1. #CTIFiles3
SOCKPUPPETS AND SPIES
In the #CTIFiles written about today by @shellenberger and @galexybrane, anti-disinformation warriors and officials offer instruction on COINTELPRO-style spy tactics, against a target they knew was forbidden – the American public
2. WHAT WE NEED: “SOCKPUPPETS ON TWITTER AND FACEBOOK”
While #TwitterFiles confirmed use of defensive tactics like censorship/deamplification, the #CTIFiles show “anti-disinformation” operatives planning to go on offense to disrupt speech, using fake personas and spy tactics
3. “YOUR SPY DISGUISE…LOCK YOUR SHIT DOWN.”
CTI League trainings instructed members on creating phony identities to infiltrate groups “like Boogaloo”
4. “BURNER PHONES”
CTI League members were handed a “Big Book of Disinformation Response” that offered instruction in the use of burner phones and emails:
5. “CAN WE GET ALL TROLL ON THEIR BUMS?”
In a CTI “incident report” about anti-lockdown memes, researchers asked if they had enough to ask for accounts to be taken down – and if not, “Can we get all troll on their bums”?
6. “WE CAN ALSO TAKE ACTIONS LIKE TAKEDOWNS”
A whistleblower told Public and Racket that the CTIL founder claimed to have induced the FBI to remove some content via DNS takedown, and a CTI incident report appears to refer to this capability
7. “BASICALLY WE’RE USING MANY OF THE SAME TECHNIQUES AS THE BAD GUYS”
Over and over in CTIL training videos and documents, participants talk about doing the same things as “the bad guys,” but supposedly for good reasons.
8. “EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN… AGAINST U.S. CITIZENS”
In a training video, key CTIL member Pablo Breuer says the most capable agency for anti-disinfo work would be the Defense Department, only it's “expressly forbidden” to operate “against U.S. citizens”
9. “THE PEOPLE WHO DO IT OVERSEAS ARE TYPICALLY THE CIA AND NSA”
Breuer, of the Navy and SOCOM, adds the people who “do it overseas” are typically CIA, NSA, and DoD, but “intel collection agencies are not legally allowed to do those things” in the US
10. “WHAT DO WE DO WITH JOHN AND JANE Q CITIZEN THAT ACTUALLY WATCH FOX NEWS?”
Explaining that the agencies currently doing this work domestically – DHS and the Global Engagement Center – are “not very capable,” he says, “We need to help them out.”
11. “THEY DID SOME REALLY INTERESTING FALSE FLAG OPERATIONS”
In another CTIL training video, @rz_analyst lauds NATO member Turkey for “some really interesting false flags,” including to "pin ISIS bombings on the Kurds"
12. GPT: “THE GOOD GUYS CAN USE IT TOO”
In another video, CTI leader/founder SJ Terp talks about new AI programs like ChatGPT generating “credible texts, credible sentences,” and though “the bad guys can use it,” so can the good guys, she says.
13. INFILTRATE, HONEYPOT, FAKE
The AMITT framework developed in part by CTIL founders, features 223 tactical “counters” including fake sites, infiltration, and tabletop exercises to prep for misinformation – as happened with the Hunter Biden laptop story
14. “MAKE LIBERTY GREAT AGAIN… PROBABLY NOT OUR CURRENT TARGET”
CTIL analysts were often unable or unwilling to distinguish legitimate speech – like opposing lockdowns – from “disinformation.” In this incident report, #openamericanow and “Make Liberty Great Again” are suspect
15. “WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING”
Another report lists a “Declaration of Independence is my permission slip” meme as a problem. That analysts feared even such memes is no surprise – one CTI doc noted satire was "sometimes used as a gateway drug into more worrying groups.”
16. “WE HAD SATIRE DETECTORS"
CTIL’s Terp: “Things like satire are really hard. We actually had satire detectors at one thing I worked on because it just shows up as positive even though it's completely negative… irony just doesn't work on machines.”
17. “WE’RE ALREADY BUILDING AND USING BOTS”
From an entry in the CTI “Big Book”:
18. WATCHING LEFT MOVEMENTS, TOO
CTIL often strayed from Covid to political matters, usually focused on Trump and Republicans, but not always. Docs show interest in the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (@USPCR_), the @DemSocialists , #HealthCareForAll,” and other progressives
19. “ELECTION 2020… A VERY END OF THE WORLD TYPE OF MOMENT”
CTIL members were often extreme partisans who seemed to believe anything was justified to stop Donald Trump, whose potential election in 2020 was framed by one analyst as literal apocalypse
20: NEXT: “ANTI-DISINFORMATION” AS PARTISAN SCAM
Watch this space soon for more about the CTI League’s political bias, its role in shaping election moderation operations, and more bizarre AMITT “counters”
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Not only is the @nytimes is totally wrong implying @mirandadevine’s reporting hasn’t held up, the paper ignored its own multi-level failure on that same story in 2020, which included ignoring their own reporting. It’s almost actionable — they owe a huge apology (1/6):
First of all the Times in 2020 tried to use the unprecedented censorship of the story by Facebook and Twitter to call Miranda’s story “dubious,” without saying what was dubious. (The censorship angle they of course ignore entirely.) It got worse (2/6):
Just a few paragraphs down, the Times contradicted itself, saying Twitter didn’t block the story because it was “dubious,” but because it was supposedly “hacked materials.”
The laptop contents were not even “hacked materials,” as Twitter quickly determined. But also (3/6):
1. TWITTER FILES Extra: The Defaming of Brandon Straka and #Walkaway
Smeared as a Russian proxy after founding a movement to "#Walkaway" from the Democratic Party, Twitter documents suggest @BrandonStraka and his followers were set up
2. In Atlanta Monday, I testified before Georgia state Representative @MeshaMainor, in a free speech hearing centered around the censorship of members of the “#WalkAway” Facebook Group, whose 500,000-plus accounts were deleted by Facebook on January 8th, 2021. washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jan/…
3. The #TwitterFiles contained material about federal interest in #WalkAway, including exculpatory Twitter analyses that contrasted with coverage describing #WalkAway as a “Kremlin operation.” These documents should have been published earlier. I apologize to @BrandonStraka.
You obviously didn't read the reports (@lhfang is a right-wing ideologue?). We went out of our way to show censorship/manipulation taking place across the spectrum, mentioning everyone from the Green Party to the Yellow Vests to Truthout and Consortium News. (1/5)
If you read the reports there was very little about which "side" was suppressed more. There was some chatter within the company about it, and some current and former executives talked about it with us, but mainly we focused on the who/how of censorship (2/5)
The main revelations were about roles the FBI, DHS, GEC, ODNI, DOD, HHS etc. played in flagging content. Lee's reports were about DOD creating fake accounts abroad. Other projects put USG agencies in the middle of flagging election or Covid-related content (3/5)
1. TWITTER FILES (DEAMPLIFIED)
How the Censorship Industrial Complex Case Was Built
2. I made a deal with the owner of this platform to publish new #TwitterFiles material only on this site. However, since this account is denylisted, I don't feel obligated to add the context, since no one will see it. Full explanations for images on Racket.News
1. UK FILES EXTRA:
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, the IRS, and 501 (c)(3) status
2. The Center for Countering Digital Hate, or CCDH, is one of the most powerful players in the global "anti-disinformation" space, with a reputation for successfully pressuring Internet platforms to remove disfavored speech:
3. CCDH is currently being sued by this platform, X, which has accused it of manipulating X data to make it "appear as if X is overwhelmed by harmful content":
1. FOIA FILES EXTRA:
STATE DEPARTMENT "TARGETING AMERICANS"?
2. In late May and early June, 2019, a story hit the news: Donald Trump's State Department had been caught trolling people, including a Washington Post reporter, deemed insufficiently tough on Iran. Outrage was universal:
3. Similar stories at The Intercept and Guardian ripped State's Global Engagement Center for funding @IranDisinfo, which was said to have dubbed critics of of Trump's "Maximum Pressure" policy “‘mouthpieces,’ ‘apologists,’ ‘collaborators,’ and ‘lobbyists’” of Iran: