‘Fighting Technofascism on the Virtual Battlefield’ — My Latest in Byline Supplement
‘Fighting Technofascism on the Virtual Battlefield’ — My Latest in Byline Supplement
As the PayPal Mafia attempts to complete its purchase of American Democracy, I report how independent journalists are fighting back
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In our editorial meeting, Peter Jukes — Byline Times co-founder — called my report from today High Noon. As independent reporters, we are on a virtual battlefield, fighting it out with supervillains who own the turf, but have no sense of honor or morality.
My substack had its biggest weeks since its inception, because people are finally taking an interest in what I’ve been reporting all along — the monsters attacking democracy:
In addition, more people truth curious about the Russian propaganda superspreaders who helped steal our 2016 election and are trying to do it again:
Today’s report in Byline Supplement continues exposing the technofascists, who are openly waging war on America.
Below is an excerpt:
Byline Supplement:
Fighting Technofascism on the Virtual Battlefield
Heidi Siegmund Cuda reports how the PayPal Mafia is attempting to complete its purchase of American democracy and how writers are fighting this hostile takeover on X/Twitter.
“We have to make life good for our smart people… Elon endorsed me the other day… he gives me $45 million dollars a month.”—Donald J. Trump, at a Michigan rally
The transactional PayPal Mafia is attempting to complete its purchase of American democracy. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel purchased Ohio Senator JD Vance into office, supporting his Senate run with $15 million dollars, and Vance is now Trump’s 2024 running mate. Thiel, who hired Vance at his global investment firm in 2017, owns Rumble with Vance. The social media platform, once a site for cute cat videos, is now infested with pro-Russian propaganda.
“Got all the way through the Constitution and did not find the provision whereby the South African oligarchs select the vice-presidential nominees on behalf of the Russian dictator,” tweeted Yale Professor Timothy Snyder, referencing Thiel’s South African roots, which he shares with other prominent PayPal principles.
Thiel’s co-founder in PayPal, South African-born Elon Musk, who owns X/Twitter, is also using his platform and cash to influence the 2024 election.
Although Musk may be reneging on the $45 million dollars a month he pledged to the Trump campaign, he has given Trump and such formerly banned convicted criminal associates as Mike Flynn, Alex Jones, and Roger Stone carte blanche to spread venal propaganda on his platform — a priceless value.
Trump’s son, Don Jr, took to Twitter last Sunday to post a meme showing fake missed calls from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to US President Joe Biden, who announced he was stepping down after pressure from his own party and Hollywood donors.
In an interview with open source intelligence investigative researcher Brent Allpress in June 2023, I asked him what was his biggest concern about Musk running what I called The Twitter Operation, and he said that “it’s going to be used as a platform for disinformation in the 2024 US presidential election.”
And he was exactly correct, with Musk himself a superspreader of disinformation, propaganda, and memetic warfare.
Why this matters is, according to Allpress, the shadowy dark money group — the Council for National Policy — funded a study of Twitter that found in the 2016 US election, Twitter helped to sway the election to Donald Trump, and in the 2020 US election, the platform helped Joe Biden.
Now, in 2024, doomscrolling on X/Twitter has intensified under Musk, even for those of us who block all trolls.
After Trump was allegedly shot in Pennsylvania at a rally, Musk took to X/Twitter to deify him in what reads like Soviet-era strongman rhetoric:
“Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt,” he wrote.
In our original ‘Unmusked’ report, I predicted this type of behavior…
And although it feels as if we are behind enemy lines on X/Twitter, journalists like me and many others refuse to cede ground on this virtual battlefield.
Viral tweets countering the technofascist agenda can still occur even under the tyranny of Musk.
After his Roosevelt tweet went out to his 190.4 million followers, garnering him 108 million views, author and reporter James Surowiecki had his own viral thread. Surowiecki took a screenshot of Musk’s tweet, and wrote a thread detailing heroism from former Presidents, who were real combat veterans…
Tweet threads like that are life rafts in a sea of hungry sharks. We cling to them as we cling to reality, reminding ourselves that Twitter is not the real world, although it does have real world impact.
In the 1965 sci-fi noir film, Alphaville, director Jean-Luc Godard warns of a future where a dictatorial computer controls people, until a secret agent/reporter smashes it up.
As I prepare for the onslaught of misogyny and racism headed our way in order to undermine the strength of the presumptive Democratic candidate Kamala Harris — now tasked with taking on these technofascists — I revisit a series I wrote dissecting the 2016 election attack.
Misogyny was the gateway to the virtual assassination of Hillary Clinton.
In that series I wrote:
The Crime Scene
“Twitter 2016 is a crime scene. The chalk outline around the decaying corpse is an ominous warning — metaphorical yellow tape serves as an attempt to keep people out. But I go in — probing the bombed out traces of memetic warfare. And navigating my way between the mounds of deleted tweets and suspended accounts, I forensically piece together the carcass of 2016 — an election stolen by Kremlin-sponsored attacks facilitated by misogynistic white nationalists — superspreaders of GRU lies… trolling is a cheap way to destroy people and countries.”
Eight years later, in 100 days, we’ll find out if we have learned anything.
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Keep your head up. We’ve got war ahead.
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
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