Democrats and their lap-dog media had unilaterally relied on an online dashboard called ‘Hamilton 68’, published by a national security advocacy group ‘Alliance for Securing Democracy’ (ASD) to further their claims of a Russian disinformation campaign. This has been revealed in the 15th episode of Twitter Files, the initiative by new Twitter owner Elon Musk to expose the previous management of the social media platform.
On Friday (January 27), independent journalist Matt Taibbi revealed internal communications that showed how top Twitter executives could see through the bluff of ‘Hamilton 68’.
The ASD manages the Hamilton 68 dashboard, which tracks 600 Twitter accounts said to be under Russian government control, and has garnered the attention of leftist publications such as Politico, The Washington Post and CNN.
7.The ASD advisory council includes neoconservative writer Bill Kristol, former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, ex-Hillary for America chief John Podesta, and former heads or deputy heads of the CIA, NSA, and the Department of Homeland Security. pic.twitter.com/Nug3CpF6iK
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
When Yoel Roth, ex-Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, reviewed those accounts, he discovered that they weren’t Russian as claimed by Hamilton 68. The said Twitter handles also did not lean towards any particular political party but only had right-leaning biases.
He said, “As of yesterday, this looked like the right-leaning hashtag about the shutdown, which only got the label of ‘Russian’ because the Hamilton dashboard falsely accuses a bunch of legitimate right-leaning accounts of being Russian Bots.”
4.“Virtually any conclusion drawn from it will take conversations in conservative circles on Twitter and accuse them of being Russian.” pic.twitter.com/g7Ozzj4ST8
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
“How we publicly push back on Hamilton is a bigger question…Virtually any conclusion drawn from it will take conversations in conservative circles on Twitter and accuse them of being Russian,” he added.
Yoel Roth also shared his findings in an email saying, “In terms of substance this is truly a nothingburger. It’s just a problem of journalists continuing to lean on deeply flawed tools pushed by people looking to capitalize on the bot media frenzy.”
13.“These accounts,” they concluded, “are neither strongly Russian nor strongly bots.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
“No evidence to support the statement that the dashboard is a finger on the pulse of Russian information ops.”
“Hardly illuminating a massive influence operation.” pic.twitter.com/LMrgWVKe7k
“The selection of account is bizarre, and seemingly quite arbitrary…They appear to strongly preference pro-Trump accounts (which they use to assert that Russia is expressing a preference for trump … even though there’s not good evidence that any of the accounts they selected are or are not actually Russian),” he said.
“It’s so weird and self-selecting, and they’re so unwilling to be transparent and defend their selection that I think we need to just call this out on the *** it is”, Yoel Roth concluded.
20.“I also have been very frustrated in not calling out Hamilton 68 more publicly, but understand we have to play a longer game here,” wrote Carlos Monje, the future senior advisor to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. pic.twitter.com/JvfSkyUlfL
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
Despite finding corroborating evidence against Hamilton 68’s approach, Roth ultimately decided not publicly call them out due to fear of bad press. When asked for comment, ASD stated more information can be found on their website regarding their methodology.
In addition, the organization’s advisory council consists mainly of former members from both the Clinton and Obama administrations including John Podesta who served as White House Chief of Staff under Barrack Obama.
Revelations made by Twitter Files 14.0
Earlier this month, Matt Taibbi revealed internal communications that show how Twitter employees (who are mostly Democratic Party supporters) had failed to gather any evidence that could lend credence to the Russiagate conspiracy theory.
Yoel Roth, former Global Head of Trust & Safety at Twitter, pointed out, “I just reviewed the accounts that posted the first 50 tweets with release the memo (hashtag) and…none of them show any signs of affiliation to Russia.”
‘Twitter Files 14.0’ revealed how attempts made by top executives to stop Democrats from posting unverified claims about Russiagate were in vain.
