Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

mahatmakanejeeves

(64,581 posts)
Mon May 5, 2025, 05:10 PM Monday

State Department Gadfly Looks To Use Twitter Files Playbook For Vengeance

State Department Gadfly Looks To Use Twitter Files Playbook For Vengeance

Too Much Free Time
from the the-reveal-matters-more-than-the-evidence dept
Mon, May 5th 2025 10:48am - Mike Masnick

Earlier this year, soon after Elon Musk began stripping away parts of the government he had no constitutional authority to destroy, we warned that it appeared officials in the White House were gearing up to use the Twitter Files playbook on the US government.

The basics of the playbook are as follows:

1. Search through copious amounts of internal messaging and documents for anything that can be positioned (usually misleadingly) to be spun by ignorant idiots as damning.
2. Feed that work to a group of the most credulous, simping journalists that can be found.
3. Let them run with reports on those “released” documents, which will massively misrepresent the reality within them.
4. Sit back and relax as the totally false made-up narrative is considered “accepted truth” by a large segment of the population (even those outside of the MAGA brainwash cult).

As Charlie Warzel aptly explained, this approach works because “what mattered more was the mere existence of a dump of primary-source documents — a collection of once-private information that they could cast as nefarious in order to justify what they believed all along.”

{snip}
Latest Discussions»Editorials & Other Articles»State Department Gadfly L...