The latest edition of the “Twitter Files” shows how an “alliance of academics, journalists, intelligence operatives, military personnel, government bureaucrats, NGO workers and more” are working together to silence dissent.
The latest edition was released Tuesday by Andrew Lowenthal, who reportedly spent 18 years as the executive director of Engage Media, a non-governmental organization “devoted to protecting digital rights and freedoms.”
“In recent years, I watched with concern and then despair as a dramatic change swept through my field. Organizations & peers began de-emphasizing freedom of expression, instead promoting surveillance & censorship to combat ‘disinformation.’ … I knew things were bad. When I started work on the #TwitterFiles, I learned: they’re far worse,” Lowenthal writes.
“The Files show an uncanny alliance of academics, journalists, intelligence operatives, military personnel, government bureaucrats, NGO workers and more. … I had always understood ‘civil society’ to mean ‘not the military.’ The former exists to check the latter. So I was shocked to see the depth of collaboration. For instance, ‘civil society’ groups coordinating with Pentagon officials in an ‘election tabletop’ exercise. Why?” he continues.
“In a functioning democracy there’s dynamic tension between government, civil society organizations, news media, and industry, all advancing their own interests, in theory keeping one another honest. In the #TwitterFiles we find them all working together, cartel-style,” he adds, concluding his opener.
View the beginning of the “Files” below:
“1.TWITTER FILES #20
The Information Cartel” pic.twitter.com/nVK5K1NElD
— NetworkAffects (@NAffects) April 25, 2023
As an example of them all working together, Lowenthal includes proof of Twitter’s pre-Elon Musk staff asking for then-Twitter general counsel Jim Baker, a former FBI guy, to give his blessing for EIP and Virality Project partner Graphika to “inform their partners in USG 3-5 days before publication” about a report reportedly detailing Pentagon disinformation operations.
“Graphika receives money from the Pentagon, Navy, and Air Force, while simultaneously supporting human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Working with both the perpetrators & those representing the victims is very 2023,” he writes.
View the proof below:
10. Here Twitter staff ask for Twitter General Counsel (& former FBI Deputy General Counsel) Jim Baker’s blessing for EIP and Virality Project partner Graphika to “inform their partners in USG 3-5 days before publication” of a report detailing Pentagon disinformation operations. pic.twitter.com/wCVQQqnU4N
— NetworkAffects (@NAffects) April 25, 2023
“During the War on Terror the DHS was harshly criticized by progressives for civil rights violations and targeting of Muslims,” Lowenthal continues.
In fact, the Department of Homeland Security still faces massive criticism from the left for daring to arrest and deport illegal aliens — some of them, at least.
Yet ironically enough, DHS is now working “closely with progressive tech.”
Here’s an example of pre-Elon Twitter staff welcoming a DHS staffer’s job application:
12. During the War on Terror the DHS was harshly criticized by progressives for civil rights violations and targeting of Muslims. Now DHS sub-entities like CISA work closely with progressive tech. Here Twitter warmly welcomes a DHS/CISA staffer’s job application. pic.twitter.com/8tqzTs0Xrw
— NetworkAffects (@NAffects) April 25, 2023
“Other DHS staff such as Matt Masterson become fellows at the Stanford Internet Observatory and work on the Virality Project’s censorship of ‘true stories of vaccine side effects.’ The revolving door between academia, government, NGO’s and BigTech is endless,” Lowenthal writes.
As another example, he points to the Hunter Biden exercise completed by the Aspen Institute weeks before the laptop story broke in late 2020 (and was subsequently censored).
Attended by top Twitter staff, the exercise “involved an 11-day scenario in October 2020 that began with the imaginary release of falsified records related to Hunter Biden’s controversial employment by the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which paid him as much as $1 million a year to serve on its board when his father was vice president,” according to the New York Post.
14. As reported by @shellenbergerMD, The Aspen Institute combined WaPo, NYT, Rollingstone, NBC, CNN, Twitter, Facebook, Stanford, and “anti-disinfo” NGOs like FirstDraft to practice an oddly prescient “hack and leak” exercise on the Hunter Biden laptop BEFORE its release. pic.twitter.com/XGVyCHM94r
— NetworkAffects (@NAffects) April 25, 2023
15. When the Hunter Biden laptop story broke, the existence of the recent tabletop exercise became instant important news – but the journalists who’d attended stayed mum, perhaps granting off-the-record privileges to the organizers. pic.twitter.com/hhocN6jHHc
— NetworkAffects (@NAffects) April 25, 2023
16. “We totally blew it on our Burisma tabletop this summer — we didn’t have Trump announcing “Lock him up” until day *nine* of the Burisma information operation” writes Garret Graff, the Aspen Institute’s Director of Cyber Initiatives. pic.twitter.com/xVkZ0xshV3
— NetworkAffects (@NAffects) April 25, 2023
17. “LOL! Ok, off the record, what’s our working theory here of what happened?” replies Noah Shachtman, current Rolling Stone Editor-in-Chief. pic.twitter.com/tn4UhIVLmf
— NetworkAffects (@NAffects) April 25, 2023
Dovetailing back to the present, Lowenthal then draws attention to the recent bombshell that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was behind the phony “Russian disinformation” intelligence letter that was used to censor the Hunter Biden story.
The irony is a little too much for him.
“At RightsCon, civil society’s biggest digital rights event, Blinken spoke [last year] on ‘disinformation’ with Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa,” he writes.
“See how it works? The people accusing others of ‘disinformation’ RUN the biggest disinformation campaigns themselves. Anti-disinformation conferences teem with Beltway journalists – the same names from the Post, Times, Atlantic, and NBC, over and over – but these proto-censorship workshops are often off the record, like defense or intel confabs. Reporters are participants, not adversaries,” he continues.
Bingo!
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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