.

1/
And the attempts to undermine the media that's weaved in there is par for the course for both Project Veritas and her.

2/
Read 4 tweets
Aug 19, 2021
This Lex Fridman guy makes some compelling points in this interview with Rogan. I don't agree with all of his points, but the ones below? 👍

I don't know who he is so this is not me cosigning him as a person (or Rogan for that matter.)

But Rogan does catch something I didn't.
As I've said, the HBO series tries to imply that Ron is Q, rather than proving it. And Lex also catches that this is what's happening. The difference between him and me is that he seems to have bought into it, at least a bit.

But he doesn't think it's autonomous. I agree there.
Moreover, I think Lex does have a pretty good grasp of how Russia operates and weaves narratives for an unsuspecting audience. How notions of good and evil can be used to manipulate people, when built into a narrative that has particular objectives.
Read 4 tweets

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