Follow me to see Roth's emails discussing Stanford's Renee Diresta.
2) Emails show that Twitter rejected Renee DiResta as a "hobbyist, but Roth and other Twitter executives embraced her once Stanford University gave her an academic baptism.
3) When NY Times @sheeraf contacted Twitter, excited about doing a profile of her, a Twitter executive dismissed DiResta as a "hobbyist."
4) “Misinformation is becoming a cottage industry,” one Twitter official responded.
"Pointing out that the word 'researcher' has taken on a very broad meaning—Renee is literally doing this as a hobby," another added.
5) Could not find Twitter's emailed response to NY Times Frenkel, but her later profile of DiResta reads like it was ripped from a bad episode of 80s daytime television, with DiResta battling the forces of disinformation while dressed in jammies and in her bed.
6) In February 2018 emails, Twitter employees discussed Diresta's employer New Knowledge and how to handle a report forwarded to them alleging a malicious Twitter campaign targeting the Disney superhero film “Black Panther” with fake news.
7) Roth emailed. Roth added that New Knowledge’s report “could create substantial risk” as it made allegations that were unconfirmed and suggested Twitter follow up directly with Disney.
8) When New Knowledge’s Jonathan Morgan and Renee DiResta then sent Twitter a proposal and other materials a few months later, Twitter promised to get back to them.
9) But Twitter did not seem interested, as New Knowledge was not offering them anything unique. Writing to Roth, one Twitter employee emailed, “My thought on this is we should pause this since we are likely to get something similar from FirstDraft.”
10) I emailed DiResta and asked if she ever sold anything to Twitter or got some sort of contract at the time, but she did not respond.
11) Roth made clear his concerns about working with DiResta that September 2018 when he began strategizing on how to direct another Twitter employee away from her. “FYI, this is about working with Renee DiResta. We need to tread carefully and steer Jasper to safer territory.”
12) “Spoke to him at tea time,” another Twitter official responded. “So I think we can make good progress and manage the [Renee DiResta] risk.”
13) I asked DiResta what the "Renee Diresta risk" is but she didn't respond.
14) New Knowledge imploded a few months later, caught promoting disinformation in an influence campaign against a Republican candidate for Senate.
15) DiResta joined Stanford in the summer of 2019, starting the Stanford Internet Observatory.
One Twitter official sent around a story in Wired discussing it but added, "I haven’t clicked since Wired has a limit on articles and this isn’t important enough.”
16) DiResta then contacted Yoel Roth and others from her new Stanford gig: Hello from Stanford Internet Observatory :)
Roth suddenly seemed interested.
17) DiResta: “Up for a quick call or coffee at Twitter HQ sometime in the next week or two?”
Roth didn't even want a formal plan from "Stanford DiResta": “Nothing especially formal needed—just maybe a sketch of what your ideal [version one] of a collaboration could look like.”
18) Roth later sent DiResta and her Stanford boss the keys to the Twitter kingdom: “We’re reaching out to select researchers that we believe may be in the best position to effectively use the vast scale of this data.”
19) The email said Twitter was not “currently in a position to partner or closely collaborate with you beyond providing access to the data….”
Roth private note: "We would LOVE to partner closely on anything in the IO universe"
20) Roth later recommended "Stanford DiResta" to a NBC reporter as she was now "trusted on our side, and can likely be useful voices.”
21) Roth later got an invite to speak to DiResta's class.
“Thanks so much!” Yoel replied by email. “I’m happy to join.”
22) Roth even reached out to DiResta and her Stanford people for interns.
Yes, they were trading interns. Seem like colleagues now, no?
23) Having once guided Twitter away from DiResta “to safer territory” before promoting her to CNBC once Stanford blessed her—“trusted on our side”—Roth now treated DiResta as an equal, giving talks to her Stanford class and reaching out to find interns.
24) When DiResta tweeted a Stanford study based on Twitter data, Roth deemed her research "independent."
25) Read on how social media officials look to university brands to shore up their own industry’s nebulous definition for disinformation and vague claims for what should be censored. disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/twitter-file…
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1) A week Fauci was caught lying to NY Times, House investigators catch NIH lying to @statnews' @HelenBranswell & @ScienceMagazine's @jocelynkaiser about virus research.
Will #scicomm writers finally stop protecting NIH?
2) @sciencemagazine first reported that NIH researcher Bernie Moss planned gain-of-function monkeypox experiments—swapping out genes from various variants—to understand why some are more dangerous or transmissible than others.
3) This article triggered a second Science Magazine story about Moss's dangerous research. The reporter then updated the article with NIAID claiming Moss's research involved clade 2a, not clade 2b monkeypox virus.
1) After @cochranecollab Karla Soares-Weiser threw scientists under the bus, she has backtracked on her mask review statement.
Soares-Weiser has still not explained her unprofessional collusion w/ @zeynep pauldthacker.com/blog/
2) On Friday, Soares Weiser quietly released a statement explaining that she would not be editing the Cochrane review on masks. Her prior March 2023 statement created a maelstrom of misinformation, including a spurious NY Times essay by social media influencer Zeynep Tufekci.
3) Tufekci's misleading essay kicked off a defamatory tweet by @Laurie_Garrett who accused the Cochrane scientists of being "bozos" to had confessed to "fraud."
Tony Fauci's deputy, David Morens, admitted in a hearing he deleted government records and conspired with EcoHealth Alliance's Peter Daszak to restore Daszak's grant.
At the hearing's end, Morens' lawyer whispered to him, "Tie your shoe." pauldthacker.com/blog/
2) Morens admitted that he edited a compliance letter Daszak sent to the NIH, edited an EcoHealth Alliance press release after NIH terminated Daszak’s grant, and “put in a word” to the EcoHealth Alliance board when Daszak was worried about being fired.
1) History has stopped. Nothing exists except the #COVID narrative—which is always right.
Tulane's John M. Barry printed "Masks Work" nonsense in the @nytopinion that contradicts history and his own book "The Great Influenza." pauldthacker.com/blog/#/
2) John Barry is author of the NY Times bestseller "The Great Influenza" in which he wrote masks were "useless" against influenza.
3) But in the NY Times, Barry wrote we know masks work since 1917.
So I did what @katiekings at the NY Times didn't do. I asked Barry where he got that fact. Barry emailed that it comes from a Dr. Joseph Capps JAMA article in 1918.
1) Science historian @equal_ibrium writes that Democrats laid into EcoHealth Alliance's Peter Daszak for reckless virus research.
He then asks if the bureaucracy is trying to make Daszak the fall guy, because more are responsible, especially funders. tinyurl.com/mkv4uet
2) Democratic Ranking Member, Raul Ruiz, told Daszak in his closing statement. “It is important that you and your organization be held accountable.”
3) Also, why has UNC's Ralph Baric been so slient?
Emails and a deposition show he has been privately outraged about Daszak's BP on dangerous biosafety standards at the WIV and Baric admits a lab accident might have caused the pandemic.
1) Whistleblower says "New Knowledge" cybersecurity firm run by Jonathan Morgan & Renee DiResta trafficked in election disinformation.
Documents show Center for American Progress paid to for Hamilton 68 dashboard caught spreading Russian disinformation. pauldthacker.com/blog/#/
2) New Knowledge filled w/ former NSA agents who explained the game to Betsy Depuis while out for drinks:
NSA cannot violate the Constitution, so they hire contractors to do their dirty work of spying on Americans and censoring them.
3) Betsy Depuis was tasked w/ improving the Hamilton 68 dashboard, a job paid for by the Center for American Progress. @mtaibbi later exposed the dashboard spread disinformation, and the Washington Post ran multiple corrections.