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Dark money network's anti-Twitter censorship campaign coalesces behind App Store attack vector
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Dark money network's anti-Twitter censorship campaign coalesces behind App Store attack vector

Will they succeed?

Jordan Schachtel
Nov 30, 2022
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Dark money network's anti-Twitter censorship campaign coalesces behind App Store attack vector
dossier.substack.com

In the month since Elon Musk took the reins of Twitter, more than half of the company’s biggest advertisers have suspended ads on the platform. They’ve been driven into action through a relentless dark money political operation funded by some of the wealthiest individuals and organizations on the planet. Countless American and multinational corporations have bent the knee to accommodate this dark money political ruling class cancel campaign.

Under the guise of demanding a “safer” platform, the forces for technocratic tyranny and political censorship have, through their billionaire donor network, succeeded in chipping away at Twitter’s most potent revenue stream.

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The Dossier has already reported on the origins of the campaign and its backers. We identified Arabella Advisors, a dark money progressive advocacy group funded through sister entities by the likes of Bill Gates, the Soros empire, and a far-left Swiss billionaire, as the network behind the anti-Twitter cancel and censorship campaigns.

The Dossier
Twitter advertiser boycott organized by dark money Soros, Clinton, and foreign networks
The campaign to pull corporate advertising from Twitter, following its purchase by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, is being led by a network of left wing dark money activists with ties to prominent Democrat politicians and mega donors.The Dossier is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subs…
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3 months ago · 230 likes · 80 comments · Jordan Schachtel

Given the success of their ongoing advertiser boycott campaign, these same operatives have set their sights on a new mission: removing Twitter from the invaluable Apple and Google App Stores.


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 And there appears to be a coordinated campaign in major legacy media publications, many of which are influenced and funded by the dark money network, to convince the aforementioned App Store gatekeepers to pull the plug on Twitter. In recent days and weeks, The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other legacy media staples, have dedicated a considerable amount of opinion and pseudo reportage space to the App Store activism.

Twitter avatar for @TaylorLorenz
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“Apple and Google need to seriously start exploring booting Twitter off the App Store.”
washingtonpost.com‘Opening the gates of hell’: Musk says he will revive banned accountsA Twitter poll posted by Elon Musk shows 72 percent support granting “general amnesty” to accounts suspended for harassment, abuse and misinformation.
10:01 PM ∙ Nov 24, 2022
301Likes67Retweets
Twitter avatar for @yoyoel
Yoel Roth @yoyoel
Last week, I made the decision to leave my role leading Trust & Safety at Twitter. Today, I'm sharing a few thoughts about what comes next for the site.
nytimes.comOpinion | I Was the Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter. This Is What Could Become of It.Elon Musk’s brand of radical transformation has unavoidable limits.
7:25 PM ∙ Nov 18, 2022
21,684Likes5,491Retweets
Twitter avatar for @accountabletech
Accountable Tech @accountabletech
Elon Musk's vision of free speech absolutism flies in the face of millions who have died from #COVID19. We're calling on advertisers to #StopToxicTwitter for the sake of public health, democracy, and common truths.
axios.comTwitter no longer enforcing COVID misinformation policyThis is the latest in a series of changes to the platform that have accompanied Elon Musk’s takeover.
6:09 PM ∙ Nov 29, 2022
17Likes6Retweets

Will the forces for censorship succeed?

Apple has already limited advertising on the platform (according to Elon Musk himself), along with some of its major stakeholders, including top shareholders BlackRock and Fidelity.

Twitter avatar for @elonmusk
Elon Musk @elonmusk
Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why
6:43 PM ∙ Nov 28, 2022
656,682Likes76,875Retweets

The consideration to cancel Twitter couldn’t be coming at a more awkward time for Apple, who indirectly employ Chinese indentured servants to make their iPhones and other Apple products.

Twitter avatar for @JamesMelville
James Melville @JamesMelville
Zhengzhou, China 🇨🇳 Workers at the iPhone factory in Zhengzhou have had enough of zero Covid. Ultimately, only people power can stop authoritarianism.
8:21 AM ∙ Nov 24, 2022
5,980Likes1,561Retweets

Apple has not only refused to speak out about the plight of Chinese laborers and Chinese citizens as a whole, they have routinely helped the Chinese Communist Party install surveillance measures to crack down on dissent. Apple has no moral high ground to stand upon, but they seem committed to action anyway.

Twitter avatar for @greg_price11
Greg Price @greg_price11
In 2019, @Apple removed an app that helped Hong Kong protesters track the police and they just limited the use of AirDrop in China that anti-lockdown protesters were using to communicate and now they're threatening to de-platform Twitter as videos of protests in China go viral.
7:54 PM ∙ Nov 28, 2022
12,145Likes4,788Retweets

The power of the App Store was put on display for the world to see when Big Tech deplatformed Parler, detonating the upstart company in a matter of days. Parler never recovered from the cancel campaign. Its user base departed for competitor sites and never came back.

It is one thing to cancel Parler, but it a much more ambitious project to take down Twitter.

Twitter has some 250 million daily active users, some of whom have now spent over a decade on the platform.

Also, an attempt to cancel Twitter could backfire for Apple and Google, and even jeopardize their monopolistic status in Big Tech. It’s a risky play for companies that have been running on autopilot for quite some time.

It’s one thing to make quick work of Parler, but Twitter and its passionate user base won’t go down so easily. Elon Musk, for his part, has already discussed the possibility of creating an entire new phone brand, should the Big Tech titans attempt to smother the bird app.

Moreover, Twitter works just fine in a web browser. Even if it is canceled from the App Store, users may be more inconvenienced, but they will not be shut out from the site.

As a centralized entity, Twitter has plenty of additional potential attack vectors. One of these current vulnerabilities are their servers, which are hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Although Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, is a fierce rival of Musk’s, the company has not alluded to any plans to implement such a maneuver. Even if AWS decided to shut off access to Twitter, this wouldn’t be a death blow, as Musk could deploy some emergency cash to bring Twitter’s servers under company control.

The prospect of an open platform for free speech terrifies the American and international ruling classes, and for good reason. They will continue pulling out all the stops with the hopes to re-secure their loosening grip over the global flow of information.

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Dark money network's anti-Twitter censorship campaign coalesces behind App Store attack vector
dossier.substack.com
49 Comments
Nat
Nov 30, 2022·edited Nov 30, 2022Liked by Jordan Schachtel

As Elon has said, we are in a full blown war and the outcome of this war will determine much of our, and our children's, future. Not just in the US but across the whole Western world and beyond.

And most people are not even aware that this most crucial conflict of their lifetime is taking place.

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Ki
Nov 30, 2022Liked by Jordan Schachtel

Incredible that it takes the wealthiest man in the World to throw his shoulder into the monopoly / censorship powers. If Apple / Google / Amazon took out Twitter like they took out Parler, I'm pretty sure they would not enjoy the massive customer loss when Elon puts out the far superior Tesla phone and operating system. Now we just have to pray he's not ultimately one of them.

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