Matt Taibbi has posted the fifteenth installment of the Twitter Files. It is a thread that comes in 42 tweets that can be accessed via the first (below) or read in unrolled form via the Thread Reader app here.
1.THREAD: Twitter Files #15
MOVE OVER, JAYSON BLAIR: TWITTER FILES EXPOSE NEXT GREAT MEDIA FRAUD pic.twitter.com/bLRpDpuWql— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
Taibbi’s thread addresses the Hamilton 68 “dashboard” fronted by Clint Watts and the Alliance for Securing Democracy. Good grief! Even the name of the organization is a giveaway.
The “dashboard” purported to identify malign Russian influence on Twitter. The Hamilton 68 story is a subplot in the Russia! Russia! Russia! hoax. Twitter executives themselves quickly sussed out the “dashboard” as complete and utter “bullshit.” See tweets 2-5, 10-21, 25, & 34-36 in Taibbi’s thread. Taibbi himself declares in 15: “It was a scam.” And in tweet 32: “It was a lie.” Yet for public purposes Twitter remained passive and silent.
6.The “dashboard” was headed by former FBI counterintelligence official (and current MSNBC contributor) Clint Watts, and funded by a neoliberal think tank, the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD). pic.twitter.com/XW4JXfAlGM
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
ASD features an interesting cast of characters.
7.The ASD advisory council includes neoconservative writer Bill Kristol, former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, ex-Hillary for America chief John Podesta, and former heads or deputy heads of the CIA, NSA, and the Department of Homeland Security. pic.twitter.com/Nug3CpF6iK
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
Well, so what? This is the point.
28.What makes this an important story is the sheer scale of the news footprint left by Hamilton 68’s digital McCarthyism. The quantity of headlines and TV segments dwarfs the impact of individual fabulists like Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass. pic.twitter.com/zfyjLb5Tkq
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
And then, of course, we have this.
30.These stories raised fears in the population, and most insidious of all, were used to smear people like Tulsi Gabbard as foreign “assets,” and drum up sympathy for political causes like Joe Biden’s campaign by describing critics as Russian-aligned. pic.twitter.com/3lsuG1ZTrd
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
As I say, for public purposes Twitter remained silent. Yet they tried clued in reporters behind the scenes.
33.Twitter didn’t have the guts to out Hamilton 68 publicly but did try to speak to reporters off the record. “Reporters are chafing,” said Horne. “It’s like shouting into a void.” pic.twitter.com/aJEJvcOu47
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
Taibbi sought comment from participants in the lie.
37.MSNBC, Watts, the Washington Post, Politico, Mother Jones (which did at least 14 Hamilton 68 stories), the Alliance for Securing Democracy, and the offices of politicians like Dianne Feinstein all refused comment, unless this counts: pic.twitter.com/N2mav6JhOW
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
This should be noted as well.
38.This was an academic scandal as well, as Harvard, Princeton, Temple, NYU, GWU, and other universities promoted Hamilton 68 as a source: pic.twitter.com/CyzGnVUjh5
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
Taibbi comments:
40.The mix of digital McCarthyism and fraud did great damage to American politics and culture. News outlets that don't disavow these stories, or still pay Hamilton vets as analysts, shouldn't be trusted. Every subscriber to those outlets to write to editors about the issue.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
As Taibbi notes in tweet in tweet 37 above, this is ASD’s “response.” It can be accessed via the ASD tweet below.
ASD's response to Twitter Files reporting on Hamilton 68:https://t.co/n32dvNvvZr
— Alliance for Securing Democracy (@SecureDemocracy) January 27, 2023
Taibbi separately comments on the ASD response.
This is an incredibly weak response that I can’t wait to address in print. And by the way — I gave all of you every opportunity to address these issues pre-publication, and you chose to answer only after seeing the overwhelming response to this story. Says a lot. https://t.co/nWatEOKJ9b
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 28, 2023
As always, I urge interested readers to take in the whole thing with your own eyes.
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