Thread by @tobiaschneider

Okay so here's my entirely baseless theory of information laundering in the Ukraine war -- drawn entirely from my subjective experience with these kinds of bureaucracies as well as the wider conflict monitoring environment: /1

https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1531143716840284161

In the run-up to the war, and in line with a broader trend in this field, multiple govs - most notably the US and UK plus Balts - went for a proactive public information strategy to preempt Russian disinfo campaigns and generally shape public expectations of what was to come. /2

This proved successful - if not at deterring Russia then at shaping the info space. I have no special insights, but in every ministerial comms department there's a spreadsheet tracking impressions, engagements, and citations for each social output and they're *thru the roof*. /3

The only time public sector communications offices do these kinds of numbers is when they accidentally assign neo-pronouns to heavy weaponry on some international day of something. So these things take on a life of their own -- even when the strategic imperative is sorta gone. /4

In the early stages, there was a big incentive to work (it's work!) to declassify and publicize sensitive products which have now largely dissipated. The risk calculus reg exposing methods has swung back the other way. So the good stuff is probably, once again, held tightly. /5

(Aside: In general, the better and more granular the intelligence, the smaller the circulation. There's no share drive where all "NATO officials" you see quoted in the papers log on daily to get the juicy bits. The real circulation is water cooler chats. So apply skepticism.) /6

Instead, someone in the myriad of staffs proliferating across militaries is tasked with scraping together insights w/out being a burden. And that someone is likely an overworked 23-year-old with no subject matter background who recently completed a two-week course to qualify. /7

Note, everybody is just doing their job to the best of their abilities with the tools they're given. But where's our guy gonna get insights he can put on a slide without running the gamut of sign-offs? Same as everybody else: Twitter. More importantly, open-source Twitter. /8

If you're new here, OSINT twitter is about 10% professional journalists and analysts (eg bellingcat); 20% dedicated and obsessive hobbyists bored in their day jobs (eg Oryx-ish); and 70% grifters and American teenagers reposting Telegram rumors (all rando "intel" accounts). /9

This isn't bad. I've made half a career of trying to bring their insights into structured products. But when you're writing a piece for a very serious newspaper you'll struggle to cite the nameless doggo account on mil dynamics in Donbas. But then here comes the ministry! /10

The ministries and especially their comms departments also awkwardly benefit from remaining handwaving-ly vague about the actual sources and methods that generate the conclusions they publicize. As do "NATO officials" and diplomats and others who aren't actually in the loop. /11

And I think this is genuinely underrated. As a result of bureaucratic compartmentalization and classification (and for non-US lack of independent capability), there are large departments across national security states for whom twitter is a genuine informational lifeline. /12

As a result, an inordinate share of our public information, in journalism and government, effectively recycles and launders the insights of not just a handful of think tankers but a bunch of - sorry friends - randos who spend a lot of time in certain corners of the interwebs. /13

This has already become a running gag in the usual open-source weirdo channels. Loads of critical briefings and high-priced analysis outputs (in eg. risk mgmt) are essentially compilations of tweets from people who spend their weekends hanging around two or three group chats. /14

The real source of this is of course bureaucratic dysfunction. I've yelled about this before. But outside a handful of agencies, it's close to impossible to hire and retain qualified primary source researchers in what are usually considered entry-level and low-prestige roles. /15

Again not to knock anyone, but these spaces too are subject to availability biases, general meme-ry, as well as half-arsed groupthink, because they're really also just a handful of folks who spend a lot of time hanging out together digitally and reading all the same accounts. /16

I'm not even gonna touch phenomenons like Tyre Guy which make a big splash on here but luckily, as far as anyone can tell, don't appear to make their way into internal products. /17

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