patrick.net

Clint Watts just won’t go away. The former FBI official who ran a disinformation campaign called “Hamilton 68” that generated hundreds of fake news articles falsely accusing dozens of Twitter users of being Russian bots is now claiming that a Russian “influence operation” is underway to — wait for it — weaken U.S. support for the war in Ukraine.

The New York Times is credulously citing the report by Watts, who now works for Microsoft, even though, thanks to his access to the Twitter Files, our friend Matt Taibbi exposed Watts’ Hamilton 68 scam to smear dozens of Twitter users as Russian bots. If you think “scam” is too harsh, consider that Twitter’s then-Head of Safety said about Watts’ project, “I think we need to just call this out on the bullshit it is” because it “falsely accuses a bunch of legitimate right-leaning accounts of being Russian bots.”

The Times article by Julian Barnes, David Sanger, and Marc Santora fails to mention Watts’s disinformation campaign, quote a critic of his analysis, or even contain an alternative perspective. Watts’ report, and the article, appear to be pretexts to smear critics of US support for Ukraine.

These paragraphs appear to be aimed at laying the groundwork for Watts, Microsoft, NYT, Biden, et al. to slander anyone who criticizes the war as a potential Russian agent, even though Biden himself blamed higher energy costs on the war.

Watts and the authors of the NYT article also appear to be attempting to conflate in the minds of readers two different things: cyber attacks and influence operations. This is a trick that the advocates of government censorship have used in the past, as Michael noted in his congressional testimony last week.

As such, there are good reasons to distrust what Watts, Microsoft, and the NYT are claiming. They may be carrying out a disinformation campaign like the other disinformation campaigns we have uncovered.