useful idiots

mebbe redumbent to pure russian disinfo

see ukraine war, eg tucker

===

not sure this is bot per se?

QAnon received earlier boost from Russian accounts on ...

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com › article › technology › qanon...

Nov 2, 2020 — Russian government-backed social media accounts nurtured the QAnon conspiracy theory in its infancy, earlier than previously reported.

(Reuters) - Russian government-backed social media accounts nurtured the QAnon conspiracy theory in its infancy, earlier than previously reported, according to interviews with current and former Twitter executives and archives of tweets from suspended accounts.

Researchers said in August that the archives showed Russian accounts had helped spread QAnon in volume beginning in December 2017, https://reut.rs/2TFWoWc, but that team did not examine the history of specific QAnon promoters. https://bit.ly/2HTReUh

A more granular review by Reuters shows Russian accounts began amplifying the movement as it started, early in the previous month.

From November 2017 on, QAnon was the single most frequent hashtag tweeted by accounts that Twitter has since identified as Russian-backed, a Reuters analysis of the archive shows, with the term used some 17,000 times.

The archives contain more than 4,000 accounts that Twitter suspended for spreading Russian government disinformation in 2018 and 2019 but preserved for researchers.

The trove shows that some of the Russian accounts tweeted about QAnon's most important popularizer even before the anonymous figure known as Q emerged, then rewarded her with more promotion when she put videos about Q on YouTube. [TRACY BEANZ?]

Asked about support for QAnon, the Russian embassy in Washington said Moscow does not interfere in U.S. politics.

"Malicious activity in the information space contradicts the principles of Russian foreign policy, national interests and our understanding of interstate relations," a spokesman said.

A current Twitter executive said Russian accounts are not driving the present iteration of QAnon, which has expanded to include baseless claims about COVID-19 and other issues.

The original posts associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory appeared in late October 2017, purporting to be from a Trump insider with "Q" security clearance who said Hillary Clinton faced arrest and her allies were running a massive child-sex ring.

===

an 1 23

Elon Musk is still facing deep criticism for echoing remarks tweeted by one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's allies.

According to HuffPost, Dmitry Medvedev —a vocal supporter of the Russian-Ukrainian war— tweeted remarks suggesting that the United States would be "ripped apart by civil war, that Musk would become U.S. president, and that a 'Fourth Reich' would be created in Europe."

In response to the thread of tweets, Musk commented saying, "epic thread."

Almost immediately after Musk shared his reaction, Twitter users wasted no time chiming in to criticize him for seemingly bragging about the disturbing Russian propaganda.

"Are you a Russian agent/ propagandist now? Why are you doing this?" one Twitter user asked.

Another user asked, "Are you F out of your mind? Cheering on a Russian war criminal 'predicting' a civil war in the US? Tesla shareholders must be thrilled!"

After hours of facing a litany of tweets, Musk chimed in with another tweet appearing to offer an explanation for his previous remarks. He also attempted to downplay his gushing over Medvedev's remarks by describing the claims as "absurd."

"Those are definitely the most absurd predictions I’ve ever heard, while also showing astonishing lack of awareness of the progress of artificial intelligence and sustainable energy," he tweeted.

However, some weren't buying Musk's response. In fact, Putin critic and world chess champion Garry Kasparov also weighed in with criticism of Musk.

“This is moral idiocy, repetition of Kremlin propaganda, a betrayal of Ukrainian courage and sacrifice, and puts a few minutes browsing Crimea on Wikipedia over the current horrific reality of Putin’s bloody war,” Kasparov said on Twitter.

an 12 22

Last week, Chief Twit Elon Musk enlisted Substacker Matt Taibbi to recap Twitter’s handling of the “Hunter Biden laptop” story based on archived corporate emails that Musk now owns.

It already seems like a lifetime ago, but in October 2020, weeks before the presidential election, the New York Post published a story about a disk image allegedly taken from a laptop that Hunter Biden had abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware.

Twitter temporarily blocked the story because it included personally identifiable information that they suspected had been hacked. Republicans said it was horribly partisan to the Donald Trump campaign of colluding with the Russians, even though the disk image came from Rudy Giuliani who had been very publicly pumping Russian agents for dirt on Hunter Biden for months.

READ MORE: Is Twitter a lost cause?

Musk played the hype man and teased Taibbi’s tweetstorm as the scandal of the century. This was to be the second – hell, the third – coming of Watergate, Iran Contra, and Deflategate all rolled into one. Musk claimed these emails showed that Twitter had colluded with the government to help Joe Biden.

As usual, Musk’s pitch was crowd-pleasing vaporware. Taibbi actually described how Twitter executives blocked the New York Post story all by themselves, adding that he’d seen “no evidence of any government involvement.”

Taibbi shared emails that confirmed what we already knew: Twitter execs froze access to the story because they were worried it was part of a Russian attack on the election. Twitter had been repeatedly warned by Trump’s FBI to be on the alert for hack and leak operations associated with a political campaign and possibly starring Hunter Biden. The New York Poststory checked all those boxes.

In 2016, Russian state hackers leaked emails they’d stolen from the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. The attack weakened Clinton and may even have cost her the election. In early 2020, Donald Trump was impeached for trying to force Ukraine to announce a fake investigation into none other than Hunter Biden. To make matters worse, the New York Post story was based on a disk image supplied by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s main point of contact with Russian agents in Ukraine.

Far from showing a Borg determined to help Joe Biden at all costs, Taibbi’s cache of emails shows a lively debate in the Twitter C-suite as execs tried to balance freedom of the press against election integrity and national security. They blocked the story for violating Twitter’s ban on “hacked materials” bearing personally identifying information because the New York Post story included images with unredacted emails and phone numbers. The trouble was, there was no proof the data was hacked. There still isn’t. But the whole thing stank worse than an illegal Twitter flophouse.

Twitter was in a tough spot because Giuliani claimed that Hunter’s data was abandoned, not hacked. Then again, no reasonable person would take Giuliani’s word for that. If Hunter’s data had been hacked, Giuliani had a vested interest in concealing that fact. The emails show that Twitter execs used the ban to buy time while they conducted their own investigation.

History has vindicated Twitter’s caution. In 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally authorized a major interference campaign for the 2020 election based on conspiracy theories about the Biden family and Ukraine.The FBI investigated Giuliani for his role in Ukraine, but ultimately wasn’t charged, primarily because although his efforts helped both Russia and Trump, he got paid only by Trump.

This saga would prompt any reasonable person to think how Twitter’s rules could be crafted to better address the next foreign attack on our elections. Unfortunately, Elon Musk is not a reasonable person.

He’s a raging egomaniac who seized upon his former employees’ good-faith efforts to handle an unprecedented threat as a pretext to make twitter ground zero for foreign intelligence agencies to attack American democracy.

conduit to rudy ukraine BS

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1118

Treasury Sanctions Russia-Linked Election Interference Actors

September 10, 2020

Washington – Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated four Russia-linked individuals for attempting to influence the U.S. electoral process. Russia uses a variety of proxies to attempt to sow discord between political parties and drive internal divisions to influence voters as part of Moscow’s broader efforts to undermine democratic countries and institutions. In the United States, Russia has used a wide range of influence methods and actors to target our electoral process, including targeting U.S. presidential candidates.

Treasury designated Andrii Derkach (Derkach) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13848 for his efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Derkach, a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament, has been an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services. Derkach has directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in an attempt to undermine the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election. Today’s designation of Derkach is focused on exposing Russian malign influence campaigns and protecting our upcoming elections from foreign interference. This action is a clear signal to Moscow and its proxies that this activity will not be tolerated. The Administration is working across the U.S. Government, and with state, local, and private sector partners, to make the 2020 election secure.

“Andrii Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to counter these Russian disinformation campaigns and uphold the integrity of our election system.”

Derkach’s Election Influence Efforts

From at least late 2019 through mid-2020, Derkach waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election, spurring corruption investigations in both Ukraine and the United Statesdesigned to culminate prior to election day. Derkach’s unsubstantiated narratives were pushed in Western media through coverage of press conferences and other news events, including interviews and statements.

Between May and July 2020, Derkach released edited audio tapes and other unsupported information with the intent to discredit U.S. officials, and he levied unsubstantiated allegations against U.S. and international political figures. Derkach almost certainly targeted the U.S. voting populace, prominent U.S. persons, and members of the U.S. government, based on his reliance on U.S. platforms, English-language documents and videos, and pro-Russian lobbyists in the United States used to propagate his claims.

Treasury Continues to Hold Russian Actors Accountable

Today’s designation of Derkach is another example of the Treasury department promoting accountability for Kremlin-linked individuals seeking to undermine confidence in U.S. democratic processes. Treasury has previously designated the Russian troll factory known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA), and its Russian financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin. Prigozhin has been designated by the United States pursuant to E.O. 13661, E.O. 13694, as amended, and most recently by E.O. 13848 for providing material support to the IRA’s influence activities against the 2018 U.S. midterm elections.

Today, Treasury also designated three IRA actors pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended by E.O. 13757, and E.O. 13848 for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the IRA, an entity designated pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, and E.O. 13848. Russian nationals Artem Lifshits, Anton Andreyev, and Darya Aslanova, as employees of the IRA, supported the IRA’s cryptocurrency accounts. The IRA uses cryptocurrency to fund activities in furtherance of their ongoing malign influence operations around the world.

OFAC coordinated today’s action against the IRA with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the United States Secret Service.

As a result of today’s designations, all property and interests in property of these targets that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. Additionally, any entities 50 percent or more owned by one or more designated persons are also blocked.

View identifying information on the individuals designated today.

bad code

useful idiot?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/elon-musk-fiona-hill-ron-desantis

badash

Florida GOP **Gov. Ron DeSantis** appears to be aligning with the increasingly powerful **Elon Musk**, as the richest man in the world is accused “transmitting a message” for Russian President **Vladimir Putin**.

On Monday DeSantis blasted Musk’s critics, including Ukraine, who were angered the billionaire had threatened to pull his SpaceX Starlink satellites away from Ukraine. The low earth orbit (LEO) satellites provide internet access to Ukraine and especially its military forces.

Despite the U.S. government having paid Musk $3 million for equipment and to keep the satellites over the war-torn country, Musk threatened to pull the hardware critical to the war effort.

He was quickly excoriated, and recently agreed to keep the satellites in place, at least for now.

DeSantis has generally avoided international issues, leading some to question where he stands. Many were surprised when the ultra-outspoken Florida governor not only was silent when Putin invaded Ukraine, but appeared to dodge questions about the illegal war. Politico at the time called his refusal to speak “eerie.” DeSantis has invested what were at the time about $300 million of his state’s pension funds in Russia, and refused to pull out.

Monday was different.

“When Russia invaded Ukraine, Elon Musk positioned his satellites over Ukraine and gave them these things. So they’ve actually been using his devices to be able to defend their country, and I guess some of the people in the government [of Ukraine] were attacking Musk,” DeSantis said Monday, as Florida Politics reported.

“And I’m just thinking to myself, ‘He’s doing this for free,’ ” DeSantis said. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Good Lord!”

“He’s provided that for them for free,” DeSantis continued. “And if you think about it, in a country that big, given what’s going on, that’s tens of millions of dollars that he’s effectively donated.”

READ MORE:... [twt vid] republican former U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh

https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/1582094061539688449...criticized DeSantis.

“Yet another leading Republican voice ‘admonishing’ Ukrainian officials. Republicans never admonish Putin. But they never hesitate to admonish Ukraine,” he said.

More Perfect Union reporter Jordan Zakarin observed: “Ron DeSantis choosing Elon Musk and Putin over the Ukraine is pretty on brand for a wannabe dictator who caters to billionaires.”

Musk reportedly had spoken to Putin before tweeting what many saw as pro-Putin remarks, but Musk denied the claim.

“Last week, Musk tweeted out his proposals for ending the war in Ukraine ― and they were very similar to what [Ian Bremmer] said Musk told him Putin wanted,” HuffPost reported.

Bremmer is a political scientist with an expert focus on Russia and the founder of a political risk research consulting firm. He has a PhD from Stanford where he wrote, “The politics of ethnicity: Russians in the Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, earlier on Monday Politico reported on “Fiona Hill, one of America’s most clear-eyed observers of Russia and Putin, who served as an adviser to former President Donald Trump and gained fame for her testimony in his first impeachment trial.”

“In the early days of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Hill warned in an interview with POLITICO that what Putin was trying to do was not only seize Ukraine but destroy the current world order. And she recognized from the start that Putin would use the threat of nuclear conflict to try to get his way.”

Politico adds that “despite the setbacks Russia has suffered on the battlefield, Hill thinks Putin is undaunted. She sees him adapting to new conditions, not giving up. And she sees him trying to get the West to accede to his aims by using messengers like billionaire Elon Musk to propose arrangements that would end the conflict on his terms.”

“Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they’re just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin,” Hill told Politico.

“It’s very clear that Elon Musk is transmitting a message for Putin,” she says.

Watch DeSantis’ remarks above or at this link.

an 9 22

For Americans who are old enough to remember the Cold War and the Reagan era, it is ironic that some of today’s MAGA Republicans aren’t shy about openly expressing their admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin — even during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This admiration for Putin, liberal New York Times opinion writer Paul Krugman noted in a scathing column published on September 12, has been expressed by everyone from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to the leader of the MAGA movement: former President Donald Trump. In that column, Krugman argued that praising Putin’s authoritarianism fits right in with the “MAGA ethos.”

But liberals and progressives certainly aren’t the only ones who have been calling out the pro-Putin attitudes in the MAGA movement. More than a few Never Trump conservatives have been slamming Putin’s MAGA sympathizers, including veteran columnist Mona Charen. In an article published by The Bulwark on September 14, Charen lambasts “pro-Putin, pro-authoritarian” Republicans as the “new useful idiots.”

“At the moment when freedom-loving people around the world are elated, if on tenterhooks, at the progress of Ukrainian forces in pushing back the Russian invaders, Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, has joined with other self-styled conservative groups to oppose helping Ukraine fight for its life,” laments the 65-year-old Charen, who was a speechwriter for First Lady Nancy Reagan during the 1980s. “I know, I know, the Trumpification of the GOP has been a fact for six years, and yet, this heel turn is remarkable. It’s as if People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced that they support puppy mills for medical research.”

Charen adds, “Responding to President Biden’s request that Congress appropriate another $13.7 billion to help the Ukrainians cope with energy price hikes and other security needs, Heritage Action urged a no vote, railing that ‘These funding requests ignore the concerns of the American people.’”

The conservative journalist/author points out that “pro-Putin” Republicans are also likely to be admirers of far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

“The pro-Putin, pro-authoritarian voices in the GOP are not yet a majority — about a quarter of House Republicans and 11 of 50 Senators voted against the $40 billion aid package for Ukraine in May — but they’re not a small minority either, and the wind is at their backs,” Charen explains. “CPAC has all but canonized Hungary’s strongman Viktor Orbán, and in the first hours after Putin rolled into Ukraine, Trump reveled in the murderer’s ‘savvy’ and ‘genius.’ The 2022 election could bring more authoritarian-friendly Republicans to Congress, and meanwhile, hatcheries of conservative orthodoxy like Fox News and The Federalist are doing the spade work of persuading the base that Kremlin propaganda is more trustworthy —pravda, if you will — than the New York Times.”

Charen continues, “Just two weeks ago, Tucker Carlson, Putin’s favorite American broadcaster — clips from his show are routinely featured on Russian state TV — told viewers that Biden’s steadfast support of Ukraine was absurd…. It was bad enough to excuse Putin before February 24 on the risible grounds that he represented some sort of Christian champion (against the) scourge of wokeness. But after? That a spokesman for a so-called ‘conservative’ TV network can cheer the rape of a free country — Carlson has said he ‘roots’ for Russia to win — is not just morally depraved, it violates the basic tenets of what used to be conservatism.”

Charen also calls out two Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidates — Blake Masters in Arizona and “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance in Ohio — for their indifference to the invasion of Ukraine.

“The vapidity of this new ‘conservatism’ is bottomless,” Charen writes. “They haven’t bothered to consider that brutal aggression by a larger against a smaller state invites a Hobbesian international disorder in which no one is safe….

Putin’s Russia differs from the USSR in ideology, but in repression and rapacity, it is comparable. And it’s scarcely believable that the ‘useful idiots’ who make excuses for it today — who actually root for its success — are ‘conservatives.’”

omfg

https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oan-calls-darya-dugina-casualty-joe-bidens-red-regime-and-its-war-impose

8 22

PEARSON SHARP (CORRESPONDENT): Washington's proxy war against Russia claims another victim. Darya Dugina, an innocent journalist, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. On Saturday night, Darya was killed in a massive explosion from a car bomb planted under her father's truck. Evidence suggests that bomb was meant for her father instead – the famous Russian political commentator Aleksandr Dugin, who also happens to be a close friend with president Vladimir Putin. Darya, like her father, has been adamantly opposed to the illegal, criminal, and unprovoked western aggression in eastern Europe, especially towards Russia. Over the last year, she has cemented her reputation as an independent journalist fiercely critical of Joe Biden’s red regime, as well as his efforts to start World War III.

Her reporting took her across the war zones in Ukraine, where she even contributed to a documentary by One America News on the fighting at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. Of course, you can't cover Joe Biden’s shadow war against Moscow without including hispuppets in the corrupt Ukrainian government. Puppets like president Volodymyr Zelensky, who’s been bought and paid for by George Soros. But tragically, truth-telling in journalism is rarely profitable, especially for an independent journalist, and Darya’s courageous reporting made her the target of some very powerful enemies.

…

Naturally, Ukraine is denying any involvement. In a very convincing speech, one of Zelensky's stooges protested that Ukraine couldn't be responsible for the assassination because Ukraine is not a criminal state. No, Ukraine is just run by criminals who are financed by the greatest criminals on Earth, like George Soros, and which works hand in hand with the criminals in the Biden crime syndicate. No, no, no reason to suspect Ukraine.

…

SHARP: Following the brutal assassination, western governments drummed up their allies in the media to pump out attacks on Darya, with the BBC even pushing sickening reports trying to portray her death as justified. The New York Times ran a hit piece on Darya, trying to discredit her work and painting her as a pro-Russian radical, calling her an ultranationalist guilty of spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine.

But for anyone remotely familiar with Darya or her work, that's obviously fake news designed to cover up western war crimes in Ukraine, which Darya was fighting hard to expose.

…

SHARP: These are scenes from the documentary she contributed to for One America News. Darya described the war in Ukraine as the result of liberal fascism,which by definition is exactly what it is. This is a conflict brought on by the liberals, the Democrats in Washington, as a result of the rampant fascism and their war to impose totalitarianism upon the entire world. Darya was absolutely right. And now, she's dead.

…

SHARP: Ultimately, Darya will be remembered as a brave and courageous journalist, who took a stand for freedom, and for the innocent civilians suffering from the illegal wars of Washington. She exposed the crime and corruption behind these conflicts, and paid for it with her life. One more casualty of the criminal war being waged by Joe Biden and his bloody regime.

But as long as we keep her memory alive, and continue reporting the truth about what's happening in Ukraine, then that freedom and her struggle will never die. For One America News, I'm Pearson Sharp.

OAN host uses Nazi youth book burning to push book banning

08/23/22

After Mar-a-Lago search, OAN calls attack on FBI office a false flag

08/15/22

OAN host reacts to FBI Mar-a-Lago search: “We are the closest to Civil War II we've ever been"

08/15/22

recall 50 plus sec ppl said laptop BS // disinfo

grassley and ron johnson useful idiots?

https://www.newsweek.com/key-points-chuck-grassley-letter-accusing-fbi-hunter-biden-cover-1728034

no lnx

u.S.

Key Points From Chuck Grassley Letter Accusing FBI of Hunter Biden Cover-Up

BY KATHERINE FUNG ON 7/26/22

U.S.

FBI

DOJ

CHUCK GRASSLEY

HUNTER BIDEN

Senator Chuck Grassley is accusing the FBI of covering up Hunter Biden's alleged criminal financial activity by purposely launching a campaign to discredit any negative information about the president's son.

On Monday, Grassley wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland saying that "highly credible whistleblowers" have come forward, alleging widespread misconduct by both federal agencies over the handling of derogatory information about Biden in the months leading up to the 2020 election.

"The volume and consistency of these allegations substantiate their credibility and necessitate this letter," the Iowa Republican wrote. He demanded that Wray and Garland turn over a series of documents and records so Congress can perform an independent review of the alleged misconduct.

The letter is the latest development in the senator's efforts to bring attention to the probe into Biden's business dealings. The president's son has been the subject of a federal investigation run by the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware since 2018 over concerns that his financial and business practices potentially involved money laundering and violated U.S. tax laws during his father's time as vice president.

Grassley Hunter Biden FBI

GOP Senator Chuck Grassley is demanding that the FBI's director and the U.S. attorney general turn over documents and records so Congress can perform an independent review of alleged misconduct by Hunter Biden. Above, Grassley speaks to the media on April 4.

In his letter, Grassley also said, "If these allegations are true and accurate, the Justice Department and FBI are—and have been—institutionally corrupted to their very core to the point in which the United States Congress and the American people will have no confidence in the equal application of the law."

Grassley, who serves as the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, named two FBI agents in the letter: FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault.

The senator alleged that Austen opened an assessment in August 2020, which was used by an FBI team to "improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease."

Grassley said it was during that same month that he and GOP Senator Ron Johnson received an "unnecessary" briefing from the FBI that gave their Democratic counterparts ammo to accuse the senators of "advancing foreign disinformation."

DOJ Will Take Action Against Hunter Biden Within 2 Months: Representative

What Is Hunter Biden Being Investigated For? Details of Federal Probe

Hunter Biden, China and BHR—What We Do Know, What We Don't]

Grassley alleged that in October 2020, a month before the presidential election that was won by Biden's father, Thibault ordered the matter closed "without providing a valid reason as required by FBI guidelines."

The senator added that while the Biden matter was closed in a way that would allow for the investigation to be reopened at a later date, the senator has received "credible" allegations that FBI officials tried to mark the matter in agency systems to prevent it from being opened in the future.

In addition to the probe into Biden's financial and business practices, investigators are analyzing whether he acted as an unregistered foreign lobbying agent while working as a consultant and investor for businesses and tycoons in China, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

The FBI told Newsweek it received Grassley's letter but had no additional comment. The Justice Department declined Newsweek's request for comment.

elected to gop in SC

russia hackers amplified or created an amp/escalator?

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-qanon-cyber-idUKL1N2HD00Z

disputed see homegrown?

QAnon received earlier boost from Russian accounts on Twitter, archives show

By Joseph Menn

Nov 2 (Reuters)- Russian government-backed social media accounts nurtured the QAnon conspiracy theory in its infancy, earlier than previously reported, according to interviews with current and former Twitter executives and archives of tweets from suspended accounts.

Researchers said in August that the archives showed Russian accounts had helped spread QAnon in volume beginning in December 2017, reut.rs/2TFWoWc, but that team did not examine the history of specific QAnon promoters. bit.ly/2HTReUh

A more granular review by Reuters shows Russian accounts began amplifying the movement as it started, early in the previous month.

The archives contain more than 4,000 accounts that Twitter suspended for spreading Russian government disinformation in 2018 and 2019 but preserved for researchers.

The trove shows that some of the Russian accounts tweeted about QAnon’s most important popularizer even before the anonymous figure known as Q emerged, then rewarded her with more promotion when she put videos about Q on YouTube.

Asked about support for QAnon, the Russian embassy in Washington said Moscow does not interfere in U.S. politics.

“Malicious activity in the information space contradicts the principles of Russian foreign policy, national interests and our understanding of interstate relations,” a spokesman said.

A current Twitter executive said Russian accounts are not driving the present iteration of QAnon, which has expanded to include baseless claims about COVID-19 and other issues.

The original posts associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory appeared in late October 2017, purporting to be from a Trump insider with “Q” security clearance who said Hillary Clinton faced arrest and her allies were running a massive child-sex ring.

The fantasy was confined to a small piece of the internet for a few days until conservative video blogger Tracy Diaz, known online as TracyBeanz, began to post regular videos promoting it. She soon began amassing undisclosed donors and now has more than 10 million video views on YouTube.

A few Russian accounts had been retweeting Diaz as far back as April 2017, according to the archives of suspended accounts. After her first Q video on Nov. 3, the number of Russian tweets pushing Diaz’ handle surged to 40 monthly through the following spring, the archives show.

Diaz did not respond to an email seeking comment.

It remains unclear how much the Russians influenced Diaz before she hit it big. But former Twitter security staffers said a handful of accounts that tweeted to Diaz from mid-2017 illustrated the extreme difficulty of detecting covert influence.

Now suspended for undisclosed reasons or abandoned by their operators, these accounts claimed to be American but displayed unusual interest in Russian issues. The visible tweets between them and Diaz were first flagged to Reuters by open-source researcher Chris Scott.

One account called CrusadersPost retweeted obscure Russian officials and appeared to be the first account to use the term “Q Anon” on social media, on Nov. 2, according to people with access to all public tweets.

CrusadersPost had reached out to Diaz in April to wish her a happy birthday and offer to help her with a new project.

“YOU ROCK,” she replied. The account also encouraged Diaz to publicize MegaAnon, which preceded and resembled QAnon.

Another Diaz fan ran an account called SlicksTweetz, which the banned Russian accounts mentioned 871 times. The day of her debut Q video, Diaz publicly thanked SlicksTweetz for sharing it.

A week later, as she worked on new videos, she replied to him: “There are so many connections—that’s a good one I hadn’t seen yet :).” (Reporting by Joseph Menn. Editing by Jonathan Weber and Steve Orlofsky)

https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/right-wing-personalities-promote-kremlin-conspiracy-theory-about

no lnx twt

Right-wing personalities promote Kremlin conspiracy theory about biological research facilities in Ukraine

Conspiracy theorists spin an intelligence hearing about Russian disinformation strategy to help excuse Putin's unprovoked invasion

WRITTEN BY CYDNEY HARGIS

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ALEX KAPLAN

PUBLISHED 03/09/22

After the State Department reconfirmed the existence of biological research laboratories in Ukraine and expressed concern Russia may seize them, far-right media accused the United States of both controlling the labs for nefarious purposes and orchestrating a false flag operation against Russia. In reality, the idea that these facilities are controversial, much less a threat to Russia, is a Kremlin-backed conspiracy theory.

During a March 8 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) asked Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland if Ukraine has “chemical or biological weapons.” Nuland responded that Ukraine has “biological research facilities,” adding that the U.S. government was “quite concerned” about the facilities falling into Russian hands. When Rubio noted the existence of a Russian disinformation campaign already in-effect to blame Ukraine for a future release of biological weapons, Nuland replied that “it is classic Russian technique to blame on the other guy what they're planning to do themselves.”

Citation From March 8, 2022, C-SPAN coverage of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing

Russia isn’t the only state actor helping spread this conspiracy theory, which was also promoted by a spokesperson from the Chinese government — following a pattern of Chinese disinformation established during the pandemic.

The conspiracy theory that there are U.S.-funded bioweapons labs in Ukraine, and that they have been directed to destroy whatever pathogens are inside, has been floating around fringe and far-right media for several days since the conflict began. This burgeoning conspiracy theory has followed closely behind what theBritish Ministry of Defense described as “a notable intensification of Russian accusations that Ukraine is developing nuclear or biological weapons,” which the Kremlin hopes could provide “a retrospective justification” for its unprovoked war.

Ukraine does have biological research labs that were modernized as a result of a pact between its Ministry of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense. The U.S. and Ukraine entered into theagreement in 2005 — brokered, in part, by then-Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) – to jointly-prevent the spread of deadly pathogens developed as part of the former Soviet Union’s expansive biological weapons program. As part of the agreement, the U.S. provided funding for security upgrades to the Soviet-era facilities to support the “peaceful research” of infectious diseases.

The DOD’s Biological Threat Reduction Program was designed as part of an arms control program to secure “pathogen strains and sensitive biological knowledge within Ukraine," specifically to prevent those resources from being released or weaponized. In fact, the agreement governing these facilities evolved from the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which assisted Ukraine with the removal and decommissioning of Soviet nuclear weapons.

Some variations of the conspiracy theory go even further to claim that the labs are being run by the U.S. In reality, the labs are funded and operated by the Ukrainian government. But claims to the contrary have existed for years and are part of a Russian disinformation campaign to discredit the U.S. in the eyes of former Soviet republics. Indeed, FactCheck.org produced a full article debunking a previous iteration of this conspiracy theory on March 2, nearly a week before Nuland’s testimony.

Despite the abundance of evidence showing that these are not weapons facilities, far-right media personalities pounced on Nuland’s testimony about “research facilities” in Ukraine to hype Russia’s narrative justifying the invasion and to falsely claim she “confirmed every conspiracy theory about the existence of those labs”:

During the March 9 edition of Real America Voice’s War Room: Pandemic, host Steve Bannon claimed that Nuland was let “off the hook” and told all Florida residents to contact Rubio and ask him if the CIA, Defense Department, or DIA gave him the questions to ask. Bannon went on to play a clip of the hearing and said Rubio should have asked, “Is that a lab? What are they creating? Are we involved in any way? Have we financed it? Are we partners? Do we actually know what’s going on?” Bannon later said that “no Republican should vote for any money on Ukraine, zero dollars,” until we know exactly what is going on with the labs.

On March 9, the Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft shared a video that he said was of the “Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation” telling the U.S. that Russia has “found your biological weapons” after Nuland’s testimony.

In a March 8 Gateway Pundit article, Hoft repeated China’s claim that there are “26 US biological labs in Ukraine alone” before running through the conspiracy theory that there was “biological testing in Ukraine near the Russian border.” Hoft went on to call Nuland’s comments an “explosive development.”

In a March 8 Telegram post, former Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn shared a post claiming, “I was told that biolabs in Ukraine was a conspiracy theory yet here we are. They are now admitting it openly.”

Former 8kun administrator, QAnon influencer, and GOP congressional candidate Ron Watkins shared an Epoch Times article in a March 9 Telegram post that questioned whether Vice President Kamala Harris will “negotiate the cover up of the US Biolabs in Ukraine.”

A March 8 post on thefar-right forum TheDonald shared a video of Nuland’s comments and added, “Another win for conspiracy theorists: the biolabs in Ukraine exist! CONFIRMED!”

A March 8 post on theQAnon forum The Great Awakening shared a video of Nuland from theRussian state media outlet RTand called her comments “Narrative Spin 101.”

In a March 8 Gab post, QAnon influencer Anonymous Patriot shared a post about Nuland’s comments and wrote, “And there it is. PANIC.”

Human Events’ Ian Miles Cheong:

Human Events’ Jack Posobiec:

Far-right conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich:

The Epoch Times’ Hans Mahncke:

Big League Politics:

Far-right commentator Chuck Callesto: