The latest batch of Twitter Files released by Twitter owner Elon Musk blew the lid off a coordinated effort to create “state-sponsored blacklists.”
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi, who unveiled the latest batch March 2, pointed to the George Soros-funded Atlantic Council and the government-backed Global Engagement Center as two of the entities responsible for creating blacklists to target Americans. Taibbi reported that “On June 8, 2021, an analyst at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab [DFRLab] wrote to Twitter: ‘Hi guys. Attached you will find… around 40k twitter accounts that our researchers suspect are engaging in inauthentic behavior… and Hindu nationalism more broadly.’” The Council reportedly suspected the 40,000 accounts of being “‘paid employees or possibly volunteers’ of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).” The problem, wrote Taibbi, was that the list “was full of ordinary Americans, many with no connection to India and no clue about Indian politics.”
Soros’ Open Society Foundations funneled at least $743,625 into the Atlantic Council between 2016 and 2021. But that’s not all. Specifically, the GEC, backed by government entities, reportedly funds the Council’s DFRLab. The Atlantic Council’s involvement in Twitter’ enormous censorship scheme is disturbing, given that the origins of President Joe Biden’s now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) can be traced back to it. According to Taibbi, DFRLab “Director Graham Brookie denies DFRLab [sic] uses tax money to track Americans, saying its GEC grants have ‘an exclusively international focus.’” Yeah, right.
1. TWITTER FILES #17
New Knowledge, the Global Engagement Center, and State-Sponsored Blacklists pic.twitter.com/8LuoKY9zzA— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
The GEC has apparently been creating its own separate backlists for Twitter. Taibbi described one case: “Here are 5500 names GEC told Twitter it believed were ‘Chinese… accounts’ engaged in ‘state-backed coordinated manipulation.’ It takes about negative ten seconds to find non-Chinese figures.” GEC’s so-called “‘Chinese’ list included multiple Western government accounts and at least three CNN employees based abroad. ‘Not exactly Anderson’s besties, but CNN assets if you will,’ quipped Twitter’s Patrick Conlon. ‘A total crock,’ added Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.”
The GEC, wrote Taibbi, “is usually listed as a State Department entity. It’s not.” He continued: “Created in Obama’s last year, GEC is an interagency group ‘within’ State, whose initial partners included FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA, DARPA, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and others.” The State Department’s and other government agencies’ involvement with GEC is also chiling in light of the former funding the Soros-backed Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which created its own separate, secretive blacklists of “conservative” media to target their ad revenues, according to a Washington Examiner exposé. The GEC even reportedly funneled $100,000 into GDI.
The so-called “mission” of the GEC indicates that it operates like yet another Orwellian Ministry of Truth:
To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations.
A former intelligence source reportedly told Taibbi that GEC was “‘an incubator for the domestic disinformation complex.’” The source continued: “‘All the shit we pulled in other countries since the Cold War, some morons decided to bring home.’”
Taibbi noted in a follow-up tweet on the new Twitter Files that the government-backed disinformation complex is currently engineered against conservatives:
Currently the ‘disinfo’ complex’s methods impact conservatives in America more, but that could change in a heartbeat. Also, what kind of liberal isn’t interested in protecting the speech rights of people with whom they disagree? What kind of liberalism is that?
Currently the “disinfo” complex’s methods impact conservatives in America more, but that could change in a heartbeat. Also, what kind of liberal isn’t interested in protecting the speech rights of people with whom they disagree? What kind of liberalism is that? https://t.co/s96Jpuybsb
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
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