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20 Aug, 6 tweets, 2 min read

A Logically investigation has identified the man behind “GhostEzra,” responsible for running the largest QAnon channel on Telegram and spreading increasingly extreme antisemitic propaganda.
logically.ai/articles/exclu…

As part of our work countering harmful misinformation, Logically researches those who play an outsized role in spreading it. By identifying those leveraging anonymity to supercharge misinformation and hate speech, we hope to restore the accountability that bad actors evade.

GhostEzra has over 330k subscribers on Telegram, and has attracted reporting in Newsweek, the Daily Dot and VICE, among others. He is arguably responsible for radicalizing thousands of Trump supporters towards more extreme beliefs.

https://twitter.com/markszaidesq/status/1374860880945557507

Some have speculated that the figure behind the account was former Trump White House official Ezra Cohen-Watnick, prompting Cohen-Watnick’s lawyer to issue an explicit denial that this was the case.

https://twitter.com/markszaidesq/status/1374860880945557507

Today we can reveal that the man behind the account is in fact Robert Randall Smart of Boca Raton, Florida. An image of a local gas station posted to Smart’s Telegram channel, as well as some other geographical clues, allowed us to narrow down his location to an ~8 mile radius.

A Google account, some images GhostEzra posted of his home, and social media posts completed the picture. You can read how we did it here. logically.ai/articles/exclu…

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@nickbackovic

Logically investigators have uncovered ties between a QAnon publisher whose sole author called for Pence’s arrest on Jan 6th, and Robert Cornero, a former screenwriter from New Jersey. More from @nickbackovic:

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