Matt Taibbi Profile picture
Jan 12 40 tweets 17 min read
1.THREAD: Twitter Files #14
THE RUSSIAGATE LIES
One: The Fake Tale of Russian Bots and the #ReleaseTheMemo Hashtag
2.At a crucial moment in a years-long furor, Democrats denounced a report about flaws in the Trump-Russia investigation, saying it was boosted by Russian “bots” and “trolls.”
3.Twitter officials were aghast, finding no evidence of Russian influence:

“We are feeding congressional trolls.”
“Not any…significant activity connected to Russia.”
“Putting the cart before the horse assuming this is propaganda/bots.” ImageImageImage
4.Twitter warned politicians and media the not only lacked evidence, but had evidence the accounts weren’t Russian – and were roundly ignored.
5.On January 18th, 2018, Republican Devin Nunes submitted a classified memo to the House Intel Committee detailing abuses by the FBI in obtaining FISA surveillance authority against Trump-connected figures, including the crucial role played by the infamous “Steele Dossier”: Image
6.The Nunes assertions would virtually all be verified in a report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz in December 2019. ImageImageImage
7.Nonetheless, national media in January and early February of 2018 denounced the Nunes report in oddly identical language, calling it a “joke”: ImageImageImageImage
9.On January 23rd, 2018, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) published an open letter saying the hashtag “gained the immediate attention and assistance of social media accounts linked to Russian influence operations.” Image
9b. Feinstein/Schiff said the Nunes memo "distorts" classified information, but note they didn't call it incorrect. Image
10.Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal followed suit, publishing a letter saying, “We find it reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans.” Image
11.Feinstein, Schiff, Blumenthal, and media members all pointed to the same source: the Hamilton 68 dashboard created by former FBI counterintelligence official Clint Watts, under the auspices of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD). ImageImageImageImage
12.The dashboard, which featured a crude picture of Vladimir Putin deviously blowing evil red Twitter birds into the atmosphere, was vague in how it reached its conclusions. Image
13.Inside Twitter, executives panned Watts, Hamilton 68, and the Alliance for Securing Democracy. Two key complaints: Hamilton 68 seemed to be everyone’s only source, and no one was checking with Twitter.
14.“I encourage you to be skeptical of Hamilton 68’s take on this, which as far as I can tell is the only source for these stories,” said Global Policy Communications Chief (and future WH and NSC spokesperson) Emily Horne.

She added: “It’s a comms play for ASD.” ImageImage
15.“All the swirl is based on Hamilton,” said Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth. Image
16.“If ASD isn’t going to fact-check with us, we should feel free to correct the record on their work,” said Policy VP Carlos Monje. Image
17.Roth couldn’t find any Russian connection to #ReleaseTheMemo – at all. “I just reviewed the accounts that posted the first 50 tweets with #releasethememo and… none of them show any signs of affiliation to Russia.” Image
18.“We investigated, found that engagement as overwhelmingly organic, and driven by VITs” – Very Important Tweeters, including Wikileaks and congressman Steve King. Image
19.A staffer for “DiFi” – Feinstein – agreed it would be “helpful to know” how Hamilton 68 goes by “the process by which they decide an account is Russian.”

But, only AFTER Feinstein published her letter about Russian influence. Image
20.When Twitter spoke to a Blumenthal staffer, they tried to “wave him off” because “we don’t believe these are bots.” Image
21.Added another: “It might be worth nudging Blumenthal’s staffer that it could be in his boss’ best interest not to go out there because it could come back to make him look silly.” Image
22.One Twitter exec even tried to negotiate, implying an undisclosed future PR concession if Blumenthal would lay off on this:

“It seems like there are other wins we could offer him.” Image
23.Blumenthal published his letter anyway.
24.Execs eventually grew frustrated over what they saw as a circular process – presented with claims of Russian activity, even when denied, led to more claims.
25.They expressed this explicitly to Blumenthal’s camp, saying “Twitter spent a lot of resources” on this request and the reward from Blumenthal shouldn’t be round after round of requests.”

“We can’t do a user notice each time this happens.” ImageImage
26.Eventually Twitter staff realize “Blumenthal isn’t looking for real and nuanced solutions” but “just wants to get credit for pushing us further.” Image
27.Ultimately senior executives talked about “feeding congressional trolls” and compared their situation to the children’s book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” Image
28.In the story, if you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want a glass of milk, which will lead to a wave of other exhausting requests, at the end of which he’ll want a glass of milk. And one more cookie. ImageImage
29.The metaphor for the endless Russia requests was so perfect, one exec wrote, “I’m legit embarrassed I didn’t think of that first.” Image
30.Despite universal internal conviction that there were no Russians in the story, Twitter went on to follow a slavish pattern of not challenging Russia claims on the record.
31.Outside counsel from DC-connected firms like Debevoise and Plimpton advised Twitter to use language like, “With respect to particular hashtags, we take seriously any activity that may represent an abuse of our platform.” Image
32.As a result, reporters from the AP to Politico to NBC to Rolling Stone continued to hammer the “Russian bots” theme, despite a total lack of evidence. ImageImageImageImage
33.Russians weren’t just blamed for #ReleaseTheMemo but #SchumerShutdown, #ParklandShooting, even #GunControlNow – to “widen the divide,” according to the New York Times. Image
34.Re #SchumerShutdown and #ReleaseTheMemo, the internal guidance was, “Both hashtags appear to be organically trending.” Image
35.NBC, Politico, AP, Times, Business Insider, and other media outlets who played up the “Russian bots” story – even Rolling Stone – all declined to comment for this story.
36.The staffs of Feinstein, Schiff, and Blumenthal also declined comment.
37. Who did comment? Devin Nunes. "Schiff and the Democrats falsely claimed Russians were behind the Release the Memo hashtag, all my investigative work... By spreading the Russia collusion hoax, they instigated one of the greatest outbreaks of mass delusion in U.S. history.”
38.This #ReleaseTheMemo episode is just one of many in the #TwitterFiles. The Russiagate scandal was built on the craven dishonesty of politicians and reporters, who for years ignored the absence of data to fictional scare headlines.
39.For more, watch @ShellenbergerMD, @bariweiss, @lhfang, @davidzweig, @AlexBerenson, and more.

Read Taibbi.Substack.Com for more on why “America Needs Truth and Reconciliation on Russiagate.”
40.Twitter had no editorial input on this story. Searches were carried out by third parties, so the documents could be limited.

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More from @mtaibbi

Mar 17
1.TWITTER FILES #19
The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine
Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories” Image
2.“The release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Spring 2020 emails… has been used to exacerbate distrust in Dr. Fauci.”
“Increased distrust in Fauci’s expert guidance.” ImageImage
3.“Reports of vaccinated individuals contracting Covid-19 anyway”; “natural immunity”; suggesting Covid-19 “leaked from a lab”; even “worrisome jokes”: ImageImageImageImage
Read 45 tweets
Mar 9
1. TWITTER FILES:
Statement to Congress
THE CENSORSHIP-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX Image
2. “MONITOR ALL TWEETS COMING FROM TRUMP’S PERSONAL ACCOUNT/BIDEN’S PERSONAL ACCOUNT”

When #TwitterFiles reporters were given access to Twitter internal documents last year, we first focused on the company, which at times acted like a power above government. Image
3. But Twitter was more like a partner to government.

With other tech firms it held a regular “industry meeting” with FBI and DHS, and developed a formal system for receiving thousands of content reports from every corner of government: HHS, Treasury, NSA, even local police: ImageImage
Read 51 tweets
Mar 2
7. DFRLab is funded by the U.S. Government, specifically the Global Engagement Center (GEC).

Director Graham Brookie denies DFRLab it uses tax money to track Americans, saying its GEC grants have "an exclusively international focus.”
8. But Americans on DFR’s list, like Marysel Urbanik, are unconvinced its focus is “exclusively international.”

“This is un-American,” says Urbanik, who immigrated from Castro’s Cuba. “They do this in places that don’t believe in free speech.”
9. The Global Engagement Center is usually listed as a State Department entity.
It's not.
Created in Obama’s last year, GEC is an interagency group “within” State, whose initial partners included FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA, DARPA, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and others.
Read 43 tweets
Mar 2
1. TWITTER FILES #17
New Knowledge, the Global Engagement Center, and State-Sponsored Blacklists Image
2. On June 8, 2021, an analyst at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab wrote to Twitter:

“Hi guys. Attached you will find… around 40k twitter accounts that our researchers suspect are engaging in inauthentic behavior… and Hindu nationalism more broadly.” Image
3. DFRLab said it suspected 40,000 accounts of being “paid employees or possibly volunteers” of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But the list was full of ordinary Americans, many with no connection to India and no clue about Indian politics. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d… ImageImage
Read 48 tweets
Feb 22
Here’s a story from the New York Times in February, 2017, sourced to “four current and former American officials”:

nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/…
No one asked if the reporters on that story were “doing the bidding” of those sources. No one accused them of doing PR for… well, we can talk about who those sources were later.
That’s because all reported stories come from sources. They always have notices and you’re always doing a balancing test: is the story newsworthy on its own, or does it just serve someone’s agenda?
Read 6 tweets
Feb 21
(2/2) The Post should have gone scrambling back to re-examine all the stories, like this one, that they’d printed using that firm (or people who worked there) as a key source: washingtonpost.com/technology/201…
The Twitter Files help clarify what went wrong here, but we’d learn a lot more faster if outlets like the Post were as interested as they should be in following basic leads. Same with the New York Times, which needs to look back at stories like this: nytimes.com/2017/10/30/tec…
All of these stories are echoes of Bush-era initiatives that poured money into counterterrorism efforts. When the CT mission lost momentum, there was an effort to move money and personnel to new agencies and task forces to fight a new enemy: “disinformation.”
Read 4 tweets

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