by Joseph Vazquez at mrcNewsBusters
The latest batch of Twitter Files released by Twitter owner Elon Musk blew the lid off a coordinated effort to create “state-sponsored blacklists.”
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi, who unveiled the latest batch March 2, pointed to the George Soros-funded Atlantic Council and the government-backed Global Engagement Center as two of the entities responsible for creating blacklists to target Americans. Taibbi reported that “On June 8, 2021, an analyst at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab [DFRLab] wrote to Twitter: ‘Hi guys. Attached you will find… around 40k twitter accounts that our researchers suspect are engaging in inauthentic behavior… and Hindu nationalism more broadly.’” The Council reportedly suspected the 40,000 accounts of being “‘paid employees or possibly volunteers’ of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).” The problem, wrote Taibbi, was that the list “was full of ordinary Americans, many with no connection to India and no clue about Indian politics.”
Soros’ Open Society Foundations funneled at least $743,625 into the Atlantic Council between 2016 and 2021. But that’s not all. Specifically, the GEC, backed by government entities, reportedly funds the Council’s DFRLab. The Atlantic Council’s involvement in Twitter’ enormous censorship scheme is disturbing, given that the origins of President Joe Biden’s now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) can be traced back to it. According to Taibbi, DFRLab “Director Graham Brookie denies DFRLab [sic] uses tax money to track Americans, saying its GEC grants have ‘an exclusively international focus.’” Yeah, right
1. TWITTER FILES #17
New Knowledge, the Global Engagement Center, and State-Sponsored Blacklists pic.twitter.com/8LuoKY9zzA— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 2, 2023
The GEC has apparently been creating its own separate backlists for Twitter. Taibbi described one case: “Here are 5500 names GEC told Twitter it believed were ‘Chinese… accounts’ engaged in ‘state-backed coordinated manipulation.’ It takes about negative ten seconds to find non-Chinese figures.” GEC’s so-called “‘Chinese’ list included multiple Western government accounts and at least three CNN employees based abroad. ‘Not exactly Anderson’s besties, but CNN assets if you will,’ quipped Twitter’s Patrick Conlon. ‘A total crock,’ added Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.”
The GEC, wrote Taibbi,…
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