{"id":1781955,"date":"2022-12-20T16:39:53","date_gmt":"2022-12-20T21:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1781955"},"modified":"2022-12-20T18:36:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-20T23:36:48","slug":"twitter-files-part-eight-reveals-twitter-directly-assisting-in-u-s-military-psy-ops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/twitter-files-part-eight-reveals-twitter-directly-assisting-in-u-s-military-psy-ops\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter Files Part Eight Reveals Twitter Directly Assisting in U.S. Military Psy-ops"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftwitter-files-part-eight-reveals-twitter-directly-assisting-in-u-s-military-psy-ops%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1781955&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" style=\"display: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/original_twitterifles.jpg\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thepostmillennial.com\/michelle-obama-pressured-twitter-to-ban-trump-twitter-files\">An 8th round of Twitter Files<\/a> were released on Tuesday, with a specific focus on Twitter&#8217;s role in directly assisting the US military&#8217;s influence operations. The files were broken down by journalist Lee Fang, who titled them &#8220;How Twitter Quietly Aided the Pentagon\u2019s Covert Online PsyOp Campaign.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Despite promises to shut down covert state-run propaganda networks, Twitter docs show that the social media giant directly assisted the U.S. military\u2019s influence operations,&#8221; Fang said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Twitter has claimed for years that they make concerted efforts to detect &amp; thwart gov-backed platform manipulation. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lhfang\/status\/1605293337288015873\">Here is Twitter testifying to Congress<\/a> about its pledge to rapidly identify and shut down all state-backed covert information operations &amp; deceptive propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But behind the scenes, Twitter gave approval &amp; special protection to the U.S. military\u2019s online psychological influence ops. Despite knowledge that Pentagon propaganda accounts used covert identities, Twitter did not suspend many for around 2 years or more. Some remain active.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In 2017, a U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) official sent Twitter a list of 52 Arab language accounts \u201cwe use to amplify certain messages.\u201d The official asked for priority service for six accounts, verification for one &amp; \u201cwhitelist\u201d abilities for the others.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The same day CENTCOM sent the list, Twitter officials used a tool to grant a special \u201cwhitelist\u201d tag that essentially provides verification status to the accounts w\/o the blue check, meaning they are exempt from spam\/abuse flags, more visible\/likely to trend on hashtags.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The CENTCOM accounts on the list tweeted frequently about U.S. military priorities in the Middle East, including promoting anti-Iran messages, promotion of the Saudi Arabia-U.S. backed war in Yemen, and \u201caccurate\u201d U.S. drone strikes that claimed to only hit terrorists.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;CENTCOM then shifted strategies &amp; deleted disclosures of ties to the Twitter accounts. The bios of the accounts changed to seemingly organic profiles. One bio read: &#8216;Euphrates pulse.&#8217; Another used an apparent deep fake profile pic &amp; claimed to be a source of Iraqi opinion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One Twitter official who spoke to me said he feels deceived by the covert shift,&#8221; Fang wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Still, many emails from throughout 2020 show that high-level Twitter executives were well aware of DoD\u2019s vast network of fake accounts &amp; covert propaganda and did not suspend the accounts,&#8221; Fang continued. &#8220;For example, Twitter lawyer Jim Baker mused in a July 2020 email, about an upcoming DoD meeting, that the Pentagon used &#8220;poor tradecraft&#8221; in setting up its network, and were seeking strategies for not exposing the accounts that are &#8216;linked to each other or to DoD or the USG.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Stacia Cardille, another Twitter attorney, replied that the Pentagon wanted a SCIF &amp; may want to retroactively classify its social media activities &#8216;to obfuscate their activity in this space, and that this may represent an overclassification to avoid embarrassment&#8217;,&#8221; Fang&#8217;s thread continued.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In several other 2020 emails, high-level Twitter executives\/lawyers discussed the covert network and even recirculated the 2017 list from CENTCOM and shared another list of 157 undisclosed Pentagon accounts, again mostly focused on Middle East military issues.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In a May 2020 email, Twitter\u2019s Lisa Roman emailed the DoD w\/two lists. One list was accounts \u201cpreviously provided to us\u201d &amp; another list Twitter detected. The accounts tweeted in Russian &amp; Arabic on US military issues in Syria\/ISIS &amp; many also did not disclose Pentagon ties,&#8221; Fang said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Many of these secretive U.S. military propaganda accounts, despite detection by Twitter as late as 2020 (but potentially earlier) continued tweeting through this year, some not suspended until May 2022 or later, according to records I reviewed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fang continued: &#8220;The U.S. propaganda network relentlessly pushed narratives against Russia, China, and other foreign countries. They accused Iran of &#8220;threatening Iraq\u2019s water security and flooding the country with crystal meth,&#8221; and of harvesting the organs of Afghan refugees.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Stanford report did not identify all of the accounts in the network but one they did name was the exact same Twitter account CENTCOM asked for whitelist privileges in its 2017 email. I verified via Twitter\u2019s internal tools. The account used an AI-created deep fake image.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In subsequent reporting, Twitter was cast as an unbiased hero for removing \u201ca network of fake user accounts promoting pro-Western policy positions.\u201d Media covering the story described Twitter as evenly applying its policies &amp; proactive in suspending the DoD network.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The reality is much more murky. Twitter actively assisted CENTCOM\u2019s network going back to 2017 and as late as 2020 knew these accounts were covert\/designed to deceive to manipulate the discourse, a violation of Twitter\u2019s policies &amp; promises. They waited years to suspend.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Twitter\u2019s comms team was closely in touch with reporters, working to minimize Twitter\u2019s role. When the WashPost reported on the scandal, Twitter officials congratulated each other because the story didn\u2019t mention any Twitter employees &amp; focused largely on the Pentagon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The conduct with the U.S. military\u2019s covert network stands in stark contrast with how Twitter has boasted about rapidly identifying and taking down covert accounts tied to state-backed influence operations, including Thailand, Russia, Venezuela, and others since 2016.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In response to the new set of Twitter Files being released, site owner Elon Musk simply said, &#8220;Yikes!&#8221; The Tesla CEO had previously teased that there were <a href=\"https:\/\/thepostmillennial.com\/breaking-elon-musk-says-theres-more-smoking-guns-to-come-and-hes-not-suicidal\">more smoking guns to come.<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>This is a breaking news story and will be updated.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An 8th round of Twitter Files were released on Tuesday, with a specific focus on Twitter&#8217;s role in directly assisting the US military&#8217;s influence operations. The files were broken down<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1897332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Twitter Files Part Eight Reveals Twitter Directly Assisting in U.S. Military Psy-ops","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[10684,5458,5665,4505,10683,3819,5114,4253,7238],"class_list":["post-1781955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-assisting","tag-bongino","tag-files","tag-military","tag-psy-ops","tag-report","tag-reveals","tag-twitter","tag-u-s"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Twitter Files Part Eight Reveals Twitter Directly Assisting in U.S. Military Psy-ops","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1781955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1781955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1781955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1897332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1781955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1781955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1781955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}