9 ms·

New disclosures to our archive of state-backed information operations

167 points by chippy 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Jamwinner 7y ago
> on behalf of — but not necessarily with the knowledge of — their clients I get that twitter has to cover its assets, but how likely is 5000 troll strong army working on your behalf, as vocally as possible, and as a country with heavily monitored internet, not notice. The razor of fuzzy logic falls in the obvious place.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- gertrunde 7y ago
  The 5000 is just the sample in the dataset, taken from the full 88000 accounts that were part of this operation.
michalu 7y ago
What's "transparent" about showing subjectively flagged posts? Even using words like 'disclosures' comes across quite fishy considering these are posts marked on belief and some subjectively developed algorithms.
- sigmar 7y ago
  That's not what they're doing. Very clear these aren't just "flagged posts" and that twitter evaluated where they came from. > Our investigations have traced the source of the coordinated activity to Smaat, a social media marketing and management company based in Saudi Arabia.
techntoke 7y ago
Yet nothing about the American spam accounts doing the same thing in American politics.
- account73466 7y ago
  Dear downvoters, please also let us know what you think about it.
  - everythingswan 7y ago
    Did not downvote but the examples included on their transparency page linked from the above article only has example of american-centric propaganda. https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.html https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.h...
    - account73466 7y ago
      Thanks! Seems like all of them are pro-Trump (I am not his supporter).
  - nabla9 7y ago
    Whataboutism. Story about one thing. But whatabout this. >It is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.[4][5][6] When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Soviet response would often be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
    - jessant 7y ago
      Whataboutism would be to say it is okay for other countries to do it because the US is doing it. It is not whataboutism to say that neither should do it and that the US is getting away with it. Any criticism of the US seems to be met with accusations of whataboutism.
dsypa 7y ago
I don't believe this can be ever solved. I think the best thing that can be done is wait 1-2 generations; by then nobody will believe anything they see in the media or in social networks.
- saalweachter 7y ago
  Do you think that future world where nobody knows anything will be better than the current world?
  - account73466 7y ago
    Knowledge inequality is growing the same way as economic inequality is growing.
- hos234 7y ago
  Here's a difference view - https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10464 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10464 And Twitter themselves are talking out being "excited" about the emergence of "social intelligence" - https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/insights/2019/the-state-of-social-intelligence-2019-year-in-review.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/insights/2019/the-stat...
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > I think the best thing that can be done is wait 1-2 generations; by then nobody will believe anything they see in the media or in social networks. That's not the best thing, that's the worst thing. The goal of disinformation campaigns is to make people so distrustful and confused that the adversary's social cohesion is compromised to the point where they become disorganized and less able to respond to threats. This New York Times video explains it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo.
edent 7y ago
It's a pity that they don't tell users that they have interacted with a spam account. Would it be helpful for you to know that you inadvertently shared propaganda?
- Jestar342 7y ago
  The cynic in me is concluding that twitter have measured that this would actually cause users to leave their platform. Again I have no data to back this up, so this is purely anecdotal - the amount of people I see sending re-tweets of probably-a-bot bullshit has me convinced that a huge part of twitter's "success" is built on it.
  - account73466 7y ago
    Hmm, it seems that you are good at hiding your preferences, otherwise propaganda would be much better tailored.
    - Jestar342 7y ago
      Quite. I think it's also indicative that the 1st goal of this tailored propaganda is not to find the recipients that will be convinced. No, that comes second to _keeping it away from those who will/can question it, and by extension, refute it_.
      - account73466 7y ago
        Nigerian prince does not want to waste his time, he is only interested in easy-to-manipulate people.
        nothrabannosir 7y ago
        I can’t remember where I read this but someone put this forth as a motivation behind the “obviously” fake nature of SPAM: an early filter for people who would call it out. Seems like a plausible theory.
chippy 7y ago
The actual archive is here: https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.html https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.h... and the data added today was about 5,929 accounts from/by? Saudi Arabia and 1.3Tb of media they uploaded
account73466 7y ago
Is it even legal for Twitter to disclose activities of US-based intelligence agencies? (I assume that most worldwide agencies play on Twitter in one way or another)
- topkai22 7y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but I think broadly speaking US law would not prohibit that disclosure. The major exception would be investigations covered under some sort of a gag order. Overall though, the constitutional protections for freedom of the press and speech are strong and well tested in the courts.
- mistermann 7y ago
  Considering some of the confidential things that have accidentally leaked into the public sphere in the last few years, I think it's fairly safe to assume at this point that US/Western government(s) and tech firms have a fairly collaborative relationship. Some people even suggest [0] this relationship extends into strategic, multi-domain operations, but since such ideas are obviously conspiracy theories (and therefore conclusively false, as per the epistemically infallible Occam's Razor technique), they should be considered only for their entertainment value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Operations_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Operations_(United... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOTYgcdNrXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOTYgcdNrXE
  - qnsi 7y ago
    Occams Razor doesnt have to be right. I dont mean to talk about your speculations, but its not bulletproof method of reasoning
    - mistermann 7y ago
      Wait, surely you're not suggesting Occam's Razor is merely an abductive heuristic or something like that, are you?
      - 7y ago
latchkey 7y ago
Why is it so easy to create fake accounts on services like Twitter? If they really wanted to provide a service to humans, what is with making it so that a single group can create 88k fake accounts on a whim.
- carstenhag 7y ago
  The alternative would be the chinese model, where you need to type in your ID number in order to be able to play. Which nobody (rightfully so) wants. Albeit, it seems like there are loopholes: https://www.abacusnews.com/big-guns/gamers-say-they-can-cheat-tencents-id-check-system-games/article/2171959 https://www.abacusnews.com/big-guns/gamers-say-they-can-chea...
  - tnolet 7y ago
    The alternative could be a Stripe-like model where as you start using your account more seriously, you need to start supplying more serious identification. Gradual identification or something like that.
    - secfirstmd 7y ago
      What about people in countries were freedom of expression as a very dangerous concept? You would risk endangering them by forcing them to use identification.
      - CharlesColeman 7y ago
        This. There are both honest and dishonest reasons to seek anonymity. That tension makes this a very difficult problem to solve satisfactorily, in the context of liberal democracy. The decision is much easier in authoritarian states, because authoritarians typically hate and fear honest domestic political dissidents even more than they do foreign information agents.
        tzs 7y ago
eplanit 7y ago
I love the new oxymoronic phrase: "aggressive liking". I had to first get past the hilarious opener: "Transparency is at the heart of everything we do at Twitter."
- bilekas 7y ago
  To be honest Twitter are WAY down on the list of offenders.. Case in point are articles like this
- diyseguy 7y ago
  "aggressive liking" is that like a "heart attack"?
mistermann 7y ago
I think most HN'ers can appreciate the idea that the way we read technical news articles is distinctly different from how non-technical people (say, your Grandma) would read them. Two different parties can read the exact same article, but come away with very different interpretations. (Some of the reasons for this are obvious, but depending on the topic there are also others that are not so obvious.) In the spirit of cultivating understanding of the differences between individual people with the goal of working towards a more harmonious, peaceful future, and also just for a little tongue-in-cheek fun on a Friday morning, here is a bit of insight into how (eye-catching key phrases excerpted) a distrustful-of-all-authority, possibly insane, unapologetic conspiracy theorist hyper-critically reads articles like this... > Transparency is at the heart of everything we do at Twitter. "transparency", "everything" > That’s why we routinely disclose datasets of information operations we can reliably link to state actors. "That’s why", "reliably", "link to" > Today, we are sharing comprehensive data about 5,929 accounts which we have removed for violating our platform manipulation policies. "Comprehensive" > Rigorous investigations by our Site Integrity team have allowed us to attribute these accounts to a significant state-backed information operation on Twitter originating in Saudi Arabia. I wonder what the terms "investigations", "attribute", and "originating in Saudi Arabia" mean, precisely? Is source code available so we can see for ourselves what they actually mean? What with transparency being at the heart of everything they do at Twitter and all. > In order to protect the privacy of potentially compromised accounts repurposed to engage in platform manipulation, and in response to researcher feedback requesting that we pre-filter unrelated spam, we have not disclosed data for all 88,000 accounts. Hmmm. > In the interest of offering meaningful transparency, the dataset we are disclosing includes a representative, random sample of the fake and spammy accounts associated with this broader network. "Meaningful" transparency. "Representative, random" sample. "associated with" > Our investigations have traced the source of the coordinated activity to Smaat, a social media marketing and management company based in Saudi Arabia. "Traced", "the source" > Our in-house technical indicators show that Smaat appears to have created, purchased, and/or managed these accounts on behalf of — but not necessarily with the knowledge of — their clients. "technical indicators", "show", "appears to have" ----------------------- Now, an obvious shortcoming (in addition to the obvious mental health issues) contributing to my ludicrous interpretation of such articles is my lack of knowledge in current, (known) state of the art capabilities in spoofing identity on the internet (all criticism welcome), as well as the confidential processes and capabilities within Twitter. For the latter, there is some PR-speak information here: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/information-ops-on-twitter.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/informati... > How do we do it? > Our Site Integrity team is dedicated to identifying and investigating suspected platform manipulation on Twitter, including potential state-backed activity. In partnership with teams across the company, we employ a range of open-source and proprietary signals and tools to identify when attempted coordinated manipulation may be taking place, as well as the actors responsible for it. We also partner closely with governments, law enforcement, and our peer companies to improve our understanding of the actors involved in information operations and develop a holistic strategy for addressing them. "identifying", "suspected", "potential", "a range", "proprietary", "signals", "identify", "may be", "actors responsible", "improve our understanding" ----------------------- Possibly related: https://toinformistoinfluence.com/2012/06/15/images-a-matter-of-perspective/ https://toinformistoinfluence.com/2012/06/15/images-a-matter... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address_spoofing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address_spoofing https://theintercept.com/2017/02/20/how-to-run-a-rogue-government-twitter-account-with-an-anonymous-email-address-and-a-burner-phone/ https://theintercept.com/2017/02/20/how-to-run-a-rogue-gover... https://www.expressvpn.com/support/troubleshooting/spoof-location-google-chrome/ https://www.expressvpn.com/support/troubleshooting/spoof-loc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4g7jay/updated_compilation_of_confirmed_conspiracy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4g7jay/updated_... ----------------------- Meta: How a non-conspiracy theorist might read this comment: "So what you're saying is", you believe that this article, and all articles like it, are 100% fake news, that everything is a vast conspiracy. Possibly related: https://reformedperspective.ca/so-what-youre-saying-is/ https://reformedperspective.ca/so-what-youre-saying-is/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/we-human-machines-hallucinate-our-reality-in-diluted-states-of-consciousness-90a15e94834d https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/we-human-machines-hall...
daveslash 7y ago
I hate that you have to have a Google account to access/download this data.
patelajay285 7y ago
We recently released a dataset for NLP / disinformation researchers around similar content found being posted on YouTube instead of Twitter which contains images as well as text. https://media.plasticity.ai/youtube-disinformation-report/ https://media.plasticity.ai/youtube-disinformation-report/ People interested in the Twitter dataset might also find these results useful.
- salimmadjd 7y ago
  How come there are no information on your site about the founders, team, investors, etc. It’s hard to take you seriously as the arbitrators of transparency when there is no disclosure about your own company.
  - patelajay285 7y ago
    We're a YC backed company (YC S17). Nothing to hide, there's plenty of information on us online (CrunchBase, blog posts, TechCrunch, etc.)
    - shaki-dora 7y ago
      If there's nothing to hide, why not publish it where people would check first, i. e. on your website? There are countries where that's required by law. And while that may be on the rather too heavy side of regulation, I have on occasion rage-quit a vendor's site because I couldn't find this most basic information.
      - patelajay285 7y ago
        We're based in the United States, there are no such regulations. Many companies don't post information about their founders and investors on their homepage (Stripe, Airbnb, Google, Apple, etc.). You should be able to find information about us just as easily as any other YC company / SV company. We haven't taken any additional steps to hide anything. I'm not sure I understand your concern about this.
bilekas 7y ago
> Dec 2019 Saudi Arabie - Media (1.3 TB) .. thats a ridiculous amount.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dkural 7y ago
It's so sad that the US president eats from Saudi Propaganda's hands, with Crown Prince Jared Kushner being close friends with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/world/middleeast/saudi-mbs-jared-kushner.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/world/middleeast/saudi-mb..., https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/world/middleeast/kushner-saudi-arabia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/world/middleeast/kushner-...) to the point of excluding professional US diplomats: "The First Son-in-Law reportedly did not allow U.S. embassy staffers into his meeting with M.B.S." You'd think you want some of this stuff on record. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-mbs-meeting https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/jared-kushner-saudi-... I guess bone-sawing errant journalists for WaPo is not a big deal for some.
- Fauntleroy 7y ago
  Why would it be a big deal for him? He's pretty much let it slip that he'd love to do the same to journalists he himself dislikes.
  - shadow-banned 7y ago
    Correct, this isn't surprising considering the US president right now.
- eloff 7y ago
  I'm sure it's a small deal, but the U.S. needs Saudi Arabia a lot more than it values the life of a single human being. I'd expect any of its leaders to rebuke the Saudis, but not to the point of losing then as an ally. That's logical, even if immoral. Putting the greater good above the good of individuals is the job of the state in a nutshell. What is reprehensible here is Trump had not even gone so far as to offer a rebuke or a wrist slap here. That's unfortunate since it tells the Saudis they can continue to get away with this in the future.
  - billfruit 7y ago
    I'd also contrast with what Obama did when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane with the loss of a pilot, he didn't even offer the slightest of rebukes to Turkey, but rather slapped additional sanctions on Russia. Standing by allies right or wrong seems to be a bipartisan thing.
jascii 7y ago
"Transparency is at the heart of everything we do at Twitter." https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.html https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.h... "Enter your email to access the archives:" Transparency by putting up roadblocks to access?!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

167 points by chippy 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

> on behalf of — but not necessarily with the knowledge of — their clients I get that twitter has to cover its assets, but how likely is 5000 troll strong army working on your behalf, as vocally as possible, and as a country with heavily monitored internet, not notice. The razor of fuzzy logic falls in the obvious place.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gertrunde 7y ago
The 5000 is just the sample in the dataset, taken from the full 88000 accounts that were part of this operation.

michalu 7y ago

What's "transparent" about showing subjectively flagged posts? Even using words like 'disclosures' comes across quite fishy considering these are posts marked on belief and some subjectively developed algorithms.

sigmar 7y ago
That's not what they're doing. Very clear these aren't just "flagged posts" and that twitter evaluated where they came from. > Our investigations have traced the source of the coordinated activity to Smaat, a social media marketing and management company based in Saudi Arabia.

techntoke 7y ago

Yet nothing about the American spam accounts doing the same thing in American politics.

account73466 7y ago
Dear downvoters, please also let us know what you think about it.
- everythingswan 7y ago
  Did not downvote but the examples included on their transparency page linked from the above article only has example of american-centric propaganda. https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.html https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.h...
  - account73466 7y ago
    Thanks! Seems like all of them are pro-Trump (I am not his supporter).
- nabla9 7y ago
  Whataboutism. Story about one thing. But whatabout this. >It is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.[4][5][6] When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Soviet response would often be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
  - jessant 7y ago
    Whataboutism would be to say it is okay for other countries to do it because the US is doing it. It is not whataboutism to say that neither should do it and that the US is getting away with it. Any criticism of the US seems to be met with accusations of whataboutism.

dsypa 7y ago

I don't believe this can be ever solved. I think the best thing that can be done is wait 1-2 generations; by then nobody will believe anything they see in the media or in social networks.

saalweachter 7y ago
Do you think that future world where nobody knows anything will be better than the current world?
- account73466 7y ago
  Knowledge inequality is growing the same way as economic inequality is growing.
hos234 7y ago
Here's a difference view - https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10464 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10464 And Twitter themselves are talking out being "excited" about the emergence of "social intelligence" - https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/insights/2019/the-state-of-social-intelligence-2019-year-in-review.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/insights/2019/the-stat...
CharlesColeman 7y ago
> I think the best thing that can be done is wait 1-2 generations; by then nobody will believe anything they see in the media or in social networks. That's not the best thing, that's the worst thing. The goal of disinformation campaigns is to make people so distrustful and confused that the adversary's social cohesion is compromised to the point where they become disorganized and less able to respond to threats. This New York Times video explains it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo.

edent 7y ago

It's a pity that they don't tell users that they have interacted with a spam account. Would it be helpful for you to know that you inadvertently shared propaganda?

Jestar342 7y ago
The cynic in me is concluding that twitter have measured that this would actually cause users to leave their platform. Again I have no data to back this up, so this is purely anecdotal - the amount of people I see sending re-tweets of probably-a-bot bullshit has me convinced that a huge part of twitter's "success" is built on it.
- account73466 7y ago
  Hmm, it seems that you are good at hiding your preferences, otherwise propaganda would be much better tailored.
  - Jestar342 7y ago
    Quite. I think it's also indicative that the 1st goal of this tailored propaganda is not to find the recipients that will be convinced. No, that comes second to _keeping it away from those who will/can question it, and by extension, refute it_.
    - account73466 7y ago
      Nigerian prince does not want to waste his time, he is only interested in easy-to-manipulate people.
      - nothrabannosir 7y ago
        I can’t remember where I read this but someone put this forth as a motivation behind the “obviously” fake nature of SPAM: an early filter for people who would call it out. Seems like a plausible theory.

chippy 7y ago

The actual archive is here: https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.html https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.h... and the data added today was about 5,929 accounts from/by? Saudi Arabia and 1.3Tb of media they uploaded

account73466 7y ago

Is it even legal for Twitter to disclose activities of US-based intelligence agencies? (I assume that most worldwide agencies play on Twitter in one way or another)

topkai22 7y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I think broadly speaking US law would not prohibit that disclosure. The major exception would be investigations covered under some sort of a gag order. Overall though, the constitutional protections for freedom of the press and speech are strong and well tested in the courts.
mistermann 7y ago
Considering some of the confidential things that have accidentally leaked into the public sphere in the last few years, I think it's fairly safe to assume at this point that US/Western government(s) and tech firms have a fairly collaborative relationship. Some people even suggest [0] this relationship extends into strategic, multi-domain operations, but since such ideas are obviously conspiracy theories (and therefore conclusively false, as per the epistemically infallible Occam's Razor technique), they should be considered only for their entertainment value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Operations_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Operations_(United... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOTYgcdNrXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOTYgcdNrXE
- qnsi 7y ago
  Occams Razor doesnt have to be right. I dont mean to talk about your speculations, but its not bulletproof method of reasoning
  - mistermann 7y ago
    Wait, surely you're not suggesting Occam's Razor is merely an abductive heuristic or something like that, are you?
    - 7y ago

latchkey 7y ago

Why is it so easy to create fake accounts on services like Twitter? If they really wanted to provide a service to humans, what is with making it so that a single group can create 88k fake accounts on a whim.

carstenhag 7y ago
The alternative would be the chinese model, where you need to type in your ID number in order to be able to play. Which nobody (rightfully so) wants. Albeit, it seems like there are loopholes: https://www.abacusnews.com/big-guns/gamers-say-they-can-cheat-tencents-id-check-system-games/article/2171959 https://www.abacusnews.com/big-guns/gamers-say-they-can-chea...
- tnolet 7y ago
  The alternative could be a Stripe-like model where as you start using your account more seriously, you need to start supplying more serious identification. Gradual identification or something like that.
  - secfirstmd 7y ago
    What about people in countries were freedom of expression as a very dangerous concept? You would risk endangering them by forcing them to use identification.
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      This. There are both honest and dishonest reasons to seek anonymity. That tension makes this a very difficult problem to solve satisfactorily, in the context of liberal democracy. The decision is much easier in authoritarian states, because authoritarians typically hate and fear honest domestic political dissidents even more than they do foreign information agents.
      - tzs 7y ago

eplanit 7y ago

I love the new oxymoronic phrase: "aggressive liking". I had to first get past the hilarious opener: "Transparency is at the heart of everything we do at Twitter."

bilekas 7y ago
To be honest Twitter are WAY down on the list of offenders.. Case in point are articles like this
diyseguy 7y ago
"aggressive liking" is that like a "heart attack"?

mistermann 7y ago

I think most HN'ers can appreciate the idea that the way we read technical news articles is distinctly different from how non-technical people (say, your Grandma) would read them. Two different parties can read the exact same article, but come away with very different interpretations. (Some of the reasons for this are obvious, but depending on the topic there are also others that are not so obvious.) In the spirit of cultivating understanding of the differences between individual people with the goal of working towards a more harmonious, peaceful future, and also just for a little tongue-in-cheek fun on a Friday morning, here is a bit of insight into how (eye-catching key phrases excerpted) a distrustful-of-all-authority, possibly insane, unapologetic conspiracy theorist hyper-critically reads articles like this... > Transparency is at the heart of everything we do at Twitter. "transparency", "everything" > That’s why we routinely disclose datasets of information operations we can reliably link to state actors. "That’s why", "reliably", "link to" > Today, we are sharing comprehensive data about 5,929 accounts which we have removed for violating our platform manipulation policies. "Comprehensive" > Rigorous investigations by our Site Integrity team have allowed us to attribute these accounts to a significant state-backed information operation on Twitter originating in Saudi Arabia. I wonder what the terms "investigations", "attribute", and "originating in Saudi Arabia" mean, precisely? Is source code available so we can see for ourselves what they actually mean? What with transparency being at the heart of everything they do at Twitter and all. > In order to protect the privacy of potentially compromised accounts repurposed to engage in platform manipulation, and in response to researcher feedback requesting that we pre-filter unrelated spam, we have not disclosed data for all 88,000 accounts. Hmmm. > In the interest of offering meaningful transparency, the dataset we are disclosing includes a representative, random sample of the fake and spammy accounts associated with this broader network. "Meaningful" transparency. "Representative, random" sample. "associated with" > Our investigations have traced the source of the coordinated activity to Smaat, a social media marketing and management company based in Saudi Arabia. "Traced", "the source" > Our in-house technical indicators show that Smaat appears to have created, purchased, and/or managed these accounts on behalf of — but not necessarily with the knowledge of — their clients. "technical indicators", "show", "appears to have" ----------------------- Now, an obvious shortcoming (in addition to the obvious mental health issues) contributing to my ludicrous interpretation of such articles is my lack of knowledge in current, (known) state of the art capabilities in spoofing identity on the internet (all criticism welcome), as well as the confidential processes and capabilities within Twitter. For the latter, there is some PR-speak information here: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/information-ops-on-twitter.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/informati... > How do we do it? > Our Site Integrity team is dedicated to identifying and investigating suspected platform manipulation on Twitter, including potential state-backed activity. In partnership with teams across the company, we employ a range of open-source and proprietary signals and tools to identify when attempted coordinated manipulation may be taking place, as well as the actors responsible for it. We also partner closely with governments, law enforcement, and our peer companies to improve our understanding of the actors involved in information operations and develop a holistic strategy for addressing them. "identifying", "suspected", "potential", "a range", "proprietary", "signals", "identify", "may be", "actors responsible", "improve our understanding" ----------------------- Possibly related: https://toinformistoinfluence.com/2012/06/15/images-a-matter-of-perspective/ https://toinformistoinfluence.com/2012/06/15/images-a-matter... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address_spoofing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address_spoofing https://theintercept.com/2017/02/20/how-to-run-a-rogue-government-twitter-account-with-an-anonymous-email-address-and-a-burner-phone/ https://theintercept.com/2017/02/20/how-to-run-a-rogue-gover... https://www.expressvpn.com/support/troubleshooting/spoof-location-google-chrome/ https://www.expressvpn.com/support/troubleshooting/spoof-loc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4g7jay/updated_compilation_of_confirmed_conspiracy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4g7jay/updated_... ----------------------- Meta: How a non-conspiracy theorist might read this comment: "So what you're saying is", you believe that this article, and all articles like it, are 100% fake news, that everything is a vast conspiracy. Possibly related: https://reformedperspective.ca/so-what-youre-saying-is/ https://reformedperspective.ca/so-what-youre-saying-is/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/we-human-machines-hallucinate-our-reality-in-diluted-states-of-consciousness-90a15e94834d https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/we-human-machines-hall...

daveslash 7y ago

I hate that you have to have a Google account to access/download this data.

patelajay285 7y ago

We recently released a dataset for NLP / disinformation researchers around similar content found being posted on YouTube instead of Twitter which contains images as well as text. https://media.plasticity.ai/youtube-disinformation-report/ https://media.plasticity.ai/youtube-disinformation-report/ People interested in the Twitter dataset might also find these results useful.

salimmadjd 7y ago
How come there are no information on your site about the founders, team, investors, etc. It’s hard to take you seriously as the arbitrators of transparency when there is no disclosure about your own company.
- patelajay285 7y ago
  We're a YC backed company (YC S17). Nothing to hide, there's plenty of information on us online (CrunchBase, blog posts, TechCrunch, etc.)
  - shaki-dora 7y ago
    If there's nothing to hide, why not publish it where people would check first, i. e. on your website? There are countries where that's required by law. And while that may be on the rather too heavy side of regulation, I have on occasion rage-quit a vendor's site because I couldn't find this most basic information.
    - patelajay285 7y ago
      We're based in the United States, there are no such regulations. Many companies don't post information about their founders and investors on their homepage (Stripe, Airbnb, Google, Apple, etc.). You should be able to find information about us just as easily as any other YC company / SV company. We haven't taken any additional steps to hide anything. I'm not sure I understand your concern about this.

bilekas 7y ago

> Dec 2019 Saudi Arabie - Media (1.3 TB) .. thats a ridiculous amount.

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dkural 7y ago

It's so sad that the US president eats from Saudi Propaganda's hands, with Crown Prince Jared Kushner being close friends with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/world/middleeast/saudi-mbs-jared-kushner.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/world/middleeast/saudi-mb..., https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/world/middleeast/kushner-saudi-arabia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/world/middleeast/kushner-...) to the point of excluding professional US diplomats: "The First Son-in-Law reportedly did not allow U.S. embassy staffers into his meeting with M.B.S." You'd think you want some of this stuff on record. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-mbs-meeting https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/03/jared-kushner-saudi-... I guess bone-sawing errant journalists for WaPo is not a big deal for some.

Fauntleroy 7y ago
Why would it be a big deal for him? He's pretty much let it slip that he'd love to do the same to journalists he himself dislikes.
- shadow-banned 7y ago
  Correct, this isn't surprising considering the US president right now.
eloff 7y ago
I'm sure it's a small deal, but the U.S. needs Saudi Arabia a lot more than it values the life of a single human being. I'd expect any of its leaders to rebuke the Saudis, but not to the point of losing then as an ally. That's logical, even if immoral. Putting the greater good above the good of individuals is the job of the state in a nutshell. What is reprehensible here is Trump had not even gone so far as to offer a rebuke or a wrist slap here. That's unfortunate since it tells the Saudis they can continue to get away with this in the future.
- billfruit 7y ago
  I'd also contrast with what Obama did when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane with the loss of a pilot, he didn't even offer the slightest of rebukes to Turkey, but rather slapped additional sanctions on Russia. Standing by allies right or wrong seems to be a bipartisan thing.

jascii 7y ago

"Transparency is at the heart of everything we do at Twitter." https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.html https://transparency.twitter.com/en/information-operations.h... "Enter your email to access the archives:" Transparency by putting up roadblocks to access?!

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