Democracy Partners

<div data-reactid="199" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style=""></div><div style="">mma 9 22</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">A federal jury <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/23/project-veritas-democracy-partners-verdict/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">found</a> last week that the methods used by Project Veritas in the group’s 2016 sting operation on progressive consulting firm Democracy Partners were unlawful, further tarnishing an organization notorious for its undercover gotcha videos. The ruling confirms what watchdogs have been saying for years about founder James O’Keefe and the nefarious  tactics he employs, even as right-wing and even some mainstream <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/local-news/sacramento-tv-stations-are-case-study-what-not-do-when-covering-project-veritas" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">media</a> have irresponsibly treated Project Veritas videos as legitimate sources. On September 22, a jury <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/us/politics/project-veritas-lawsuit.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">declared</a> that O’Keefe’s operatives had unlawfully recorded the consulting firm in the leadup to the 2016 election, and that those same operatives had fraudulently identified themselves in the process of infiltrating the group. O’Keefe says he will appeal. Much like in the group’s other sting operations, Project Veritas operatives had used false identities to secure meetings and an internship with Democracy Partners. Evidence for the trial included emails written by O’Keefe showing that he had offered <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/19/project-veritas-cash-bonus-trial/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">cash bonuses</a> to any employee who could provide content that implicated Democracy Partners in committing voter fraud, along with court documents detailing a voter fraud scheme that operatives attempted to plan within Democracy Partners.This verdict serves as a damning indictment of O’Keefe and his legacy. The tactics condemned in the Democracy Partners verdict mirror those that Project Veritas has employed for years in its theatrical crusades and smear campaigns, which have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/11/us/politics/project-veritas-journalism-political-spying.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">included</a> concocting <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/01/24/james-okeefe-says-he-never-intended-to-plant-a-fake-story-in-the-washington-post/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">fake stories</a> and schemes and arranging <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/us/politics/mcmaster-fbi-trump-project-veritas.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">dates</a> and other personal meetings under false identities. This should put to bed any of the organization’s claims that it operates as a legitimate journalistic enterprise. While the actions undertaken by Project Veritas against Democracy Partners have resulted in its most <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/james-okeefe-forgot-to-tell-regulators-about-his-past-conviction-and-now-project-veritas-may-be-in-trouble" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">substantial</a> legal backlash so far, the group has a long and storied history of similarly outlandish stunts. In the past few years alone, the group has:<ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li aria-level="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 3rem; position: relative;">Apparently attempted to give The Washington Post false <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approached-the-post-with-dramatic--and-false--tale-about-roy-moore-sje-appears-to-be-part-of-undercover-sting-operation/2017/11/27/0c2e335a-cfb6-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">sexual assault</a> allegations against then-Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore in 2017.</li><li aria-level="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 3rem; position: relative;">Spurred a woman’s <a href="https://www.expressnews.com/news/politics/texas_legislature/article/San-Antonio-woman-arrested-on-election-fraud-15867489.php" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">arrest</a> by editing a video to give the appearance that an act of voter fraud was being committed.</li><li aria-level="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 3rem; position: relative;">Launched a campaign to push COVID-19 vaccine <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/james-okeefe/project-veritas-james-okeefe-using-distribution-proxy-strategy-spread-vaccine" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">misinformation</a>, often bypassing <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/project-veritas/social-media-platforms-are-letting-project-veritas-video-pushing-coronavirus" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">bans </a>on affiliated accounts.</li><li aria-level="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 3rem; position: relative;">Released <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/abc/abc-takes-bait-and-suspends-veteran-correspondent-over-bad-faith-right-wing-hit-job" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">secretly recorded tapes</a> of an ABC news anchor making reasonable criticism of the network, resulting in his suspension and subsequent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/26/abc-news-hands-james-okeefe-scalp/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">removal</a> from political coverage.</li><li aria-level="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 3rem; position: relative;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/postal-worker-hopkins-ballot-pennsylvania/2020/11/11/c9b70eda-2470-11eb-8599-406466ad1b8e_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Accused</a> a public official of back-dating mail-in ballots, even though the source recanted his claims.</li><li aria-level="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 3rem; position: relative;">Caused <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/local-news/sacramento-tv-stations-are-case-study-what-not-do-when-covering-project-veritas%E2%80%9D" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">harassment</a> and threats of violence against multiple educators and school officials.</li></ul>Less than a year before this week's verdict, mainstream outlets and press rights groups had rushed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/project-veritas-and-the-mainstream-media-strange-allies-in-the-fight-to-protect-press-freedom-172112" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">defend</a> Project Veritas after O’Keefe and some of his associates were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/06/us/politics/james-okeefe-project-veritas-ashley-biden.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">raided</a> by the FBI to investigate the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/25/ashley-biden-diary-project-veritas/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">theft</a> of President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley Biden’s diary. Several outlets echoed O’Keefe’s own claims that his journalistic rights had been <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/james-okeefe/while-project-veritas-claims-its-press-freedom-being-violated-right-wing-video" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">violated</a>. This positive attention only served to validate his <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3994258" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">claim</a> that he’s a journalist.Some outlets have <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/james-okeefe/while-project-veritas-claims-its-press-freedom-being-violated-right-wing-video" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">bolstered</a> Project Veritas by covering their smear campaigns as though they're legitimate stories, even as they <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/13/raid-veritas-okeefe-biden-press-521307" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">acknowledge</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/project-veritas-and-the-mainstream-media-strange-allies-in-the-fight-to-protect-press-freedom-172112" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">questions</a> about the group's methods. O’Keefe’s methods even earned him a <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/james-okeefe/cnns-ed-martin-giving-award-truth-james-okeefe-who-ran-deceitful-stings-against-cnn" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">truth award</a> from an organization run by Ed Martin, then a CNN contributor.Project Veritas is an organization built on deceitful tactics that lack journalistic merit, and last week’s finding should demolish any shreds of credibility it retained with mainstream media. </div><div style=""></div>=
= intercept?MEMBER OF Project Veritas gave testimony in a federal court case indicating that the right-wing group, known for its undercover videos, violates Facebook policies designed to counter systematic deception by Russian troll farms and other groups. The <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.178412/gov.uscourts.mad.178412.126.1.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">deposition</a> raises questions over whether Facebook will deter American operatives who use the platform to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/29/project-veritas-how-fake-news-prize-went-to-rightwing-group-beloved-by-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">strategically deceive and damage political opponents</a> as vigorously as it has Iranian and Russian propagandists. But is the company capable of doing so without just creating more problems?Close observers of Veritas and Facebook, including one at a research lab that works with the social network, said the testimony shows the group is clearly violating policies against what Facebook refers to as “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The company formally defined such behavior in a <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/12/inside-feed-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">December 2018 video</a> featuring its cybersecurity policy chief Nathaniel Gleicher, who said it “is when groups of pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they’re doing.” The designation, Gleicher added, is applied by Facebook to a group not “because of the content they’re sharing” but rather only “because of their deceptive behavior.” That is, using Facebook to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/womans-effort-to-infiltrate-the-washington-post-dates-back-months/2017/11/29/ce95e01a-d51e-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html?utm_term=.bc12e8cee3b1" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">dupe people</a> is all it takes to fit the company’s institutional definition of coordinated inauthentic behavior.In practice, “coordinated inauthentic behavior” has become a sort of catchall label for untoward meddling on Facebook, snagging everyone from Burmese military officers to Russian meme spammers. But curbing such activity has become a very public crusade for Facebook in the wake of its prominent role as a platform for the spread of disinformation, propaganda, and outright hoaxes during the 2016 presidential campaign. This past January, Gleicher <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/01/removing-cib-iran/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a> the removal of coordinated inauthentic behavior from Iran, which spread when operatives “coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves,” thus triggering a Facebook ban. Similarly, in a 2017 update on Facebook’s internal investigation into Russian online propaganda efforts, the company’s then-head of security Alex Stamos <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/09/information-operations-update/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">assured the world’s democracies</a> the company was providing “technology improvements for detecting fake accounts,” including “changes to help us more efficiently detect and stop inauthentic accounts at the time they are being created.”Throughout all of this, coordinated inauthentic behavior has remained more or less synonymous with “foreign actors” and “nation-states,” the cloak-and-dagger stuff of an increasingly militarized internet filled with enemies of the Western Democracy who seek to subvert it from abroad.Project Veritas, a hybrid of an opposition research shop and a ranting YouTube channel, has taken pride in its ability to deceive since its creation in 2010. With conservative backers like <a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/2009/09/22/conservative-facebook-investor-funded-anti-acorn-videographer/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Peter Thiel</a>, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/project-veritas-received-17-million-last-year-from-koch-backed-charity/2017/12/01/143e13ca-d6d3-11e7-9461-ba77d604373d_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Koch brothers</a>, and the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-foundation-paid-activist-filmmaker-james-o-keefe-n670381" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Trump Foundation</a>, the group and its founder James O’Keefe have worked relentlessly to target and malign individuals at institutions they deem leftist, whether it’s Planned Parenthood (reportedly targeted by O’Keefe<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/04/james-okeefe-undercover-sting-profile-feature-2018-218015" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;"> posing as a young teen’s 23-year-old boyfriend</a>), George Soros (the progressive philanthropist whose professional circle Veritas tried and<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/james-okeefe-accidentally-stings-himself" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;"> spectacularly failed to infiltrate</a>), or the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approached-the-post-with-dramatic--and-false--tale-about-roy-moore-sje-appears-to-be-part-of-undercover-sting-operation/2017/11/27/0c2e335a-cfb6-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html?utm_term=.53061302d6db" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Washington Post</a> (whose reporter was offered a fake story on Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore). O’Keefe has long attempted to position himself in the context of dogged, daring, traditional journalism, describing Veritas’s efforts as “investigative” reporting executed by “undercover journalists.” But his efforts are often executed by what the New Yorker has called “amateurish spies” — their efforts against the Post and Soros resembled a Three Stooges bit — and packaged with <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/03/14/134525412/Segments-Of-NPR-Gotcha-Video-Taken-Out-Of-Context" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">mendacious editing</a>, duplicitous production, and outright lying, making Veritas’s audience as much a victim of its productions as the subjects. Debates over who or what is to be considered “real journalism” are almost always counterproductive and contrived, but Veritas stands out for the shamelessness with which it pursues nakedly partisan ends.There is, of course, a proud tradition of undercover journalism executed unequivocally in the name of informing the public. Writers like Barbara Ehrenreich and Shane Bauer have taken jobs they were not otherwise interested in in order to reveal injustices in society’s margins, and some of the most damning details of the Cambridge Analytica scandal were <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/exposed-undercover-secrets-of-donald-trump-data-firm-cambridge-analytica" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">exposed</a> by a reporter with the UK’s Channel 4 posing as a foreign politician interested in the company’s services. This reporting involved lying, sure — or at least the withholding of true intent, and a willingness to let others deceive themselves — but only as a means to a truthful end. The distinction between these reporters and Veritas operatives may be that the end the latter group seeks, the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-a-hollywood-hit-job-how-sting-artist-james-okeefe-tried-to-set-his-latest-trap-and-got-stung-himself" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">final media product</a>, is <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-648R" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">typically</a> just another act of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/09/01/james-okeefe-to-step-up-political-stalking/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">partisan misdirection that doesn’t withstand further scrutiny</a>.Neither Project Veritas nor Facebook commented for this story.<h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 1em 0px; font-kerning: normal;" kern="kern" font-size="font-size" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb">“Legend Building” by Project Veritas</h3>Project Veritas has <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/11/28/reminder-james-okeefe-has-a-history-of-failing-to-discredit-journalists/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">systematically deceived</a> not just <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/james-okeefe-juan-carlos-vera_n_2832338" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">targets on the left</a> and <a href="https://www.newschannel5.com/news/fact-check-political-video-misleading" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">viewers on the right</a> but Facebook users as well (their official page has over 200,000 followers) at a time when the company is publicly dedicated to fighting this sort of systemic duplicity. That’s a wrinkle that raises questions about Facebook’s commitment to rooting out coordinated inauthentic behavior closer to home — Thiel sits on the company’s board — not to mention Project Veritas’s presence on social media.<blockquote class="stylized pull-right" data-shortcode-type="pullquote" data-pull="right" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; margin: 2em -170px 2em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 2em; box-shadow: none; line-height: 1.125; float: right; max-width: 75%;">“We thus have the admission of intent by the organization and evidence of action by multiple of its agents.”</blockquote>In 2017, O’Keefe sued the Suffolk County district attorney over a Massachusetts law barring the covert recording of government officials. This past December, a federal judge overturned the rule. But in the course of the lawsuit, Joe Halderman, a member of the Project Veritas inner circle who was previously convicted of trying to extort late night television host David Letterman in 2010, sat for a deposition. In it, Halderman was compelled to submit to a sworn interrogation of Veritas methods. Just how does one go about duping savvy politicos and the politico-adjacent in the 21st century?During his deposition, Halderman, Project Veritas’s self-described “executive producer,” stated under oath that the organization falsifies Facebook accounts as part of its overall strategy of deceiving the targets of its investigations. Halderman, characterizing himself as “integrally involved in [Project Veritas’s] investigations and have been since I started four years ago,” describes the work that went into setting up Robert Creamer, a Democratic operative recorded by Veritas in a 2016. That video attempted to portray Creamer as complicit in a Hillary Clinton-led campaign to violently disrupt Donald Trump’s campaign events with counterprotests and engaging in counter-Trump voter fraud — both regular, unfounded talking points repeated by Trump on the campaign trail. Last year, the Wisconsin Department of Justice concluded an investigation into the videos, determining that they “reveal no evidence of election fraud,” the Associated Press reported.But before Veritas could get Creamer on camera, they needed to make contact via a fake persona, Halderman explained. Per the transcript (emphasis added):<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin-left: 0px; padding-left: 1em; box-shadow: rgb(204, 204, 204) -6px 0px 0px -5px;">Q. And you spoke earlier about PVA [Veritas] creating this donor, Charles. When you say create the donor, what did PVA do to create the donor?A. So, I thought of a name. I talked to the undercover journalist who was the person who met with Foval. We between us sort of created this story of this person. I got some business cards made. I got an e-mail. I set up an e-mail account. What else did I do? I think that’s about all I did.Again, in this particular case, we didn’t feel like they were going to get seriously vetted. In some investigations we do legend building because we believe or our concern is that we’re going to be vetted reasonably, you know, by open source information.So, we’ll create a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page. We’ve even gone so far in the past of creating LLCs, offshore bank accounts. We do a lot of things because undercover journalism is a tricky, complicated business.</blockquote>According to Lauren Windsor, a political organizer and <a href="https://democracypartners.com/partners/lauren-windsor" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">partner at Democracy Partners</a> (alongside Robert Creamer) who began documenting Veritas’s team of “undercover” operatives and their various aliases after her own organization was infiltrated, this sort of use of phony social accounts is the group’s standard operating procedure. “In conducting extensive outreach to victims and extensive research of social media networks to build the vetting resource website <a href="https://www.projectveritas.exposed/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Project Veritas Exposed</a>,” explained Windsor, “I documented several instances of PV violating Facebook’s terms by creating fake profiles. We thus have the admission of intent by the organization and evidence of action by multiple of its agents.”Windsor’s work includes cataloging Project Veritas’s network of fake Facebook accounts; Windsor provided screenshots to The Intercept. In one example, Veritas operative Marisa Jorge’s likeness is used for the Facebook profile of “Ava-Marie Joyce.” The bio of the Ava-Marie persona bizarrely describes herself as “Carrie Tallinn, a self-employed professional women’s right activist.”According to a 2018 lawsuit <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/23/project-veritas-lawsuit-american-federation-of-teachers/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> by The Intercept last year, Jorge previously misrepresented herself as a University of Michigan student in order to gain improper access to teachers union documents. The friends list for “Ava-Marie Joyce” lists another profile fabricated by Project Veritas, “Ava Marie Allen.”Another screenshot shows a Facebook profile for “Tyler Marshall,” which O’Keefe himself disclosed as a fabricated identity in his 2018 book “American Pravda.” In a section of that book (subtitle: “My Fight For Truth in the Era of Fake News”) detailing Veritas’s attempts to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/meetings-of-activists-planning-to-disrupt-inauguration-were-infiltrated-by-conservative-media-group/2017/01/24/b22128fe-e19a-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.67af0c45d3ca" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">infiltrate protestors planning action</a> around Trump’s presidential inauguration, O’Keefe wrote that his operatives all “of course, establish a social media presence under their assumed names—‘Tyler Marshall,’ say, or ‘Adam Stevens.’ The presence includes Twitter, Facebook, and email at the least.”<h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 1em 0px; font-kerning: normal;" kern="kern" font-size="font-size" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb">Exploitation of Facebook by a Group Linked To Military Intelligence</h3>Emerson Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, said Veritas’s homegrown social media deception is a clear violation of Facebook’s policy. After reading the deposition, Brooking told The Intercept, “Mr. Halderman describes the creation of fake Facebook personas for the purpose of deception” and “implies that this is a regular and systematic practice. Under any reasonable definition, Project Veritas is engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior and abuse of the Facebook platform.”<blockquote class="stylized pull-left" data-shortcode-type="pullquote" data-pull="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; margin: 2em 0px; padding: 0px 2em 0px 0px; box-shadow: none; line-height: 1.125; float: left; max-width: 60%;">“Under any reasonable definition, Project Veritas is engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior and abuse of the Facebook platform.”</blockquote>Brooking’s group, a frequently cited authority on online electoral interference and other digital propaganda campaigns, entered into an official partnership with Facebook last year. A Facebook director <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/05/announcing-new-election-partnership-with-the-atlantic-council/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">wrote at the time</a> that experts at the lab “will work closely with our security, policy and product teams to get Facebook real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world.”If it sounds like a stretch to compare Project Veritas to a Russian troll farm, consider the group’s links to the U.S. defense establishment. As The Intercept <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/05/03/erik-prince-trump-uae-project-veritas/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">reported in May</a>, Veritas members underwent “intelligence and elicitation techniques from a retired military intelligence operative named Euripides Rubio Jr.,” personally arranged by the infamous American mercenary and Trump adviser Erik Prince. What we have here, then, is a 2016 military intelligence-linked, organized effort to undermine the Democratic Party and boost the Trump presidential campaign using falsified social media profiles. If that doesn’t sound familiar, it certainly should.</div><div class="Newsletter-shortcode Newsletter-shortcode-layout-full" data-reactid="200" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 556px; padding: 20px 0px 40px; margin: 0px auto;"><a class="Newsletter-shortcode-wrapper" href="https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?campaign=Article-In" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: block; border: 5px solid rgb(102, 83, 255); padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; margin: 0px;" /><div class="Newsletter-shortcode-container" data-reactid="202" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: -8px 0px -10px; padding: 0px 20px;"><a class="Newsletter-shortcode-wrapper" href="https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?campaign=Article-In" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: block; border: 5px solid rgb(102, 83, 255); padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; margin: 0px;" /><a class="Newsletter-shortcode-wrapper" href="https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?campaign=Article-In" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: block; border: 5px solid rgb(102, 83, 255); padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; margin: 0px;" /><a class="Newsletter-shortcode-wrapper" href="https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?campaign=Article-In" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: block; border: 5px solid rgb(102, 83, 255); padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; margin: 0px;" /><a class="Newsletter-shortcode-wrapper" href="https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?campaign=Article-In" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: block; border: 5px solid rgb(102, 83, 255); padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; margin: 0px;" /><h3 class="Newsletter-shortcode-headline" data-reactid="203" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; font-kerning: normal;" kern="kern" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb"><a class="Newsletter-shortcode-wrapper" href="https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?campaign=Article-In" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: block; border: 5px solid rgb(102, 83, 255); padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; margin: 0px;" /><a class="Newsletter-shortcode-wrapper" href="https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?campaign=Article-In" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: block; border: 5px solid rgb(102, 83, 255); padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; margin: 0px;" /><a class="Newsletter-shortcode-wrapper" href="https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?campaign=Article-In" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: block; border: 5px solid rgb(102, 83, 255); padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; margin: 0px;" /><a class="Newsletter-shortcode-wrapper" href="https://theintercept.com/newsletter/?campaign=Article-In" data-reactid="201" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: block; border: 5px solid rgb(102, 83, 255); padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; margin: 0px;">Join Our Newsletter</a></h3><h3 class="Newsletter-shortcode-subhead" data-reactid="204" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; font-kerning: normal;" kern="kern" font-size="font-size" px="px">Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you.</h3><div class="Newsletter-shortcode-link" data-reactid="205" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px; position: relative;">I’m in<span class="Icon Icon--Arrow_02_Right icon-TI_Arrow_02_Right" data-reactid="208" style="box-sizing: border-box; speak: none; font-weight: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: 1; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></div></div></div><div data-reactid="209" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The problem with Facebook and its peers has never been identifying abuses and misuses, whether truly dangerous or merely toxic; Facebook, Twitter, and Google alone represent perhaps history’s greatest living catalog of antisocial behavior, a frenzy of rule violation on a mass scale. Whether these companies deem comprehensive content moderation simply too expensive or not worth the public relations mess, the fact is that the public rarely sees movement on these issues in the absence of congressional scolding or media uproar.The real issue is uneven, arbitrary enforcement of “the rules.” Max Read, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/carlos-maza-and-stephen-crowder-show-youtube-has-one-rule.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">writing in New York magazine</a> on another social network’s enforcement blunders, argued that “the problem for YouTube is that for rules to be taken seriously by the people they govern, they need to be applied consistently and clearly.” YouTube is about as terrible at this exercise as Facebook is, and there’s a good chance that if Facebook treated malicious right-wing American exploitation of its network the same way it treats malicious foreign exploitation of its network, it would probably botch the whole thing and end up burning people who actually do use phony Facebook profiles<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/us/politics/facebook-first-amendment.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;"> for work toward the public good</a>.That a company like Facebook is even in a position to create “rules” like the coordinated inauthentic behavior policy that apply to a large chunk of the Earth’s population is itself a serious problem, one made considerably worse by completely erratic enforcement. It’s bad enough having a couple guys in California take up the banner of defending “Democracy” around the world through the exclusive control of one of the most powerful information organs in human history; if nothing else, we should hope their decisions are predictable and consistent.Correction: June 11th, 2019, 11:19 a.m.This article has been updated to name Lauren Windsor’s employer, Democracy Partners, where she is a partner.</div>