Like donuts, rage farming content is *designed for dunking.*
To get the perfect dunk, big accounts share the content w/their followers.
Thus, they also get rewarded w/engagement for perpetuating the cycle.
The only winning move is not to play.
Did you Quote Tweet a political ad?
You just donated free advertising.
Would you contribute a particular politician?
No? Then don't QT.
Well, we did it. We got rage farmed into amplifying a disgraced toxic politician into a busy news cycle.
Next step? He'll claim censorship & that he's under attack by democrats.
Then fundraise.
This is an entirely predictable playbook.
Step 1: Everyone watch this bad thing he did!
Step 2: We must drop everything & condemn him.
Step 3: Here's more bad things he did!
Step 4: Wait, why does his stuff drown out things we care about?
Meanwhile, all Twitter's algorithm hears is "SHOW US MORE OF HIM!"
"So, should we ignore it when politicians say extreme things?"
No. We're in dark place & need to fight it.
But we must be smart, especially on Twitter.
That means learning how algorithms 'hear' us.
And making sure we aren't baited into inadvertently platforming our opponents.
Whomever cooked up his rage farming knew exactly what they were doing.
Predictably, he followed up by amplifying critical coverage in the WaPo that... included his video.
Of course, people angrily Quote Tweet that, too.
And so he's done it. And we've helped at every step.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
A "damaging" leak of tools from a five eyes exploit developer?
Concerning. We need to know what's under this rug.
Big picture: "trusted, vetted" private sector players offensive cyber are not immune to losing control of tooling... with national security consequences 1/
2/ If true, a tooling leak at boutique firm Trenchant wouldn't be the first time that exploits from commercial offensive vendors wind up... in the wrong place.
Many questions.
In the meantime. Remember when Russian APT29..was caught with exploits first used by NSO & Intellexa?
3/ There will always be a push for states to turn towards the private sector to meet offensive needs.
It's appealing. For some, it's very lucrative.
But in practice it brings unavoidable counterintelligence & national security downside risk that shouldn't be downplayed.
NOW: US court permanently bans Pegasus spyware maker from hacking WhatsApp.
NSO Group can't help their customers hack @WhatsApp, etc ether. Must delete exploits...
Bad news for NSO. Huge competitive disadvantage for the notorious company.
Big additional win for WhatsApp 1 /
2/ Although the massive punitive damages jury award against NSO Group ($167m) got reduced by the court, as is expected in cases where it is so large (to 9x compensatory damages)...
This is likely cold comfort to NSO since I think the injunction is going to have a huge impact on the value of NSO's spyware product.
Comes as NSO Group has been making noises about getting acquired by a US investor & some unnamed backers...
3/ NSO also emerges from the @WhatsApp v NSO case with just an absolute TON of their business splashed all over the court records..
NEW: fresh trouble for mercenary spyware companies like NSO Group.
@Apple launching substantial bounties on the zero-click exploits that feed the supply chain behind products like Pegasus & Paragon's Graphite.
With bonuses, exploit developers can hit $5 million payouts. 1/
2/ Apple is introducing Target Flags which speeds the process of getting exploits found & submitters rewarded.
This faster tempo is also a strike against the mercenary spyware ecosystem.
And the expanded categories also hit more widely against commercial surveillance vendors.
3/ If I contemplating investing in spyware companies I'd want to carefully evaluate whether their exploit pipeline can match what @apple just threw down.