Spy Versus Spy
A Series on Misinformation, Disinformation and Subterfuge
I recently presented an invitation online offering to do equal opportunity reporting. Lo and behold I received a terse message stating an account once posted a 72K per year contract for paid trolling. I began looking for it, based on the breadcrumbs in that message and found something, just not the contract.
H/T to that guy or gal.
If anyone has a screenshot of that contract proposed by alleged Yonder reps Louise Mensch and Richie Guinn to Joe Fionda, I would love to have a copy to look at.
I haven’t yet introduced THIS guy above. Worked for Vice. Wrote hit pieces. Swears a lot. Abuses women via misogynistic language. Hates Mensch. Hangs with Nicole Chenelle and Matt Donovan, whom we know from other reporting may have run afoul of Federal election laws tampering with the SF School Board recall. Troublemaker. Totally untrustworthy in my opinion.
While I am NOT going to amplify his misogynist GamerGate 2.0 attacks on women found via his main January 18, 2022 thread (blocking those out as even Mensch doesn’t deserve those sexist attacks repeated), his comments regarding Intelligence contracts are newsworthy. A link to the whole thread will be provided at the end of the article.
Hidden groups that amplify online narratives. Sounds just like what my work has been exposing, the operatives and tactics of these groups.
Vogel’s quote about Yonder being linked to a disinfo campaign to help Alabama Dems in 2017 also caught my attention. Why? Two reasons.
First, Joe Morgan’s company New Knowledge, which later transitions to Yonder, claimed to have experimented with misleading online tactics acknowledging creating fake Facebook pages, purchased social media amplification such as likes and retweets, while creating false evidence that the other side backing Moore was instead using bots to amplify. That is what all these operatives do on Social Media. Accuse the other side exactly with what you yourself are doing. Amplify it inauthentically. Control the narrative.
Second, private Intelligence contractors brag about their accomplishments.
Onesecondname, the agent who appears to be paid to harass others with false defamatory weaponized misogyny attacks, admits single-handed culpability in destroying a message board.
Seems like sketchy work, but congrats I guess.
Onesecondname’s work she is so proud of is exactly the type of work Jonothon Morgan, Yonder’s 2017 founder appears to have admitted to, paid Intelligence work undermining business or political organizations disguised as authentic activism.
Here is what Yonder says it is.
“If you don’t pick a side, power groups online will pressure you into choosing one.”
Hmmm.
They say they are a data analysis company while also implying that they have tools to combat narratives and online groups before they go viral. Rocco suggests we ask a question.
Did Yonder employ Mensch and possibly others to conduct a social influence operation supporting the San Fransisco School Board Recall?
Yeah, that is what this January 18, 2022 thread is about. Airing past dirty laundry because paid troll groups are on opposing sides to interfere with and manipulate an election. On one side you have Rocco, Matt Donovan and Nicole Chenelle terrorizing people to prevent the recall. The other pitted a local parent DiResta, Mensch and another alleged Yonder contractor, Richie Guinn unmasked here below by Rocco, working to oust one particularly corrupt and wealthy board member.
The third tweet of this series tells how Rocco knows what he knows, Joe Fionda whose dual known accounts @fiondavision and @subverzo are suspended. Note it was a retweet. That was the thread I had been alerted to existed, but no longer does thanks to a suspension.
Odd how BIG things like that get a surprise suspension almost as if one of the networks operating on Twitter has a conspirator0 helping them stay hidden.
Who is Joe Fionda? Not sure. Anonymous vouches for him. So does Rocco. That means the guy must have mad computer skills that Rocco says weren’t paid for by Yonder. Here is the cool 2016 tweet that names Joe and both handles.
This next piece, which the original thread embeds via retweet, minus the grosses of misogynistic attacks, digs further into the troll war, noting @BarrettB is also a suspended account. The top tweet explains Joe worked for Yonder and lays out some old beefs prior to the school board recall subversion op, that Castoro has most recently with Mensch.
(Redactions to Rocco’s perverted attacks added by me)
Considering Castoro’s background, activity and associations it is very hard to trust anything this man says; however, it should be noted that the company Popily he says these people work for has a founder that admitted to using subversive influence tactics on social media in 2017 to beat Roy Moore. That alone is a red flag. It is however not a confirmation.
Additionally, even if Mensch and others were hired by Popily, the only group that is known to have acted in a likely illegal manner terrorizing people were those threatening and harassing parents. That would be Nicole Chenelle and Matt Donovan, Rocco’s team.
The question though remains, does Popily have other operations ongoing using private Intelligence contractors that do run afoul of Federal laws. Like perhaps silencing a political opponent? Like this?
PS
Here is the link to the whole thread with the second thread embedded within via a self amplifying retweet:
Genuinely one of the funniest things I’ve ever read, hands down. If you were actual journalist like, say, Rocco Castoro, you would have reached out to literally any of us for comment so we could explain what’s going on, which you get so incredibly wrong. However, despite my own issues still getting these chucklefucks at Yonder and Richie Guinn to pay me the balance of the money for services rendered, you went ahead did a Jackson Pollock on a wall with your own feces which you regurgitated from Jim Stewartson’s feces you apparent ate. Comedy gold lmao