Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #disinfo
Most recents (24)
I would suspect we will see more and more of this; in the coming months ... pro-Kremlin accounts updating their usernames, bios and header images to pro-RFK jr related propaganda. 
They follow all the pro-Kremlin influencers that you would expect ....
Just about every one of these pro-Kremlin influencers shown in the previous tweet has their own #vatniksoup entry by the excellent #OSINT and #Disinfo researcher @P_Kallioniemi
🧵1. This is an analysis of 30,000 tweets spreading disinformation about the #TurkeySyriaEarthquake . The #disinformation in question is the false story that 8-10 Western countries withdrew their ambassadors before the earthquake. The analysis indicates manipulation
2/ Dozens of identical tweets (see vid) were shared and retweeted thousands of times. They took aim at Canada, USA, Britain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Holland and France. Not quite sure what the reason for this selection was. It may relate to the fact at least some of those
3/ countries had envoys summoned by Turkey after they temporarily shut embassies & issued security warnings following Koran-burnings in Europe. Anyway this was days before the Earthquake. The countries are in NATO, and all contribute a lot of assistance to Ukraine
A Kremlin #disinfo Op is ongoing. Videos & likely fake interviews portray a fake narrative of "Zelensky forced conscription / mobilization in Odessa & elsewhere". Problem is many if not all these videos are not conscription but rather arrests or other easily explained events
Its about 4 or 5 videos very heavily recycled by clear troll accounts and I am willing to bet most are standard arrests of either Russian collaborators or any other type of standard detainment during war time.
The Kremlin really really wants you to believe that #Ukraine is only fighting back against the Russian invasion of Ukraine’s sovereign territory because the … 1/2
🔍 Random #TwitterFiles ⚠️ Antivax Pt #1 💉
Monetizing disinfo & fear, histories either blank or bad. All ☑️'s were bought.
🧵THREAD Points:
1️⃣healthbyjames /2️⃣_HeartOfGrace_ /3️⃣TexasLindsay_ / 4️⃣JesslovesMJK /5️⃣stkirsch
👀 Using *ONLY* PUBLIC/FREE data, are they credible?
Monetizing disinfo & fear, histories either blank or bad. All ☑️'s were bought.
🧵THREAD Points:
1️⃣healthbyjames /2️⃣_HeartOfGrace_ /3️⃣TexasLindsay_ / 4️⃣JesslovesMJK /5️⃣stkirsch
👀 Using *ONLY* PUBLIC/FREE data, are they credible?
Irony: Grifters come in clusters.
💠 First: I saw a tweet re: someone who's ruffled feathers in antivax grift Twitter for "plagiarism."
1️⃣"James Cintolo" aka @/healthbyjames, lists "RN," "FN," and "CPT"
RN/FN = registered/functional(?) nurse
CPT = CERTIFIED PERSONAL TRAINER 🏋️♂️
💠 First: I saw a tweet re: someone who's ruffled feathers in antivax grift Twitter for "plagiarism."
1️⃣"James Cintolo" aka @/healthbyjames, lists "RN," "FN," and "CPT"
RN/FN = registered/functional(?) nurse
CPT = CERTIFIED PERSONAL TRAINER 🏋️♂️
Cintolo shills in anger/fear w/ no expertise.
Has Substack/YouTube w/ all the antivax hits.
His "practice" is as a personal trainer. He deleted his LinkedIn after that was pointed out.
2yrs with a RN license but no public experience.
Has Substack/YouTube w/ all the antivax hits.
His "practice" is as a personal trainer. He deleted his LinkedIn after that was pointed out.
2yrs with a RN license but no public experience.
Besides the acknowledged narrow scope of the new NYU #disinfo study one of the biggest issues IMHO with the study was the utilization of voter survey data. The issues targeted by the Kremlin was much more nuanced than voter survey data available 2 the authors.. AFTER THE FACT 1/4
This was no fault of the authors given they had to do a retrospective study. The authors did find subtle shifts (but not statistically significant) and if you looked at the questions that would have been most relevant to the Kremlin ... these pro-Kremlin shifts were largest. 2/4
Important nuanced questions that would not likely have been in most voter survey data collected prior to the 2016 election & appeared to be important in the targeting by the Kremlin would have been below (I'm sure there are others). Chinese tariffs & Obamacare... not so much 3/4
I’ve always believed that one of the greatest benefits that Twitter provides to foreign influence operations like Russia in 2016 is “narrative seeding” & pushing the narrative needle among journalists & social media influencers. #osint #RussiaGate #MuellerReport #disinfo #infosec
NYU @CSMaP_NYU and its authors are also trying to push back on the right-wing narrative that continues to be ubiquitous in RW circles that the Kremlin’s efforts at interfering with our 2016 elections had no effect. The the narrow scope of their research did NOT conclude that
Even yesterday on multiple large right-wing Twitter spaces the NYU study was being touted as proof Russian interference in our election in 2016 was a hoax…their #RussiaGate. A narrative that they have pushed for yrs despite overwhelming evidence from #MuellerReport & researchers
I've done a bit of serious writing on disinfo in the last years. This started with my own interest in refuting online hate and has gradually become a larger exploration of the tactics of the Internet Hate Machine.
Here's a small collection of these threads. 🧵
Here's a small collection of these threads. 🧵
A thread on anomie and the appeal of fascism.
On Balkanization and perpetuating minority rule.
The "Operation Northwoods" LIE that has been repeatedly used to PROVE that both JFK assassination & 9/11 were INSIDE JOBS executed by the "Military-Industrial Complex" or "Deep State" is #disinfo designed to divert attention from ISRAELI complicity in both JFK & 9/11
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In March 2001 - just six months BEFORE 9/11 - the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen aired on Fox TV with a dramatic scene in which a Boeing 727 is remotely hijacked by "terrorists" - actually a secret cabal in US govt - & flown into the WTC.
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As I have shown in an Oct 2019 thread, there are a lot of serious questions we could ask about the timing of this pilot, including what possible role Rupert Murdoch played in its production. Was this deliberate Zionist "predictive programming"?
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Its even worse than this now. Fake 911 dispatches have been crested and circulated. Its a firehose of disinformation to make the obvious right-wing political violence towards the Pelosi’s appear to be anything else. #disinfo #Election2022
This is the perfect meme for all the @GOP politicians who refuse to condemn this political violence against Paul Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi. Exactly how they couldnt condemn the attempted coup on #Jan6th after they were called out.
So the #FoxNews stories around the Pelosi assault suspect seem to be very conveniently neglecting to mention a very easy to find piece of information … that Oxane Taub or Gypsy Taub as she is better known is Russian and has made numerous trips back to Russia. Weird …
🧵1/5 After Biden announced @johnpodesta would join his climate team, Podesta was in the headlines again. I downloaded about 20,000 tweets mentioning 'John Podesta' from the last 2 days, and curiously enough it's dominated by right-wing, alt-right accounts & #disinfo accounts
2/5 While the usual suspects (Jack Posobiec, Kyle Becker) are not saying anything particularly outlandish (that I noticed), I was struck by the fact the second most tweeted account was a Pizza Gate conspiracy trope by a verified US candidate @RealOmarNavarro . See photos >
3/5 As the graph below shows, @RealOmarNavarro 's tweets were clearly influential within the mentions of Podesta. When I asked people to see what tweets they saw when they searched Twitter for 'John Podesta' many said the top tweet was the one clearly alluding to John Podesta
So you’re about to head off for a well-deserved annual leave & are looking for something to read at [enter a location], but Nordic noir & rom-com are not really you’re genres? We’ve got you covered. Here’s a list of summer reading for #disinfo aficionados interested in research.
It's often claimed that conspiracy thinking is becoming more & more common. @JoeUscinski et al ran 3 studies to find out, if it's really the case. Long story short – they didn’t find any systematic evidence for an increase in conspiracism. journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
All too often, people not only believe misinformation, but also condone misinformation they don't believe. Daniel Effron & @BA_Helgason had a look at 3 psychological factors that might explain this phenomenon: partisanship, imagination & repetition. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Wow, @donie wasn't kidding. This really is a fascinating indictment from the DOJ. Russian FSB having proxy control and influence over three political groups in the US since at least 2014. This is going to be a fun one to watch play out. #disinfo #InfoOps justice.gov/opa/pr/russian…
Well US group 1 is rather obvious. I remember a number of yrs ago I was told they were infiltrated & a Kremlin proxy group and I didn't fully believe it at the time. Over the yrs its become obvious and really clear more recently with their propaganda around the Russian invasion.
If I am correct ... they are obnoxiously anti-war ... except when Russia is involved. Others appear to be naming and shaming ... like US Group 2 apparently IDed by @bellingcat
More pro-Kremlin propaganda & war denialism. This accnt claims #Mariupol is one of the safest cities in Russian occupied Ukraine & is having summer concerts in the park. BS Kremlin #disinfo. Not clear what video they pilfered this from but its NOT current or correctly attributed
As @SarahAshtonLV points out its impossible to believe given the total devastation in #Mariupol & given at the very beginning of the clip you see #Ukraine colors / flag on the stage. No way this would occur in Russian occupied #Mariupol #StandWithUkraine
Here is another pro-Kremlin troll account pushing the same BS propaganda #disinfo a few days prior. Guessing its all over Telegram as well. #StandWithUkraine
Well... I'm sure this won't be misconstrued and used by accelerationists, #disinfo grifters, or fascists to rile up their followers.
Seriously though, this is going to travel very fast in the worst circles and ratchet up the paranoia.
cc: @brooklynmarie, @chadloder, @hungrybowtie
cc: @brooklynmarie, @chadloder, @hungrybowtie
*sigh*
The chaos agents like zei_squirrel sure have their talking points down pat. They never miss a trending topic opportunity like “Jill Stein” and overturning Roe vs Wade to drop in a molotov cocktail. #InfoOps #disinfo
The point with these troll accounts … they dont want you to vote … or they want you to throw away your vote. Plain and as simple as that.
#Kramatorsk and #MH17
Russia tries to confuse us again with #Disinfo 🧵
2014: "Our guys do not have a BUK" (they had one of course, they even showed off with it on TV)
2021: "Russia does not have Tochka-U rockets."...of course they have...
Russia tries to confuse us again with #Disinfo 🧵
2014: "Our guys do not have a BUK" (they had one of course, they even showed off with it on TV)
2021: "Russia does not have Tochka-U rockets."...of course they have...
After the terrible attack in Kramatorsk, a vast number of twitter profiles suddenly commented, that Russia does not have such rockets, so the Ukrainians are the ones to blame.
The target group of these trolls are people who say things like: "the Ukrainians want to provoke, the want to drag us into this war." "Cui bono", "I do not say that they did it themselves, but..." (but actually they say exactly this).
#Russia is desperately planting seeds of doubt in stories that sit beyond the discursive mythical boundaries of 🇷🇺 identity.
I believe it will work. Here's why:
Thread🧵
I believe it will work. Here's why:
Thread🧵
Not only have I seen 🇷🇺 media sites talking about "фейк ньюс" in relation to the Bucha massacre, but also increasing num of articles abt falsified stories from #ukraine on Yunarmiya, Victory Volunteers & Great Patriotic War museum sites.
Of course, these stories do not relate to the massacre but sow seeds of doubt & perpetuate #disinfo claims. For example, state Duma Deputy & Victory Volunteers leader Olga Zanko said:
So a few issues with videos the Kremlin are claiming was a Kinzhal hypersonic missile strike in #Ukraine. 1st the missile apparently flew under this pole 😂 on the way to its target. Second the missile goes MACH10 so according to timing of this video across the horizon ..MACH 3-5
And this video put out by the Russian MoD has already been completely disproven as being the Kinzhal hypersonic missile strike. It is something entirely different according to this analysis. #OSINT #disinfo
And what will come as a shock to no one .. the #OSINT community has already sourced the fake Kinzhal video put out by the Russian MoD earlier today as an entirely different video from TikTok back at the end of February. #InfoOps #disinfo #propaganda
1/ Next up on the #disinformation forecast. There are rumours that 'Wali', the Canadian sniper with the record for the world's longest kill, and who went to #Ukraine to fight, has been killed. No credible news stories are sharing this, but there is a lot of activity, incl bots
2/ it is being suggested that the story originated in Chinese media. Others have said they heard it on Russian telegram. The origins are not clear but those boosting it on Twitter are either not known or who have little credibility.
#disinformation
#disinformation
3/ The biggest propagators on Twitter are former Australian University lecturer @timand2037 Nigerian 'sapiophilist' @L_man__ filmmaker @jcokechukwu and @anon_candanga and @SilingWu + @SilingWu2. Thousands of RTs between them
1/ Earlier I tweeted about a new friend 'Rick O'Shay'. He tweeted me out of the blue to complain about my misuse of data science around #Ukraine #disinfo. Turns out of course he's a propagandist with a strange history that includes not even knowing how to spell his own name
2/ So Rick is handsome, even if a little generic looking. Could be AI generated, or a stolen photo? Hard to know actually. His generic bio is also alluring 'informed, educated, critical thinker'. Rick is obviously irresistible, and too chill to worry about having no banner photo
3/ He's not that active, 785 tweets in 6 years. But when he does tweet, he would rank as 🔥on troll Tinder. He ticks all the boxes. Anti-Clinton, Obama birth cert disinfo, covid disinfo, QAnon pizzagate fan. Russia Today fan. Probs loves travel too #disinformation #ukraine
HAPPENING NOW - Senate Intelligence Committee holds open hearing on Worldwide Threats
Testimony coming from:
@ODNIgov Dir Avril Haines
@CIA Dir Bill Burns
@DefenseIntel Dir LtGen Scott Berrier
@NSAGov Dir Gen Paul Nakasone
@FBI Dir Christopher Wray
Testimony coming from:
@ODNIgov Dir Avril Haines
@CIA Dir Bill Burns
@DefenseIntel Dir LtGen Scott Berrier
@NSAGov Dir Gen Paul Nakasone
@FBI Dir Christopher Wray
Senate Intel Comm Chair @MarkWarner starts w/praise for the US intelligence community for being candid w/intel on #Russia, #Putin's plans for #Ukraine & "throwing Putin off-guard"
"Democracy is sometimes messy" per @MarkWarner "I believe with all my heart the ppl of #Ukraine are voting with their lives, embracing the values that we take for granted every day"
"With all our flaws, our system is still the best in the world"
"With all our flaws, our system is still the best in the world"
#Russia's disinfo troops have just made a very large mistake: their mask slipped. In an effort to denounce the Heroes of Snake Island, they also mention "Avenger of the air" - but that does not exist! It's probably a future psyop that they thought already came out. #UkraineWar
Look at the third picture - the whole article is just: 1. a headline saying Snake Island and Avenger of the air are fake 2. A picture of Snake Island 3. Some unrelated captions and an unrelated paragraph. That is ALL. There's no content, just a headline so it shows up in Google.
Of course the Heroes of Snake Island do exist. Here's a piece of real reporting that shows they do, including source footage - but "Heroes of Snake Island is fake news" shows up on the first page of Google results for "Heroes of Snake Island". #UkraineWar
upi.com/Top_News/World…
upi.com/Top_News/World…
So Mr Jason Shoeaddict, one of the Facebook admins for the "Convoy to Ottawa 2022 group with 108,322 members that @PiperK notes in her great thread here is 100% a "ThisPersonDoesNotExist" GAN image. #OSINT #Disinfo #astroturf
Jason Shoeaddict works for National Geographic TV whatever that means & this particular Facebook group is being promoted by disgraced General Michael Flynn. This whole Trucker protest in Ottawa Canada, now growing to other locations in the EU & US, is being astroturfed. #OSINT
Jason Shoeaddict of course doesn't exist in Tineye. Not definitive by any means, however when u combine it with a couple other techniques we've discovered we can say with high confidence, that Jason is an image of a person that doesnt exist & is algorithmically generated (GAN)
We have identified a network of more than 1300 websites run by the GRU, targeting Russian speakers including domestic audiences. A thread 🧵...
And read our full report here openfacto.fr/2022/01/27/the…
#Russia #Disinfo #OSINT
And read our full report here openfacto.fr/2022/01/27/the…
#Russia #Disinfo #OSINT
InfoRos (inforos.com) is a Russian news agency founded in 2003 which has been accused by several countries of being for run by the GRU Unit 54777 specialized in psyops. InfoRos officially declares 276 websites on the Internet Authority page (Roskomnadzor).
We identified a distinctive snippet of its source code and performed a reverse nameserver lookup via the InfoRos server that hosted the first discovered sites. We found a total of 1,341 InfoRos linked-websites. Most redirected to a Russian city news portal controlled by InfoRos.
