[Air-L] Update on Digital Influence Mercenaries: Surfacing Team Jorge

[Dr. Emma Briant]

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

I am excited to share a wave of reporting this week relevant to the
interests of this group... from the deep investigation Forbidden Stories
have done with 30 media partners exposing a dark corner of the influence
industry and its cyber mercenaries #storykillers... (Forbidden Stories
<https://forbiddenstories.org/> pick up the investigations of murdered
journalists and complete them, so stories cannot be silenced by deadly
means). I have been helping the team over several months providing insights
and expertise and there has been a great deal of reporting this week. I am
including here links to some of the articles, and some of the expertise I
contributed to their investigations as well as an article from me at the
end of the email, which may be helpful for highlighting how related
intelligence and influence industries work together for online influence
operations.

Forbidden Stories investigation picked up the important work of murdered
journalist Gauri Lankesh in India and his first article on Lankesh
<https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/gauri-lankesh-in-the-age-of-false-news/>is
a disturbing account of how online hatred and harassment can incite
violence against a journalist to silence them. I told Forbidden stories
that “manipulating the truth has swelled into a billion-dollar business
with hundreds, possibly thousands, of service providers worldwide.” And
“There is a huge range of unregulated industry practices that would widely
be considered unethical but not illegal.”

Next an article
<https://www.occrp.org/en/storykillers/hacks-bots-and-blackmail-how-secret-cyber-mercenaries-disrupt-elections>
in
OCCRP gives a deep dive into this surveillant industry for 'Hacks, Bots and
Blackmail: How Secret Cyber Mercenaries Disrupt Elections.' And another
episode this investigation by Der Spiegel
<https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/storykillers-undercover-bei-den-cybersoeldnern-der-grosse-spiegel-report-a-2b51071c-6efe-41f3-9cec-3fd08d51f4cc>
about
the sting that set up 'Team Jorge' and The Guardian revealed their
Cambridge Analytica ties
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/18/cambridge-analytica-staff-leaked-emails-team-jorge-nigeria-election-sam-patten-tal-hanan?ref=upstract.com>...
Der Spiegel interviewed me on how overlooked this industry has been: "Emma
Briant, one of the world's leading experts in information wars & Cambridge
Analytica scandal, argues the public focus continues to be on Facebook,
Twitter and similar media companies. But not on the real problem, on the
huge industry that exists in secret."

And the next big investigation
<https://forbiddenstories.org/story-killers/the-gravediggers-eliminalia/> to
read in this disturbing series is on 'reputation management' firm,
Eliminalia. This is a segment of industry which puts a price on censorship
and enables the powerful to rewrite history... I told Forbidden Stories
investigation that “The legitimate uses for this kind of reputation
management are few compared to the advantages for corrupt individuals.”
These are firms profiting on the cleansing of wrongdoing from the public
record.

This is just a few of the articles published this week. With that in mind,
in an attempt to draw larger insights from the series and highlight
important issues… I share my own analysis of what is revealed about this
highly coordinated and opaque Digital Influence Industry by the series of
individual investigations in my article on Patreon ‘Coordination in the
Influence Industry: 'Surfacing' Team Jorge’
<https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-article-in-78908871>:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-article-in-78908871

I hope you find this a helpful update and thanks for supporting my ongoing
work on this. I have another new scholarly publication forthcoming on
Digital Influence Mercenaries this year which I will update you on very
soon.

Best wishes,

Emma

-- 
Dr Emma L Briant

Owner: Maven of Persuasion LLC
Fellow at Bard College, Human Rights Project
Fellow at Central European University, Center for Media, Data and Society
Associate at University of Cambridge, Center for Financial Reporting &
Accountability

Author of: *Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global
Change *from
Manchester University Press
Co-Author of: *Bad News for Refugees* with Prof. Greg Philo and Dr. Pauline
Donald from Pluto Press.

Support my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emmalbriant
Website: www.emma-briant.co.uk
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"I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns
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