Thread by @gnidaproject

Today, two publications were published in relation to John Dougan by two very reputable organizations:
@nytimes
nytimes.com/2024/05/29/bus…

@nytimes And @NewsGuardRating
newsguardtech.com/special-report…

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating Both mention his new fake media network, which consist of 100+ websites. Our team has also discovered this new network and we were keeping a close eye on it.

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating Welcome to MAGAstan: fake media and disinformation network, aimed at MAGA/republican/conservative/etc auditory in US, as you might assume by domain names, which is hosted on 7 @digitalocean servers.

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean It is possible we weren't able to find all websites of this network, it might also grow and transform over time, but it is of an impressive size even as it is

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean What connects all of these websites?
First of all, they are hosted on same group of digital ocean servers, as specified in our illustration.

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean Second: domains were registered in quick succession in 4 batches as color coded in our illustration.

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean Third, all (except for one) websites have either one of three admins:
- Aurora Barnett
- Benjamin Bowman
- Sebastian Burke
We coded them with symbol emojis in our illustration.

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean All three indicators are mixed with each other, which serves as undeniable evidence of them belonging to the same network.

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean Raw data with archived admin profile pages. If you don't see author name on the page or see a different name, it will still be present in page title.
telegra.ph/MAGAstan---adm…

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean Raw data showing how same story might get distributed across significant portion of this network
telegra.ph/MAGAstan---sam…

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean Examples of publications with leaked ChatGPT-esque prompts telegra.ph/MAGAstan---lea…

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean Sometimes, there are translation issues, where you might find some words being half-translated. Which might indicate that some AI rewritten articles are sourced from Russian media:
- Gнаповский

- Kfar Aза
web.archive.org/web/2024052112…
web.archive.org/web/2024052112…

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean There is also a bunch of issues like rendered line break characters and other formatting issues, as you can see in articles from previous tweet.

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean AI-rewritten articles are published automatically in multi-hour bursts and are spread across the whole network, often ranging from 100 to 200 per hour, but sometimes exceeding 500/hour.
Time in chart is specified in GMT time zone.

@nytimes @NewsGuardRating @digitalocean Most of the publication volume is consisting of re-posting the same 5-10 AI-rewritten articles across whole network.