Renee DiResta

“Who was president in 2020?” is the question of our time

In all seriousness: the last 2 weeks of TikTok posturing and Zuck grovelling, combined with the X insanity of the last year, should show you that an app with a feed that you don’t control serves *other people’s interests* - not yours.

Let's be clear a what's happening here: the "censorship" and "bias" narrative is being extended to Wikipedia bc the far right knows that getting bullshit into LLMs is how to shape reality as "answer engines" replace search engines.

Wikipedia is core to that fight so the grievance blitz is here.

The Pulitzer Board is actually fighting back against one of Trump’s vexatious lawsuits, saying, ‘If you were harmed, prove it — with medical and financial records.’

Not rolling over like some of the capitulating companies we’ve seen.

newrepublic.com/post/204475/...

Pulitzer Board Demands Trump’s Tax and Psych Records in Lawsuit Twist

Donald Trump isn’t going to be happy about this one.

This guy worked for State Dept for ~2 months. He has no inside knowledge of anything he talks about, even as he claims he ‘watched a censorship regime grow from the inside.’ It’s all bullshit. And the absolute credulity displayed by Rogan here is why commentary & journalism aren’t the same.

Today we beat Stephen Miller’s lawsuit mill in court!

For 3 years I’ve been a defendant in a case filed by America First Legal on behalf of Gateway Pundit & a random antivaxxer we’d never heard of until she sued us.

The plaintiffs claimed we “censored” them. It was a lie.

They just lost.

How it started | How it’s going (3 seconds later)

Ding ding ding! Watch this. He’s laying it out.

My team at Stanford Internet Observatory documented this process meticulously, over & over again, in 2020. The R machine retaliated against us.

When Elon bought X, it became even sharper.

The rest of the political spectrum needs to get in the game.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social

Watters: We are waging a 21st century information warfare campaign from the left…It's like grassroots guerrilla warfare. Someone says something on social media, Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it.. and by the time it reaches everybody, millions of people have seen it.

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Watching Hunter speak so directly now, I wonder if he was given the same dogshit “shut up and say nothing” advice that so many others who went through political smear campaigns heard over the last few years.

Advice from the 1990s.

Sharyl Attkisson thought Obama hacked her computer when the delete key got stuck.

I’m not kidding. Link below. She is incredibly stupid. I’ve followed her “work” for over decade because she was also one of the few media people who took the antivax movement’s most crank theories seriously.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com

ATTKISSON: There are Venezuelan whistleblowers who have provided your administration w/ documentation alleging vote rigging in 2020 through an operation engineered by foreign adversaries. Are you familiar with this & is anything going to come of it? TRUMP: A little bit. The 2020 election was rigged

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Tulsi Gabbard dumped a pile of docs & claimed they were evidence of a vast plot by Fauci to manipulate intelligence, cover up the lab leak, & conceal his role in creating Covid.

They weren’t.

In reality, Gabbard’s documents undermine her. Here’s what they say…

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/tuls...

Tulsi Gabbard’s Fauci Files Don’t Prove What She Says They Prove

Gabbard’s declassification theater is a case study in politicizing intelligence.

Maybe senators shouldn’t elevate cranks to the level of “top health officials”.

I made a quick Russian interference explainer. When CIA director Ratcliffe started down this road, I wrote 3000 words about the Senate reports, the data sets from big tech, etc.

Now Tulsi’s doing her thing…so here’s a quick video about her “Obama treason” voting machine claims vs reality. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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The left should be making Russ Vought own this 24/7 in very simple language: Vought is making it easier for scammers to target you and your grandma.

WIRED @wired.com

Russell Vought, acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has canceled plans to introduce new rules designed to limit the ability of US data brokers to sell Americans’ most sensitive data, credit history, and Social Security numbers.

CFPB Quietly Kills Rule to Shield Americans From Data Brokers

Russell Vought, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has canceled plans to more tightly regulate the sale of Americans’ sensitive personal data.

The circus is starting: Jim Jordan, Taibbi & Shellenberger are congratulating themselves on Twitter Files.

Jordan opens by gloating ab getting Stanford Internet Observatory shut down. Yes: the congressman got 1A protected research shut down. That's censorship.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7G5...

The Censorship-Industrial Complex

YouTube video by House Committee on the Judiciary

They invented FOIA.

This is not the slightest bit surprising and it began prior to Trump coming back to power. As the idiot AG of Missouri was pursuing Missouri v Biden, Stephen Miller’s America First Legal sued me and my colleagues with the same forum-shopped judge and plaintiffs. Wake up: it’s a machine.

New from me: an essay on the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, and its remarkable 30 year history of witch hunts & blacklists.

It chronicles the progression of how industries & academia went from capitulation to defiance,& what we can take from that today

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/proc...

Russia, China, and Iran have interfered in multiple US elections.

As someone who worked with *Twitter’s teams & data* on investigations for years: state adversaries operate globally.

Only brain-rotted cranks sucking down right-wing propaganda doubt that, or say stupid shit like this.

The US State Department is now going to be deporting people and/or revoking visas over Benz, Taibbi, and Shellenberger’s “censorship industrial complex” hoax.

Let that sink in. This is what the Twitter Files pretext was actually about. Water boys for authoritarians.

www.state.gov/releases/off...

Announcement of Actions to Combat the Global Censorship-Industrial Complex - United States Department of State

The State Department is taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose....

I see a lot of Paidchecks on X didn’t realize that a whole lot of people on social media lie about their location to grift off the naïveté of the rage-addled American right.

Turns out this problem is real and it’s a thing those of us who worked on “disinformation” pointed out.

This is called a reframe.The focus is being shifted from the beliefs of the person in question to how they were exposed.

The absolutism make little sense if you think about it - what if a reporter exposes crimes? What’s a “bad dude”? The goal is for moral outrage to cloud rational thought.

Anything that inconveniences a right wing populist is censorship, part 1000.

This depraved prick uses that term bc it puts his enemies on the defensive. They cower.

Fact-checking is censorship. Labeling is censorship. TRANSPARENCY is censorship.

Now, “no nonconsensual nudes” is censorship.

Paul Brand @paulbrand.bsky.social

Preventing the sharing of sexualised images of children is “censorship” according to Elon Musk. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Musk says X outcry is 'excuse for censorship'

The government is urging Ofcom to use all its powers – up to and including an effective ban – against X.

Breaking: yesssssss

The Macrons sue Candace Owens in Delaware.

Good. More of this:

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

French President Macron sues right-wing podcaster Candace Owens

The lawsuit alleges that the podcaster promoted “outlandish” claims, including that Brigitte Macron was born a man. An Owens spokesperson said she “is not shutting up.”