Left-wing think tank responsible for fake stories about Russia
A left-wing think tank falsely claiming to track Russian online activity was responsible for thousands of false stories claiming the nation’s influence in American politics, according to the latest batch of Twitter files.
The Hamilton 68 “dashboard” was designed by former FBI special agent and MSNBC contributor Clint Watts and operated under the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a think tank founded in 2017 – shortly after. the inauguration of former President Trump.
The ASD’s advisory board included figures such as Clinton’s top ally John Podesta, Obama-era acting CIA director Michael Morell, former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and the former Conservative activist, Bill Kristol.
The latest Twitter Files disclosure, the 15th to date, revealed how Hamilton 68’s Russian bot dashboard repeatedly insisted on widespread and deep Russian penetration of social media and revealed that Twitter executives disputed frequently these assertions internally.
“I think we just have to call this on the bulls,” Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then head of trust and safety, wrote in an October 2017 email. a bunch of legitimate right-wing accounts of being Russian bots,” he added in January 2018.
The emails in the disclosure show that Twitter’s own internal audits have repeatedly shown that the accounts reported by Hamilton 68 were not Russian bots.
John Podesta was on the ASD Advisory Board.
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Yoel Roth Roth wanted to publicly push back Hamilton 68.
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“It was a scam. … Hamilton 68 simply rounded up a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts and portrayed their organic conversations as Russian intrigue,” wrote Matt Taibbi, who released the last installment of files on Friday.
The Hamilton 68 statements have been used to allege a hidden Russian hand in American politics from hundreds, if not thousands, of news reports during the Trump years.
While Roth publicly wanted to push back against Hamilton 68, he was warned against taking on the politically connected group by Emily Horne, then Twitter’s head of global political communications.
An email from Yael Roth revealed in the new Twitter files.
Another email from Roth that was revealed in the latest info dump.
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“We need to be careful how much we publicly push back against ASDs,” she wrote.
The private sector baiting Russia followed a similar approach from the United States government, which repeatedly asked the company to find Russian influence that its internal audits have consistently found to be non-existent, others have shown. slices of Twitter Files.
In the run-up to the Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden, Twitter executives have been working closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other intelligence agencies, where the company has been warned to be on guard against scam operations. overseas hacking – specifically surrounding President Biden’s son.
New York Post
