1. TWITTER FILES EXTRA
The Senate, New Knowledge, and Manufacturing Russian Bot Hysteria
Reporting by @SchmidtSue1 pic.twitter.com/o8BRNYDQ89— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
3. Virginia Senator Mark Warner of the Senate Intelligence Committee called it a “bombshell”: pic.twitter.com/JUvPzgqHzy
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
5. Internally at Twitter, executives were calling BS on the Senate report, lead-authored by a firm called New Knowledge.
“Nothing to see here,” wrote Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth. pic.twitter.com/4jBCOE1mF7
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
7. Twitter knew what the public didn’t: the CEO of New Knowledge, Jonathon Morgan, helped design the infamous Hamilton 68 dashboard, which Roth called “bullshit.” pic.twitter.com/LyVUILhIH8
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
9. He added: “We have met with them several times and they have gone out of their way to avoid giving any meaningful insight into their methodology.” pic.twitter.com/8ZqmVB5yRq
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
11. Weeks later, it came out New Knowledge also ran a phony Facebook page boosting two campaigns to aid Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama race. pic.twitter.com/iMCEsvz53p
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
13. Reaction inside Twitter: “Pretty brutal for NK,” wrote Roth. pic.twitter.com/iqfczPmmkp
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
15. He would later add that NK decided to “engage in their own info ops in a special election,” adding that another Senate author, Graphika, had been “over-stating the problem”: pic.twitter.com/eLCTfJFWcL
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
17. The Alabama/New Knowledge story was already public when NBC published a hit piece on then-presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s alleged Russia links citing New Knowledge as a source: pic.twitter.com/PE1a8qPZTj
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
19. A spokesperson for Warner told @SchmidtSue1, the reports “speak for themselves” and the Committee “did not endorse” them, rather encouraging Americans to “draw their own conclusions.”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023
21. More at https://t.co/FCrKr0tMPX from @SchmidtSue1:https://t.co/ULetNx4bgh
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) November 3, 2023