The Twitter Files Part XIX Unrolled

The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine

Brad

Mar 17, 2023

You can find all the Twitter Files unrolled here.

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

1.TWITTER FILES #19 The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

11.6K Reposts · 23.1K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

2.“The release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Spring 2020 emails… has been used to exacerbate distrust in Dr. Fauci.” “Increased distrust in Fauci’s expert guidance.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.13K Reposts · 5.11K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

3.“Reports of vaccinated individuals contracting Covid-19 anyway”; “natural immunity”; suggesting Covid-19 “leaked from a lab”; even “worrisome jokes”:

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.06K Reposts · 4.85K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

4.All were characterized as “potential violations” or disinformation “events” by the Virality Project, a sweeping, cross-platform effort to monitor billons of social media posts by Stanford University, federal agencies, and a slew of (often state-funded) NGOs.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.02K Reposts · 4.9K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

5.Just before @ShellenbergerMD and I testified in the House last week, Virality Project emails were found in the #TwitterFiles describing “stories of true vaccine side effects” as actionable content.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.37K Reposts · 5.3K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

6.We’ve since learned the Virality Project in 2021 worked with government to launch a pan-industry monitoring plan for Covid-related content. At least six major Internet platforms were “onboarded” to the same JIRA ticketing system, daily sending millions of items for review.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1K Reposts · 4.45K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

7.Though the Virality Project reviewed content on a mass scale for Twitter, Google/YouTube, Facebook/Instagram, Medium, TikTok, and Pinterest, it knowingly targeted true material and legitimate political opinion, while often being factually wrong itself.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.18K Reposts · 4.61K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

8.This story is important for two reasons. One, as Orwellian proof-of-concept, the Virality Project was a smash success. Government, academia, and an oligopoly of would-be corporate competitors organized quickly behind a secret, unified effort to control political messaging.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.5K Reposts · 5.63K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

9.Two, it accelerated the evolution of digital censorship, moving it from judging truth/untruth to a new, scarier model, openly focused on political narrative at the expense of fact.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.2K Reposts · 5.23K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

10.THE BEGINNING: On February 5, 2021, just after Joe Biden took office, Stanford wrote to Twitter to discuss the Virality Project. By the 17th, Twitter agreed to join and got its first weekly report on “anti-vax disinformation,” which contained numerous true stories.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.19K Reposts · 4.39K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

11. February 22, 2021: Stanford welcomed Twitter veterans like Yoel Roth and Brian Clarke, instructing them on how to join the group JIRA system. You can watch the friendly welcome video here:

stanford.zoom.us

Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

786 Reposts · 3.75K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

12. March 2, 2021: "We are beginning to ramp up our notification process to platforms.” In addition to the top-7 platforms, VP soon gained "visibility" to “alternative platforms such as Gab, Parler, Telegram, and Gettr” – near-total surveillance of the social media landscape.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

883 Reposts · 3.75K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

13.Through July of 2020, Twitter’s internal guidance on Covid-19 required a story be “demonstrably false” or contain an “assertion of fact” to be actioned. But the Virality Project, in partnership with the CDC, pushed different standards.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

773 Reposts · 3.67K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

14.VP told Twitter that “true stories that could fuel hesitancy,” including things like “celebrity deaths after vaccine” or the closure of a central NY school due to reports of post-vaccine illness, should be considered "Standard Vaccine Misinformation on Your Platform."

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.52K Reposts · 4.7K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

15. In one email to Twitter, VP addressed what it called the “vaccine passport narrative,” saying “concerns” over such programs “have driven a larger anti-vaccination narrative about the loss of rights and freedoms.” This was framed as a "misinformation" event.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.02K Reposts · 4.15K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

16.VP routinely framed real testimonials about side effects as misinformation, from “true stories” of blood clots from AstraZeneca vaccines to a New York Times story about vaccine recipients who contracted the blood disorder thrombocytopenia.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.04K Reposts · 4.1K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

17.By March of 2021, Twitter personnel were aping VP language, describing "campaigns against vaccine passports," "fear of mandatory immunizations," and "misuse of official reporting tools" as "potential violations."

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

787 Reposts · 3.61K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

18. This echoed a report to Twitter by the Global Engagement Center re “Russia-linked” accounts: “While this account posts legitimate and accurate COVID-19 updates... it posts content that attacks Italian politicians, the EU, and the United States.” drive.google.com/file/d/1u2412d…

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

679 Reposts · 3.35K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

19.That same GEC report found in the #TwitterFiles identified former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, and former Italian Democratic Party Secretary Nicola Zingaretti (who’s been compared to Bernie Sanders) as “highly connective” accounts in a “Russia-linked” network.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

587 Reposts · 3.17K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

20.The Virality Project helped pioneer the gauging of “disinformation” by audience response. If the post-vaccine death of a black woman named Drene Keyes in Virginia went unnoticed inspired mostly “anti-vaccine” comments on local media, it became a “disinformation” event.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

774 Reposts · 3.47K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

21.VP warned against people “just asking questions,” implying it was a tactic “commonly used by spreaders of misinformation." It also described a "Worldwide Rally for Freedom planned over Telegram" as a disinformation event.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

883 Reposts · 3.7K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

22."ALMOST ALWAYS REPORTABLE" It encouraged platforms to target people, not posts, using Minority Report-style “pre-crime” logic. Describing “repeat offenders” like Robert Kennedy, Jr., it spoke of a “large volume of content that is almost always reportable.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

910 Reposts · 3.74K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

23.VP was repeatedly, extravagantly wrong. In one email to Twitter on “misinformation,” it spoke of wanting to “hone in” on an “increasingly popular narrative about natural immunity.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

904 Reposts · 3.69K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

24.The VP in April 2021 mistakenly described “breakthrough” infections as “extremely rare events” that should not be inferred to mean “vaccines are ineffective.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

764 Reposts · 3.48K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

25.Later, when “the CDC changed its methodology for counting Covid-19 cases among vaccinated people,” only counting those resulting in hospitalization or death, VP complained that “anti-vaccine” accounts RFK Jr. and “WhatsHerFace” retweeted the story to suggest “hypocrisy.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

758 Reposts · 3.4K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

26.A few months later: “Breakthrough cases are happening.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

635 Reposts · 3.26K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

27.In a chilling irony, the VP ran searches for the term “surveillance state.” As an unaccountable state-partnered bureaucracy secretly searched it out, the idea that “vaccines are part of a surveillance state” won its own thoughtcrime bucket: “conspiracy.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

941 Reposts · 3.73K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

28.After about a year, on April 26, 2022, the VP issued a report calling for a “rumor-control mechanism to address nationally trending narratives,” and a “Misinformation and Disinformation Center of Excellence” to be housed within CISA, at the Department of Homeland Security.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

802 Reposts · 3.28K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

29. The next day, April 27, 2022, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced in a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing that a “Disinformation Governance Board” had been created, to be headed by the singing censor, Nina Jankowitz.

youtube.com

“She is the Executive Director of the Disinformation Governance Board”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

740 Reposts · 3.31K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

30.Even in its final report, VP claimed it was misinformation to suggest the vaccine does not prevent transmission, or that governments are planning to introduce vaccine passports. Both things turned out to be true.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

907 Reposts · 3.75K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

31.The Virality Project was specifically not based on “assertions of fact,” but public submission to authority, acceptance of narrative, and pronouncements by figures like Anthony Fauci. The project's central/animating concept was, "You can't handle the truth."

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

1.03K Reposts · 4.05K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

32. One of its four core partners, Pentagon-funded Graphika, explained in a report about “Fauxi” that because the public cannot be trusted to make judgements on its own, it must be shielded from truths that might undermine its faith in authority.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

675 Reposts · 2.35K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

33. “This continual process of seeding doubt and uncertainty in authoritative voices,” Graphika wrote, in a report sent to Twitter, “leads to a society that finds it too challenging to identify what’s true or false.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

480 Reposts · 2.1K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

34.For this reason, the CDC-partnered project focused often on disinformation “events” involving Fauci, saying “release of Fauci’s emails foments distrust,” and deriding assertions he “misled the public.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

438 Reposts · 2.04K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

35.A Cleveland Clinic study showed previous infection offered the “same immunity” as the vaccine, but VP said discovery was susbservient to narrative: “Whether or not... scientific consensus is changing, ‘natural immunity’ is a key narrative… among anti-vaccine activists.”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

697 Reposts · 2.54K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

36."OFTEN TRUE CONTENT" The Virality Project communications mirror those produced in the recent court case Louisiana vs Biden, which showed Facebook admitting to the WHO that it, too, was censoring true content.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

579 Reposts · 2.16K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

37.From the start, Stanford explained the Virality Project would essentially continue the work of its 2020 Election Integrity Partnership. “The same JIRA system from the EIP is up and running,” they wrote.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

433 Reposts · 1.93K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

38. In the last #TwitterFiles thread, we posted a video of EIP Director Alex Stamos describing that project as Stanford trying to “fill the gap of things the government couldn’t do” legally. (h/t Foundation for Freedom Online).

youtube.com

StamosEIP

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

509 Reposts · 1.98K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

39.We also showed video in which Stamos introduced EIP Research Director Renee DiResta as having “worked for the CIA.” DiResta in 2021-2022 would be listed as a “Stanford scholar,” “leading” the Virality Project. youtube.com/watch?v=GsooGv…

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

494 Reposts · 2.07K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

40. By October 2020, Stamos was hinting at the direction of the future Virality Project, telling a national cybersecurity conference that the “Anti-Disinformation” mission needed a new focus.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

337 Reposts · 1.78K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

41.“We talk way too much about foreign…it's sexy, and it's fun, and it's a little bit cold warry,” Stamos said, adding the “vast majority” of problems were now domestic. “We have like an 80-20 breakdown... I think that needs to be flipped.”

youtu.be

CISA Cybersecurity Summit: “I think we talk way too much about foreign influence”

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

395 Reposts · 1.84K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

42.VP’s partners: DOD-funded Graphika, the National Science Foundation funded Center for an Informed Public (CIP), the GEC-funded DFRLab, and the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics, or CSMaP.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

391 Reposts · 1.91K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

43.VP would later say it partnered with “several government agencies,” including the Office of the Surgeon General and the CDC. It reportedly also worked with DHS’s CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) and GEC, among others.

2:00 PM · Mar 17, 2023

442 Reposts · 2.01K Likes

Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi

44.To recap: America’s information mission went from counterterrorism abroad, to stopping “foreign interference” from reaching domestic audiences, to 80% domestic content, much of it true. The “Disinformation Governance Board” is out; but truth-policing is not.

44.to

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