March 16, 2023
This propaganda is way too obvious.
Russia’s Spring Offensive in Ukraine Could Include Cyberattacks, Microsoft Says - New York Times, Mar 16 2023
Moscow also appears to be stepping up influence operations to weaken European and U.S. support for sending more aid to the Ukrainian government.
A hacking group with ties to the Russian government appears to be preparing new cyberattacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure and government offices, Microsoft said in a report on Wednesday, suggesting that Russia’s long-anticipated spring offensive could include action in cyberspace, as well as on the ground.
...
For now Russia’s main influence campaign is concentrated in Europe, but it will shift to the United States “as the year gets closer to a presidential election debate going into fall,” said Clint Watts, the head of Microsoft’s Digital Threat Analysis Center.
Where, again, have I seen that name?
Latest Twitter Files show media, Dems relied on single source alleging 'Russian bot' activity: 'It was a scam' - Foxnews, Jan 28, 2023
Elon Musk says 'shame on MSNBC' for pushing misleading Russian bots narratives
Substack writer Matt Taibbi previously reported how top Democrats like California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as well as Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, kept promoting claims that the Kremlin had significant influence in public discourse despite being told otherwise by Twitter executives.On Friday, Taibbi did a deep dive into their source, Hamilton 68, a so-called "dashboard" that purportedly monitored Russian bot activity.
Hamilton 68, which was spearheaded by former FBI special agent and MSNBC contributor Clint Watts, was operated by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), a "neoliberal think tank" founded in 2017 with an advisory council that includes Clinton ally John Podesta, former Obama-era acting CIA director Michael Morrell, former Obama official Michael McFaul and The Bulwark editor-at-large Bill Kristol.
Taibbi wrote Hamilton 68 "was the source of hundreds if not thousands of mainstream print and TV news stories in the Trump years."
But behind the scenes, Twitter executives trashed Hamilton 68 and deliberated whether they should publicly rebuke ASD.
"I think we need to just call this out on the bulls--- it is," Twitter's then-head of trust and safety Yoel Roth wrote in an October 2017 email, later writing in January 2018 that the dashboard "falsely accuses a bunch of legitimate right-leaning accounts of being Russian bots."
"Virtually any conclusion drawn from it will take conversations in conservative circles on Twitter and accuse them of being Russian," Roth wrote in February 2018.
Despite such fact based reporting three big wig NYT 'reporters', Julian E. Barnes, David E. Sanger and Marc Santora, continue to repeat the baseless 'disinformation' lies of the known anti-Russia propagandist Clint Watts . This without adding any critical context.
As the first commentator on my previous media education piece noted:
Reporters are garbage.
I would not generalize it like that. Matt Taibbi for one is a good reporter. But some other 'reporters' are indeed producing nothing but a constant stream of the most stinking refuse ever.
Posted by b on March 16, 2023 at 9:46 UTC | Permalink