I don't understand why so many people like MT have gone off the rails trying to disprove something that is not only real, but of increasing concern to everyone in this country: active foreign influence operations. As bad as it's been, generative AI is going to make the problem a lot worse.
Agreed. My fear here is that people like Taibbi are going to make everyone believe that foreign influence is a hoax, so they won’t believe it if they’re told that China or Russia or Iran is targeting the US in the future. And yes, AI is going to make this problem much larger and much, much more difficult to sort out.
Beautifully written article in response to Matt Taibbi. Once an MT fan, I am completely deflated from his Twitter writings, but wasn’t sure how to put my suspicions away. now, with the help of your article I can see this clearly. From my point of view, you just turned the tables on what Matt tries to do in many of his previous writings. Good for you! I sincerely hope that you consider writing further regarding the foreign influence operations that you outlined. Please consider recent information such as:
”On 23 January, we learned that a former FBI special agent, Charles McGonigal, was arrested on charges involving taking money to serve foreign interests. One accusation is that in 2017 he took $225,000 from a foreign actor while in charge of counterintelligence at the FBI's New York office. Another charge is that McGonigal took money from Oleg Deripaska, a sanctioned Russian oligarch, after McGonigal’s 2018 retirement from the FBI. Deripaska, a hugely wealthy metals tycoon close to the Kremlin, "Putin's favorite industrialist," was a figure in a Russian influence operation that McGonigal had investigated in 2016. Deripaska has been under American sanctions since 2018. Deripaska is also the former employer, and the creditor, of Trump's 2016 campaign manager, Paul Manafort.” -from the bulwark.
Quote: If a URL was shared 138 times (as mentioned in the email referenced by Taibbi) in a sample of 600 accounts, this means that 23% of the entire sample shared that URL.
Are you sure you have your math correct? Where does it say that URL was shared by 138 of the 600 accounts?
From what I understand it was shared by 138 of the entire Twitter accounts in the world. But say lets just look at US accounts which was about 300 million. So that would be 0.000046% not 23%
Outstanding summary, thanks.
I don't understand why so many people like MT have gone off the rails trying to disprove something that is not only real, but of increasing concern to everyone in this country: active foreign influence operations. As bad as it's been, generative AI is going to make the problem a lot worse.
Agreed. My fear here is that people like Taibbi are going to make everyone believe that foreign influence is a hoax, so they won’t believe it if they’re told that China or Russia or Iran is targeting the US in the future. And yes, AI is going to make this problem much larger and much, much more difficult to sort out.
Beautifully written article in response to Matt Taibbi. Once an MT fan, I am completely deflated from his Twitter writings, but wasn’t sure how to put my suspicions away. now, with the help of your article I can see this clearly. From my point of view, you just turned the tables on what Matt tries to do in many of his previous writings. Good for you! I sincerely hope that you consider writing further regarding the foreign influence operations that you outlined. Please consider recent information such as:
”On 23 January, we learned that a former FBI special agent, Charles McGonigal, was arrested on charges involving taking money to serve foreign interests. One accusation is that in 2017 he took $225,000 from a foreign actor while in charge of counterintelligence at the FBI's New York office. Another charge is that McGonigal took money from Oleg Deripaska, a sanctioned Russian oligarch, after McGonigal’s 2018 retirement from the FBI. Deripaska, a hugely wealthy metals tycoon close to the Kremlin, "Putin's favorite industrialist," was a figure in a Russian influence operation that McGonigal had investigated in 2016. Deripaska has been under American sanctions since 2018. Deripaska is also the former employer, and the creditor, of Trump's 2016 campaign manager, Paul Manafort.” -from the bulwark.
Best wishes.

Quote: If a URL was shared 138 times (as mentioned in the email referenced by Taibbi) in a sample of 600 accounts, this means that 23% of the entire sample shared that URL.
Are you sure you have your math correct? Where does it say that URL was shared by 138 of the 600 accounts?
From what I understand it was shared by 138 of the entire Twitter accounts in the world. But say lets just look at US accounts which was about 300 million. So that would be 0.000046% not 23%
Caroline, I am going to share this multiple times, thanks for writing it. Have you read Matt's update trying, so hard, to make some language edits from the original mission statement for Hamilton into something? Would love for you to respond to this https://www.racket.news/p/hamilton-68-brief-addendum?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1042&post_id=99604075&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email