Democrats CAUGHT In Russian Bot "False Flag" Smear Campaign
Democrats CAUGHT In Russian Bot "False Flag" Smear Campaign in the Alabama special election. A group called new Knowledge is claiming that the admitted false flag against Republicans was just a small experiment.They were responsible for a mas amount of presumably Russian bots following the Roy Moore campaign on Twitter to trick people into thinking the Russians were propping him up.National media fell for the ruse and the narrative went viral. Left wing writers mocked the Moore campaign for suggesting this was a democratic ploy to smear him. We now know it was.They can claim it was an experiment but this reeks of democratic operatives serving engaging in a political con job and may have actually swung an election.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZsxSVycCwU&index=2&list=PLxQaod7tWvYLNmno21esPdhZknpqmh0H0&t=0s
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As long as we've had this narrative about Russian interference in the U.S.
election, people have correctly pointed out that most countries engage in some kind of disinformation tactic.
The U.S.
does the same thing Russia does.
Well, there's proof.
And now there's more proof.
Because the New York Times recently reported that Democratic operatives engaged in a false flag to create the impression that Russian bots were propping up the Roy Moore campaign in Alabama.
At the time, the Roy Moore campaign said this was likely a ploy from Democrats, some kind of political stunt.
And journalists kind of mocked the idea, saying, yet no way, we know Russians do this.
But in fact, the New York Times and even the Washington Post are carrying this story.
that Democratic tech operatives did, in fact, do this.
Now, they're certainly downplaying it, but Facebook has taken action, removing them from Facebook for engaging in deceptive practices.
So it would seem that Facebook doesn't care if they want to downplay it or not.
They did this.
So today, let's take a look at the latest news to understand just how these Democrats engaged in a false flag operation to create the appearance of Russian bots supporting Republicans.
But before we get started, please head over to TimCast.com forward slash donate if you want to support my work.
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From the New York Times, secret experiment in Alabama Senate race imitated Russian tactics.
As Russia's online election machinations came to light last year, A group of Democratic tech experts decided to try out similarly deceptive tactics in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate race, according to people familiar with the effort and a report on its results.
The secret project, carried out on Facebook and Twitter, was likely too small to have a significant effect on the race.
in which the Democratic candidate it was designed to help, Doug Jones, edged out the Republican, Roy S. Moore.
But it was a sign that American political operatives of both parties have paid close attention to the Russian methods, which some fear may come to taint elections in the United States.
One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathan Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cybersecurity firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia's social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
An internal report on the Alabama effort obtained by the New York Times says explicitly that it, quote, experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections, end quote.
The project's operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore.
It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.
Quote, we orchestrated an elaborate false flag operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet, the report says.
These tactics are not new.
And when I read this story, it sounds to me like this cybersecurity firm is actually lying, or the New York Times is downplaying the severity of what happened.
It is a known fact that political operatives use what's called sock puppetry.
A sock puppet is a fake social media account made to look like a real person and behave like a real person.
In fact, sometimes they create elaborate backstories.
These accounts look and act like regular people, but one person will control 50 personas or more, or less.
The general idea is one person will have multiple accounts pretending to be different people so that they can make people think public opinion sways in one direction or another.
Activists use this tactic all the time.
We know the US government does it.
We know Russia does it.
Hearing that these political operatives were doing this, it is not an experiment, in my opinion.
I have many friends who work in cybersecurity.
I've been very, very familiar with these tactics for years, for over a decade.
I've known about this kind of stuff since I was a kid, working on the internet.
And I have friends who work in cybersecurity who know all about this.
These operatives, in my opinion, it would be very, very unlikely they don't understand the tactic they are engaging in.
To call it an experiment would be absolutely absurd.
A cyber security firm functioning today thinking this is just an experiment?
No way.
We've known about these tactics since the birth of the internet.
Sock puppetry isn't new.
This, in my opinion, is damning evidence that they were engaging in nefarious practices on purpose.
And again, in my opinion, not as an experiment.
Mr. Morgan said in an interview that the Russian botnet ruse, quote, does not ring a bell, adding that others had worked on the effort and had written the report.
He said he saw the project as a small experiment designed to explore how certain online tactics work, not to affect the election.
The research project was intended to help us understand How these kind of campaigns operated, said Mr. Morgan.
We thought it was useful to work in the context of a real election, but design it to have almost no impact.
An experiment.
No impact.
I really, really, really think this person is lying.
Because these kind of tactics have been around forever.
If they're operating as a cybersecurity firm today, and they don't understand how a basic online misinformation campaign works, Then they apparently don't read the news, and they are probably the worst cybersecurity firm I have ever heard of.
The Daily Caller naturally takes a more serious approach to it.
They say, Democrats ran Russian bot false flag operation in Alabama, and media fell for it.
In the story, they show a tweet from Dave Weigel, who said, Roy Moore's campaign suggests that Doug Jones and Democrat operatives are behind the surge of Russian bot followers.
Showing this image.
However, we would like to point out an interesting coincidence.
Before we were able to begin to review and take action on this matter, we were receiving press calls first thing this Monday morning asking about our surge in Russian followers.
We highly doubt that reporters across the country spend most of their free time on Sunday breaking away from church, family, and football to review the Twitter followers of various candidates across the country.
It is more likely that Doug Jones and Democrat operatives are pulling a political stunt on Twitter and alerting their friends in the media.
It's not surprising that they choose the favorite topic of MSNBC and the fake news outlets, the Russian conspiracy.
Democrats can't win this election on the issues, and their desperation is on full display.
Haley Collar says Moore was mocked on Twitter at the time for blaming Democrats for the fake followers.
Andrew Feinberg says, oh really?
Matthew Gertz, this seems totally normal and definitely not shockingly paranoid.
Zach Ford, Roy Moore doesn't know much about journalists, does he?
But we now know it's true.
Now, the Washington Post downplays the severity of what happened, saying, oh, it was just a couple accounts, it wasn't anything that big.
But the report itself claimed They were creating fake followers to make it look like Russia was supporting Roy Moore.
That's in the report.
That's in the New York Times.
The New York Times, I feel like, is being a little bit fair because they do talk about the severity, that it generated national media attention, and they do show the comments from Morgan and his company saying, oh, it's not that big a deal.
So they're trying to be balanced.
But I think the reality is this is severe.
And you're not going to take my word for it.
Facebook has suspended the accounts of some of these people because what they did was serious.
From the Washington Post, Facebook suspends five accounts, including that of a social media researcher for misleading tactics in Alabama elections.
Facebook has suspended the account of Jonathan Morgan, the chief executive of a top social media research firm, After reports that he and others engaged in an operation to spread disinformation during the special election in Alabama last year.
Morgan confirmed his account suspension after Facebook said in a statement that it had taken action against, quote, five accounts run by a multiple individuals for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior, end quote, adding that its investigation is ongoing.
Facebook did not provide a list of the accounts that it suspended, and Morgan declined further comment.
Facebook is quoted as saying, We've removed thousands of pages, groups, and accounts for this kind of behavior, as well as accounts that were violating our policies on spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior during the Alabama special election last year.
Morgan's efforts have stirred controversy because of his role at New Knowledge.
I have a decent amount of experience in information security.
the means in which Russian agents weaponized Facebook, Twitter, and other social media
sites to spread disinformation during the 2016 election and after President Trump took
office.
The revelations also sparked calls on Capitol Hill for the federal government to investigate.
I have a decent amount of experience in information security.
I regularly hang out with hackers.
I've grown up in the hacker community.
And I have to say, in my opinion, this sounds, this is rather terrifying.
If this man, if this organization is providing intel on what Russia is doing, it brings
all of his comments into question.
If Senate lawmakers are using this information to pass judgment, to determine how they should behave, it draws everything they're doing into question.
Here's my opinion and the assumption I can make.
This man and his organization know exactly what they're doing.
Because I know 14-year-olds who do the exact same thing.
There are teenagers who do marketing for big companies with sock puppets and these kinds of tactics.
This is manipulation 101.
It is easy.
It is obvious.
If his organization was caught acting at the behest of Democrats to smear Republicans and then providing information to Senators about Russians, I can only assume they were willfully misleading Senators to try and benefit Democrats.
We know full well, based on the actions taken by Facebook and the report that the New York Times has actually seen and reported on, that these people were acting to benefit Democrats.
Now they'll claim That it was just an experiment, but this is the perfect cover.
What else could they say?
Oh no, we were just trying to better understand these tactics.
Tactics that are used and employed by 14-year-olds all around the world.
A common tactic that most beginners understand.
You were busted.
You were caught doing this.
And that means, again, in my opinion, it sounds like they're working for the Democrats to present negative information on Republicans.
It is a fact that political operatives on the left and the right, they do these things.
And for the time being, it just seems like they're the ones who got caught doing it.
But make no mistake, I assure you, there are Republicans who do the exact same thing.
There are intelligence agencies doing the exact same thing.
And yes, it is likely that Russia does this.
In fact, if the report given to senators is actually credible information, it's probably because they know full well how to do this and said, oh, we'll just tell the Senate how we do it.
Everyone does very similar things.
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
How do you feel about this?
Does it worry you?
Because I've known about this stuff forever, and I know it happens.
It's interesting to see the evidence come to light, but let me know what you think.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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