Will the mainstream media be deleted on Twitter tomorrow?

After March 23, Twitter could go through a kind of update to detect and suspend users with bot-like behavior. The move is designed to counter "Russian bots".

The problem is, many non-Russian users and even newspapers sharing news about the evils of Russian bots behave like Russian bots and will also get deleted if any serious action comes out of this.

They are guilty of the same behavior they accuse Russian botnets of, and new algorithms won't be able to tell the difference between them and the Russians.

If your app or service includes features which allow users to perform simultaneous actions across multiple accounts, you should make changes to bring it into compliance with this policy by March 23, 2018. Failure to comply with these rules could result in enforcement action, up to and including the suspension of associated applications and accounts. 

 Automation and the use of multiple accounts

See below examples of suspicious Twitter bot accounts sharing a BBC article about Russian bots. Their behavior makes them Russian bots, according to the article they are spamming, where it is written that "Networks of bots can be identified if multiple profiles tweet the same content almost simultaneously".

"Posting duplicative or substantially similar content... is never allowed." (https://t.co/fyA6UiP5Ur) And attached below are examples of "#RussianBots", based on the clever way @Twitter will automatically detect them and suspend them soon. pic.twitter.com/xxyzIv5R1I

— L'Ordre (@LOrdreNet) March 18, 2018

Automated content shared by anti-Russia campaign accounts and media is often about Russian bots and how to spot them, but is being shared using automation tools and fake identities. Accounts campaigning against Russian bots have therefore been behaving exactly like the alleged Russian bots by sharing the same content repeatedly, over and over, through multiple fake handles on Twitter. In fact, bots and "duplicative or substantially similar content" seem to be a favorite tactic of all political campaign groups and media organizations.

Twitter algorithms may hunt and delete the mainstream media for spam as well as Russian media

Twitter handles too much information to check if every bot account is Russian before deleting it. Twitter engineers will write algorithms to delete suspicious accounts automatically. Many of the deleted accounts may belong to the mainstream media.

Syndication by mainstream newspapers and television violates Twitter rules

Syndication is the widespread online business practice of pushing the same content through as many as hundreds of additional local publications, and is also common of television stations. It is a common practice of the mainstream media, and results in duplicated content across social media. A clear violation of the new rules at Twitter.

While Russian publications like RT and Sputnik do share very similar content, and both they and Iran's Press TV often agree, they are only copying the behavior of Western propaganda organizations. Organizations like the BBC and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are much worse in that they repeat the same articles verbatim across a huge empire of publications and share exactly the same videos across their accounts (they all tend to have associated Twitter accounts). This is especially true when an article relates to local events and gets reprinted across a spectrum of local and national publications. The use of bots is also obvious through a brief look at the wave of sharing that always occurs without fail by numerous accounts when these publications post anything.

If algorithms are to be used to hunt this media practice down and ban accounts, many mainstream newspapers in the US and Britain will witness their Twitter accounts being suspended or suddenly deleted as possible Russian bots.

The price of hypocrisy and censorship

Twitter resents the political pressure put on it by the US and UK to thwart foreign media. It seems to be gearing up for indiscriminate censorship that will hit both sides by targeting all "suspicious" behavior, i.e. all attempts by campaigners and publications to punch above their real weight using social media.

The campaign against Russian bots is the result of pressure by myopic, frustrated journalists who don’t understand that their own media are engaged in the same behavior as the Russian media and will also be banned. It is reminiscent of how AlterNet suffered losses in revenue after Google took steps against the "fake news" AlterNet itself was calling for action against. AlterNet had called for action against fake news without realizing its own alternate views would be detected as fake news.

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UK assassins gassed themselves accidentally in Salisbury (analysis)

The bizarre "chemical attack" in Salisbury, England, blamed on Russia by the UK, seems like a chapter intended for Syria rather than Britain. Because it is.

Had the chemical attack not been reported in Salisbury, it would have been reported in Syria a few days later. It may yet happen in Syria too.

Clear signs are being ignored by UK politicians in their patriotic dash to blame the Russian "enemy". The signs show the British government accidentally released the nerve agent in its own territory prematurely, while hoping to commit an atrocity using it in Syria.

Nerve gas was being transported by the UK spies themselves

The nerve agent was being transported by so-called "targeted" UK spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The Russian former double agent's daughter Yulia, likely as involved with UK intelligence agencies as her father, seems to have been carrying the nerve agent in her suitcase at the time of the apparent "attack". That much is already confirmed by, basically, all the media.

The nerve agent actually seems to have been destined for Eastern Ghouta, Syria, which would inevitably require spies (or expendable mules) to deliver it in a rather risky operation. We know the UK was trafficking weapons from Salisbury to Eastern Ghouta, Syria, to support Syrian rebels.

"Salisbury, England" inscribed on smuggled weapons in Eastern Ghouta

Recent video footage of captured munitions in Eastern Ghouta shows that some of the munitions' origin was Salisbury, England.* Such a finding offers strong grounds to suspect at least some link between the events in Salisbury and the events in Eastern Ghouta, Syria, where Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is routinely accused of using poison gas by the British and American governments. The British and American governments are in turn accused of staging false flag attacks as they seek excuses to launch airstrikes on Syria, making it likely that this was their plan once again.

There is already a history of bungled attempts to move chemical weapons into Syria and give them to rebels to frame Assad, and this just looks like one more example of it. In 2013, the big year the US first threatened to attack and overthrow Assad for supposedly using chemical weapons, anti-Assad rebels backed by the West were arrested in Turkey with chemical weapons.

There is no motive for Britain or Russia to carry out a military grade nerve gas attack in Salisbury, and Sergei Skripal and his daughter were not important enough to be targeted by either country, but they were expendable enough to be used as mules. The only reason this chemical "attack" would occur is by mistake, as it fits neither country's agenda.

* Porton Down, location of the UK's own chemical weapons labs, is also just a few miles away from the site of this accident

US envoy's speech about Salisbury sounded like redraft of a speech about Ghouta

The current diplomatic crisis, which serves neither Russian nor UK interests, can't have been premeditated by the UK. It does not serve the US and NATO foreign policy aims, which are heavily focused on chemical attacks and escalating violence in Syria rather than in Britain. Nothing demonstrated this clearer than when US diplomat Nikki Haley tried to conflate the events in England with the events in Syria and advocate increased US violence in Syria while talking about Salisbury.

Haley talked about Syria and Assad around ten times in the course of a few minutes in front of the UN Security Council after being asked to talk about Salisbury, as she fumbled papers that apparently focus on Syria.

The plan was for this chemical attack to happen in Syria. The US had its script so well-prepared to talk about it happening in Syria that it didn't even bother to rewrite it much.

It is a distinct possibility that, in their desperation to avoid mockery by Russia for accidentally gassing themselves while trying to frame Assad, the British government suddenly decided to start assailing Russia with allegations, hoping for a spectacle that might hide their incompetence.

Of course, we don't know for certain what happened in Salisbury. Almost no-one you talk to in Britain believes Putin really did a chemical attack in Britain. It is just too ridiculous to believe, so it makes sense to offer a more rational alternative version of events.

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