I have tried to keep the numbering of this series compatible with the series itself as posted to Twitter Files. I might otherwise pass over the twenty-first installment of the series — “How to find Russians anywhere.” This thread was written by Matt Orfalea together with his colleague Matt Taibbi (per tweet number 26) and is accessible via the the tweet below. The thread now consists of 27 tweets that are “unrolled” here by the Thread Reader app.
1/ #TWITTERFILES 21
How to Find Russians AnywherePt.1 – PROJECT OSPREY –
After the 2016 election, the Senate Intel Committee asked Twitter to identify accounts from Russia's Internet Research Agency. But both Twitter and 3rd party researchers struggled to find Russian agents. pic.twitter.com/MZHGnIV157
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) April 25, 2023
The thread comes in two parts with a third part (“How to find disinformation everywhere”) promised in a forthcoming installment of the series (see tweet number 26 on this point as well). You have to love that graphic they composed for tweet number 1. It applies to several installments of the Twitter Files. I’m departing from my past practice to use it as the thumbnail for this post. It is taken from the video posted in tweet number 14, which I separately posted in “A Twitter Files footnote (18),” in which I also noted Orfalea’s Twitter Files part 21 thread.
Part 1 of this thread (tweets 1-12) covers Project Osprey. Project Osprey was Twitter’s effort to identify accounts from Russia’s Internet Research Agency (“IRA”). Like Joe McCarthy’s “list,” the list expanded. In this case it expanded to meet the needs of Twitter’s Dem masters. Tweet number 10 shows the dynamic in play.
10/ After Twitter's early attempts to identify Russian accounts resulted in such low numbers, they used different methodologies, tallying ever-increasing numbers of "Russians," from 22 to 201 to 2700 to 2,752 to 3,124 (in Osprey), & finally, 3,814. pic.twitter.com/XNhpT323RC
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) April 25, 2023
Part 2 of the thread (“”Russian troll hunters”) kicks in at tweet number 13. Twitter itself knew that the outsiders identifying IRA accounts lacked “the chops” to do it. Meet Clemson “Troll Hunter” profs Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren, gurus of Clemson’s impressive-sounding Media Forensics Hub (tweets 15-25). Actually, I was happier before I met them. Orfalea winds up part 2 with Linvill’s mealymouthed concession below.
25/ After years of Red Scare stories (citing the Clemson duo, Ham68, & others) that fueled such awful censorship, Linvill leveled with PBS in 2022: "You know, Russian trolls aren't as common as people think they are." pic.twitter.com/5B3SkzbxlA
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) April 25, 2023
In case you missed it last week, here is the companion video posted at Taibbi’s Racket News site.
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