Thread by @althecat

Ok so here's the plan. It is not yet fully formed and I would invite all to participate in a discussion in this thread, this will likely go all over the place and I will try to synthesize it and then we will kick off officially tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1425792727241920518?s=20

NOTE: This has never been done before. But the circumstances haven't arisen before that would make it worthwhile, or possible. Ordinarily this sort of work is undertaken by teams of journalists in a secure environment working for a publisher consortia.

That is not possible in the time frame, and our objectives are different and aligned with the other twitter work being done, i.e. to attract as much public, media and decision-maker attention as possible to the unfolding crisis.

This is the starting point. The @Wikileaks database. Which has 46k hits for "Ethiopia", 299 for "TPLF" and 489 for "EPRDF". Our initial focus will be the Cable Gate files which are a subset of those. search.wikileaks.org/?query=Ethiopi…

These are the files that resulted in Julian Assange being hunted down and imprisoned, providing an element of karmic symmetry to this exercise.

And these cables are the "unassailable evidence" mentioned in the previous thread.

The simplicity is in how I propose we deliver this, using just twitter and Google Docs and Sheets.

The idea is for people to look for interesting cables and then start a twitter thread about them. The twitter threads will have header tweets which will be used for tracking.

I will post a prototype for this tonight or tomorrow with a famous cable. Or if anyone else wants to have a crack that would be great.

We will use a master google sheet to keep track of the threads & metadata. And a google doc for annotating each cable.

The threads will be used to assemble:
- Key quotes / screenshots from the cables
- Commentary, context
- Related news reports (to help connect to real world events)
- Discussion and review

What we are trying to do here is sort the wheat from the chaff initially, and then find the diamonds in the rough.

Everyone can contribute and start looking in the cables and other leaked files immediately. But the details and templates for the documents we will use need to be prototyped.

I would suggest that anyone who is keen to begin immediately do so. For the next phase we will need a small coordination team.
People who are organised, creative, patient and who have time available to focus for a few hours a day on this.
Please DM me if you are interested.

Tech help would be very welcome but this plan is deliberately not contingent on it.

We also need writers and journalists to turn the final product into something for publication.

And we need guards (people keeping an eye out for trouble) and greeters for newbies.

And finally we need a hashtag. My initial thought last night was #TPLFTruthBomb, but am not that wedded to it.