Thread by @Dragnet_News

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/

That financial incentive is the influence. Without it, these guys likely don't waste their times going out there with those signs. But Infowars has attached stipulations, so the money isn't guaranteed. We don't know if any of them ever received a reward or not.

4/

News2Share, where the earlier clip is from, put out the full video on FB. You can watch these guys stalk the camera operators, trying to get their sign on camera, figuring out the best placement for their signs. That incentive was *very* effective.

5/

facebook.com/N2Sreports/vid…

Step 6: Those clips are circulated on social media and one of those signs might even show up in the mainstream media, especially if any of them are reporting on the protest live.

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As far as most folks are aware, the above 3 steps are the only steps involved here. That's typically as far as such stories go, due to a lack of data/information. And some people won't hear about Infowars' reward, so when they see those signs, they might think it's organic.

7/

The information most people have available to them (if they even opt to look into it) seems to provide a simple, neat explanation for what happened and why. And it will remain that way, so long as they never hear about Steps 1, 2, and 3, which have been omitted.

8/

Step 1 for this event* goes as follows:

The Project Lakhta operation spots a news event they think they can repurpose for their agenda. In this case, it's Kathy Griffin's pretend 'beheading' of Trump on May 30, 2017.

*there are more general themes which precede this.

9/

Step 2:

On May 30, they begin testing out & calibrating messages to exploit that event. It's not good enough that Griffin did a shocking thing. It needs to have broader implications.

-Liberals are indistinguishable from ISIS
-This is an act of terror
-CNN is like ISIS

10/

Kathy Griffin used to appear on CNN once a year on NYE. They honed in on that fact, because it allowed them to malign CNN, which had been reporting on inconvenient facts related to Russia's meddling efforts.

In the very early hours of May 31st, they settle on a message.

11/

Which brings us to Step 3:

Pushing the message that "CNN is ISIS"

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Did it matter that @CNN would fire Kathy Griffin within 24 hours of that incident? Not in the slightest. They still would keep pushing that narrative. And Infowars, as per usual, would join in, becoming the 'face' of the influence op.

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On June 3, the Project Lakhta trolls simply needed to keep an eye on social media while spamming that phrase and hashtag. And as the footage and/or pictures started appearing online, they made sure to give it a boost.

That screenshot in tweet #3? They spread it.

14/

But they didn't spread the explainer tweet which came a bit later. Therefore, people saw the "CNN is ISIS" tweet but they didn't see the tweet which explains it is not organic.

To keep you from having to scroll back, the respective tweets are below. Note the difference.

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This is also a part of the influence operation. Controlling what people see vs what they don't in order to shape their opinion. People can report all day long about such inorganic activity, but if very few people see it . . .

16/

I'd remiss if I didn't mention Mr. Posobiec's involvement in this. Seems he has a weird knack for being dead in the middle of many of Project Lakhta's operations, one way or another. Sure is weird how that happens.

17/

Grrr. I'd **be** remiss.

Hate when I catch errors only after I've tweeted a thread out. There are several in this thread. Oh well.

BTW, if you've read this far, congrats! You seem like you like to read. That's excellent.

For more reading material, you can see my pinned thread, where I discuss the evidence that 'Q' acted as a Kremlin proxy outlet. Or you can see my website, which is linked in my bio.