Jane Lytvynenko Profile picture
Freelance reporter and trainer. Focusing on Ukraine, osint, investigatons. In @WSJ, @GuardianUS, @TheAtlantic, etc. Previously @BuzzFeedNews, @ShorensteinCtr.
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Nov 16, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
This trend has telltale signs that further investigation is needed. The videos sound similar, some of the wording is nearly identical.

It’s possible that this is organic, but it’s equally possible that it began as a deliberate trend manipulation campaign.
rollingstone.com/culture/cultur… Trend manipulation on TikTok is not uncommon, but we know a lot less about it than trend manipulation on Twitter because of the way the platform is structured.

This was an infamous example in Russia when reporters discovered paid pro-war influencers.

semafor.com/article/12/29/…
Jul 13, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
I had to stop reading this story, breathe, then continue.

Ukrainians detained by Russians are forced into slave labor, digging trenches and graves. They're made to wear Russian uniforms to be used as human shields. And Russia is building more prisons.
apnews.com/article/ukrain… This is a map of known prison facilities compiled by @mihr_ua and Gulagu net.

Prisoners have no legal status, it's not known how many there are.

"One man who refused to dig was shot on the spot — yet another body for the grave."
https://t.co/HyaPZkpv5Zapnews.com/article/ukrain…
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Jun 9, 2023 7 tweets 6 min read
Finally, I get to tell you what our team's been working on for the last few months.

This documentary about Wagner investigates how the group began, its activities in Syria and Africa, and its role in the invasion of Ukraine. For your weekend viewing:
wsj.com/video/series/s… There are a few things we tried to do with this doc.

The first is show the evolution of Wagner, how it began, where it found success, and the way it moved across the globe. As one of our experts says, Wagner presence is confirmed on at least four continents. We unpack that.
Dec 16, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
Between this and the ban on geolocation footage that @Osinttechnical expands on in the thread, the impairment on real-time verification will be significant.

Especially for videos coming out of Ukraine and other protest, revolution, war, or attack scenarios. Currently, as I type this, Russia is bombing Ukraine. Explosions in Kharkiv have been reported. Explosions in Kyiv have been reported.

A tracking project posted the take-off time of the bomber planes dropping bombs right as they took off.

Does that break Twitter rules?
Sep 28, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
After over half a decade of debunking this hoax every time there was a flood or hurricane, I can't believe I'm looking at an honest-to-god street shark.

Good to finally meet you, pal. The actual hoax is 12+ years old!

I wish I could quantify the amount of time I spent with my good friend, the highway shark. These are just SOME of the hurricanes it made an appearance at. There have been more cameos since, of course.
buzzfeednews.com/article/janely…
Sep 22, 2022 10 tweets 5 min read
This week, for the first time in three years, I’ve been able to come home.

The journey that used to be one flight took three trains and almost 23 hours. But — and this is impressive — even during wartime the trains in Ukraine were precisely on time. Saw this beauty on the way. The first thing that stood out to me was at the border. We lined up in the evening cold waiting for our document check, all people taking the same train to Kyiv.

There were almost no men in line. I could count the men on two hands. The train was made up of women and children.
May 5, 2022 6 tweets 1 min read
In many conversations about Russian disinformation and propaganda, there’s one thing missing: the role of home-grown outlets and personalities in the countries Russia targets. In the US, EU, other regions, there are outlets ready to spread pro-Russian narratives. As other have pointed out, a lot of these disinformation networks functioned as anti-covid outlets. It’s striking to see the hard pivot when you look at some of them, particularly the YouTube channels. And those who disinformed about atrocities in Syria do the same in Ukraine.
Apr 27, 2022 9 tweets 3 min read
Russia stole military marine mammals from Ukraine during the annexation of Crimea in 2014 (theguardian.com/world/shortcut…) and never returned them. Russia's marine mammal program has a long history, but their use in Sevastopol particularly stings. Yes, I have been thinking about this for eight years.
Apr 14, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
Reports of explosions in Kyiv, Kherson, Bila Tserkva. Whole country is under air raid alert. Source is various Telegram channels. Some of the explosions may be air defense. Nothing visual yet.
Apr 14, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
For 50 days all across social media I’ve looked at nothing but posts from Ukrainians and news about the war. So why, tell me, do social media algorithms insist on serving me gossip about Disney stars and tv shows? It’s infuriating. Like the channel being changed for you. This is not just about me being annoyed. We think about what’s being put in front of our eyes. Ukraine is in desperate need of public support so we can keep getting weapons. But the drop off in engagement is palpable. Social media is a key tool for citizen diplomacy.
Mar 20, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
Cats against Putin Cats against Putin
Mar 16, 2022 6 tweets 1 min read
Mar 14, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
The Russian text is: Stop the war. Don't believe the propaganda. They are lying to you. Here's the video she pre-recorded. Translation:

What's happening in Ukraine right now is a crime and Russia is an aggressor country. The responsibility for this aggression is on the conscience of one man, and that man is Vladimir Putin. 1/
Sep 10, 2021 9 tweets 6 min read
Because my colleague @CraigSilverman and I are in the middle of teaching an online investigations course (still time to sign up! journalismcourses.org/course/investi…) here's a quick thread on how I found the person in this vid: First thing I did was note where the most popular tweets originated by clicking on the little link below the video.

It wasn't particularly helpful but the timestamp helps understand the timeline. Now I know I'm looking at something that was posted before Sept 9, 9pm et.
Sep 10, 2021 6 tweets 2 min read
This vid came from the Stories of Insta account "justinyodonnell" who today posted another Story noting Reuters fact-checked his F-22 pilot claim.

He also posts quotes from himself and promotes products for purchase. At this point the vid has millions of views across platforms. The vid speaks to:
- how disinfo is targeted at veterans (there's no better researcher than @KrisGoldsmith85 on this)
- how disinfo can be personally profitable
- how ephemeral media — especially Stories — contributes to the information environment while being hard to trace
Mar 25, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
US lawmakers are doing themselves and their future policies a huge disservice by ignoring the impact of these tech companies abroad, where the same issues they're talking about are more pronounced.

I'd love to see some grilling from foreign policy side of things. Even the 12 anti-vaxx superspreaders they're referring to () are not all in the US.

Global nature of these companies should be addressed imo
Feb 26, 2021 9 tweets 4 min read
Those Tom Cruise deepfakes on TikTok are deeply unsettling.

Let's run them through @sensityai's new deepfake detector tool to see how they do 👇 First up golf video. This one messed up the most because of the hair blowing in the wind. (Link: tiktok.com/@deeptomcruise…)

Faceswap undetected. ImageImage
Feb 2, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
Navalny sentenced to 3.5yrs in prison. This video's breaking my heart.
With time served, he'll be imprisoned for 2.5 years, per @tvrain
Feb 2, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
My old friends at Patriot Front held an 80-person rally in Chicago after Jan. 6 and seem to be newly active with propaganda spread, per news reports.

They went quiet after our story about them was published. But their plan was always to wait out Trump.
buzzfeednews.com/article/janely… Here's the story about their Chicago rally, which likely involved most of their current members:
chicago.suntimes.com/news/2021/1/25…
Feb 1, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
The reason why the shadow's not continuing is because she's dancing on a staircase.
Also:
Dec 30, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read
No, authorities haven't said that the Nashville bomber subscribed to QAnon. So far we've only heard about his belief in 5G, aliens, and lizard people conspiracies.

Rex Chapman is a big fan of tweeting unconfirmed or false information and it's deeply irresponsible. For those asking yes, there is a difference between those three conspiracies and QAnon.

QAnon is very adaptable, and studies have shown that it has been able to find new audiences by sucking in other existing conspiracies, especially 5G. BUT! 👇