Thread by @mtaibbi

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

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1604896328453980160

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”