A closer look into a college professor/Harvard law grad driving the attacks — In August 2021, I wrote about New York Times journalist, Farnaz Fassihi, being targeted on Twitter by sockpuppet accounts that artificially amplify the content of authentic accounts, while also attempting to character assassinate her simply for doing her job — namely, reporting on Iran. Unfortunately, Twitter continues to allow such…

Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal, put forward a 16 tweet thread yesterday addressing Elon Musk’s claim that more than 5% of Twitter’s user base is comprised of inauthentic accounts:

How inauthentic Twitter accounts are being used to create the illusion of support — Having spent the past week attending NFT.NYC — where more than 5 thousand tickets were sold and several additional thousand people were in NYC for the event — NFTs are all the rage these days. OpenSea, the dominant NFT marketplace (with 60% market share), was created in December 2017, and…

How inauthentic Twitter accounts are being used to create the illusion of support — In December 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Ripple and two of their executives — Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse — with raising “over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.” This triggered the online community of XRP supporters, which is often referred to…

Twitter refuses to curb online attacks directed at Farnaz Fassihi — The New York Times issued a statement last week standing by one of their journalists, Farnaz Fassihi, who, for months, has “faced vile threats and attacks” on Twitter: Social media platforms have been revolutionary in that they have given voices to those who otherwise may not have gotten their stories…

Twitter refuses to curb platform manipulation targeting U.S. citizens — The Dissident — a documentary that tells the story of the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi — was released to U.S. audiences in December 2020. Prior to Khashoggi’s murder (October 2018), for years, he was targeted online by Saudi’s “electronic army” (or “electronic flies”) — state-backed information operations anchored by a…

Being doxed by a Twitter account linked to a joint intelligence operation — On January 29th, 2019, in the midst of having my Twitter account swarmed by hordes of inauthentic accounts, there was a flurry of notifications, in particular, that I found especially troubling. Two weeks prior, I tweeted a thread highlighting how #WeSupportPolandSummit was manipulated, resulting in the hashtag trending:

Twitter has failed to provide researchers with the tools to stop disinformation, while simultaneously profiting off of it — Pam is 42. She is a white, stay-at-home mom who lives in Bloomington, IL. Pam has two kids, a nice house, a yellow lab named Jackson, and a Twitter account. She seems like a nice lady. Her dad was in Vietnam and she is a proud American who has voted…

Twitter’s CEO has touted the anti-Semitic GOP political operative behind 2020's “Stop The Steal” protests — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was booted from Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify in August 2018. Twitter, on the other hand, opted to allow Jones on their platform for a month longer than their peers, permanently suspending his account in September 2018. A year earlier, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, initiated discussion…