News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Twitter Aided The Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign. Parent comment

Re:Twitter Aided The Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propagand... by jhshah on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @05:07PM (#34073384)
From the link you gave, the bio of the "yemencurrent" account says "صفحة تابعة للقيادة المركزية الأمريكية لدعم الحوار حول الشأن اليمني و قضايا الأمن والاستقرارفي اليمن". I don't read Arabic, but google translates this as "A page affiliated with the US Central Command to support dialogue on Yemeni affairs and security and stability issues in Yemen". The documentcloud (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23466698) says that CENTCOM asked for a bluecheck and 'whitelisting' for the account. I don't see the big deal about this? After all, the account already indicated that it was government affiliated.

Edit: some else pointed out that the government may have been trying to trick Twitter by later deleting the disclaimer about affiliation. Looks like I should have read the article before posting!

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitter Aided The Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propagand... by NLPaep on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @05:15PM (#34073493)
But the claims are blatantly false when you look at their links

>Another CENTCOM account, @althughur, which posts anti-Iran and anti-ISIS content focused on an Iraqi audience, changed its Twitter bio from a CENTCOM affiliation to an Arabic phrase that simply reads “Euphrates pulse.”

Here’s their link: https://web.archive.org/web/20191028194428/https://twitter.c...

Nothing simply says “Euphrates pulse” here.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Twitter Aided The Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propagand... by jhshah on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @05:38PM (#34073767)
The name of the twitter account is "نبض الفرات" which translates to "Euphrates pulse". However, you're right that the Twitter bio doesn't have that phrase; rather, in the link you gave it's another CENTCOM disclaimer. It looks like this phrase in the bio was later deleted and replaced with nothing (https://web.archive.org/web/20210506142008/https://twitter.c...), and probably not coincidentally the account is now suspended for breaking the Twitter rules.
[ Parent | on HN ]