Image by Stuart Rankin via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
TheRealNews on Feb 10, 2023
Matt Taibbi has published an investigation about a vast propaganda campaign called “Hamilton 68,” launched a year after Donald Trump won the presidency, to smear critics of the Democratic Party, from the left and the right, as Russian assets.
Hamilton 68 claimed it used complex data analysis and relied on so-called disinformation experts to ferret out information on social media that emanated from the Kremlin.
Hamilton 68, a computerized “dashboard” designed to be used by reporters and academics to measure “Russian disinformation,” was run by Democratic operatives, including John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, and figures from intelligence agencies such as the CIA, the FBI and Homeland Security, as well as neoconservatives and establishment Republicans, such as Bill Kristol, who do not support Trump and have been warmly embraced by the Democratic Party.
Mainstream news outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, PBS, NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, as well as Mother Jones – which ran 14 stories based on the group’s “research” – cited Hamilton 68 as an authoritative source, even as the site refused to disclose the data or methods it used to make its assessments.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of media headlines were flagged as Russian bot infiltrations in online discussions about the Brett Kavanaugh hearings; Tulsi Gabbard’s campaign; the Parkland shooting; U.S. missile strikes in Syria and the Bernie Sander’s campaign and many, many other stories.
Fact-checking sites like Politifact and Snopes also relied on Hamilton 68. Taibbi, given access to Twitter’s internal memos and emails by Elon Musk, who bought Twitter, was able to expose not only the fraudulent claims of Hamilton 68, but the failure of the press, which was a full partner in one of the worst forms of censorship since the red baiting of Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, one that targeted people with dissident or unconventional opinions and accused them of Un-American activities.
From the archives:
Chris Hedges: Ukraine, Iran, Palestine, Twitter Files, Media Censorship and Assange
Chris Hedges: Truth Is the First Casualty of War
George Galloway, Jill Stein, Chris Hedges and Scott Ritter: Crushing Dissent
Chris Hedges: Shredding Journalistic Credibility
Leave Jill Stein Alone by David Swanson + Jill Stein Denounces Probe over ‘Collusion with Russians’
Craig Murray: Russia Played No Role At All In The Email Leaks, interviewed by David Swanson
Dandelion Salad 
Pingback: Chris Hedges: How the Media Misled Us About Russiagate – Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Will Griffin: Cyberspace Social Media Information War – Dandelion Salad
As a real person with few followers discouraged out of social media for saying things the way I see them there are many thoughts to add to this conversation , I will share but a few. A year after Trump was elected to “smear the democrats” for a disinformation campaign is when it picked up. The first time I heard the red scare renewal was in May of 2016 straight out of the mouth of Hillary Clinton, also another time was shortly before the November election, those were televised. After approximately five years on social media, part of my hopes was to tell it the way I saw things and hopefully influence some more learned and contacted media personalities along with real people like myself to be more bold once some of the language I thought long overdue and needed was out there to reach much a much larger audience. My experiences and publicly shared thoughts were censored until finally it was unworkable/useable and was not receiving notifications for over a little over the last year from the few that did converse with me. The final straw that booted me off of social media was the second time that I recommended that the public should boycott television and cell phones. For those that did start using some of the language I had not seen before whether right away or waited a few years, thank you!
I was banned for a month and have repeatedly been warned while being pointed to the vague terms. The latest ploy was to have my Tweets reduced to 3/ day. Same as you the notifications dropped to one every few days. I will use those 3 per day anyway by Tweeting articles such as this one. My followers have held steady at the same number for almost two years. The number reduced drastically after the month long ban that Twitter admitted in an email they had mistaken me for someone else.
Wow, Dennis, that is horrible. It’s so ridiculous how the “bans” on social media are done so frequently without most likely a human even looking at what was “questionable.” On Facebook there is no recourse and I imagine it’s the same with Twitter, etc.
Thanks for sharing the posts, Dennis, always appreciated.
So sorry to hear that, Dave. Thanks for commenting.