1/ Last week the @BBC posted a story about Sarah Abdallah [at]sahouraxo, and Vanessa Beeley [at]vanessabeeley, some of the leading voices casting doubts around the chemical weapons attack in Douma and supporting the pro-Assad narrative.
2/ This thread will look at amplification accounts supporting Sarah and Vanessa, and the false flag narrative. New Media Frontier has identified 4 accounts that illustrate a larger @Twitter network spreading disinformation and shaping the debate around recent events.
3/ When looking at Sarah Abdallah's recent account activity we see a strong push of American false flag content (right and left), with account tagging in an attempt to build stronger connections to the US information space.
4/ Sarah posts familiar pro-Assad propaganda content, recently focusing on Syrian Christians and women's equality in an attempt to connect the dots between liberalism, and the Assad regime. Unsurprisingly, Sarah is also an advocate for Julian Assange.
5/ Vanessa Beeley is more UK/European focused with an anti-media agenda. Vanessa has a smaller following than Sarah, however, she is actually visible and makes regular t.v. appearances. Vanessa is a leading critic of the White Helmets and frequent guest on RT.
6/ Vanessa and Sarah have strong interactions with [at]RussiaConnects, which pushes pro-Putin, pro-Assad content and tweets an average of 84k times a year. This account is followed by several Russian gov't accounts, including the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C.
7/ [at]catoletters covers the US isolationist narrative and heavily promotes the Ron Paul Institute and Senator Rand Paul. The interactions between this anonymous account and the Ron Paul Institute are so consistent that it could be directly connected to the controversial NGO.
8/ [at]catoletters mostly posts video clips, however, we also see pro-Assad content that follows a consistent narrative that attempts to convey liberalism, public support within Syria and women's empowerment.
9/ [at]whitehelmetsEXP is anonymous accounts with strong links to Sarah and Vanessa, primarily focused on delegitimizing the #whitehelmets and attempting to connect the rescue workers to ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
10/ Additionally, [at]whitehelmetsEXP frequently attacks researchers working on disinformation and computational propaganda, including @benimmo and @JulianRoepcke - in one post drifting into the Ukrainian conflict.
11/ The last account we looked at was Suzie Dawson [at]suzi3d, an influencer connected to the Occupy movement, currently residing in Moscow. Suzie is a strong supporter of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. She is major critic of traditional media and state surveillance.
12/ USuzie has slowly drifted towards supporting/echoing the Kremlin narrative as she continues to seek asylum in Russia. She retweeted a recent post by Sarah Abdallah, spreading her content into the global far-left information space.
13/ The connections between these accounts allude to a coordinated information operation leveraged through diverse social media networks. It is clear that the larger pro-Assad, pro-Kremlin community is attempting to embed in both alt-right and far-left networks.
14/ The consistent sharing of US alt-right content by Sarah, and attacks on traditional European media by Vanessa is consistent with attempts to undermine truth and journalism on both sides of the Atlantic.
15/ This coordinated effort - as part of broader hybrid warfare tactics - seems to be achieving success in seeding doubt and shaping the debate around ongoing global conflicts.
16/ What is missing is a coordinated response that can match the specificity and at times creativity of these computational propaganda campaigns. A proper response will require the combination of journalism, national security @eunatoinfo operations and creative messaging efforts.
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