Liberals have a new favorite website which just happens to be run by faux conservatives that boast of being NeverTrumpers, called Hamilton 68, which claims to be tracking "Activity from 600 monitored Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations," on Twitter. They track trending hashtags used by those accounts they claim are linked to Russian influence, without offering any justification or proof that any of those accounts are actually linked to Russia in any way, shape or form.
The site was created by NeverTrumper's, listed on their advisory board, in order to try to blame the Russians for promoting hashtags they claim are "pro-Russian," yet a look at those "Top hashtags" the Russians are supposedly promoting include the top news coming from the American mainstream media.
The implication of those headlines is the #ReleaseTheMemo theme is Russia's fault and those using it are playing into Russia's hands, some type of huge Russia colluding with conservatives conspiracy, but if we use that same logic, we see that almost all of the mainstream media has addressed this FISA abuse memo that more than 130 Republican congress men and women have now had the opportunity to read in a secure room because information contained within is classified, with over 65 having signed a letter demanding this memo be released to the public, with GOP congressmen on record saying it shows abuses so bad they compare them to KBG tactics.
A look through Google search shows that along with right-leaning outlets, liberal MSM outlets such as Washington Post, CNN, Politico, NBC News, MediaIte, CNBC, The Hill and dozens of liberal blogs, are all talking about the FISA abuse memo, albeit spinning it according to their own ideology.
Now, normal people would look at a trending hashtag, use said hashtag so that more people would see what they were tweeting, whether to promote their websites, or simply give an opinion, but since liberals now claim that if a supposed Russia-linked "bot" or troll is promoting something a user is promoting, simply by using a hashtag, that means they are "working overtime to help" (direct quote from the Business Insider headline), or promote a conservative agenda, somehow "colluding" with conservatives, by that same logic, given that liberal media is discussing the same topic, doesn't that automatically mean the Russia is colluding with the MSM as well?
Or better yet, thousands upon thousands of liberals used that same #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag in order to downplay the significance of the FISA abuse memo, or to repeat Democratic politicians' talking points about the memo.... does that make those liberals part of the big bad Russian plot to promote a hashtag?
Same goes for the #SchumerShutdown & #TrumpShutdown, every single mainstream media outlet is talking about the government shutdown, and conservatives are blaming Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer for insisting the DACA be part of the funding bill, and liberals are calling it the #TrumpShutdown, as each side works to blame the other, yet not one liberal outlet that consistently quotes the Hamilton 68 website, sees the irony of claiming the Russians are pushing the conservative agenda, even acknowledges or ask themselves why those same supposed Russia-linked accounts are pushing the liberals version using #TrumpShutdown.
MAJOR FLAWS IN HAMILTON'S METHODOLOGY AND CONCEPT
One of the major flaws in with Hamilton 68 is that it's "advosiry council" are full of #NeverTrumpers that claim to be Republicans, such as Bill Kristol, a man that claims he is conservative but is so infected by Trump Derangement Syndrome he preferred a Hillary Clinton presidency rather to Donald Trump winning the election. Therefore anything that favors the Trump administration that trends, they blame on Russia and liberals rush to repeat those claims.
The biggest flaw comes from their assertion that if an account they claim is somehow linked to Russia shares something, it is automatically "pro-Russia" and anti-American, when in fact the two are not always exclusive of each other. Not only that, but they assume that because "Russians" are using a trending hashtag means something other than they are taking advantage of a "trend" to get their message out is somehow ominous, when every single Twitter user that uses a hashtag is doing the exact same thing.
DOES ANYONE REALLY CARE IF THEIR ARE RUSSIAN ACCOUNTS ON TWITTER?
When going through trending hashtags, people click the hashtag that interests them, then as they read through the tweets, if they agree with something they "retweet" it. In other words, if you agree with a sentiment, you hit the retweet button, and not one person I have ever spoken to cares if it is an account that Hamilton 68 claims is Russian-linked, they share the sentiment, not the users origin, or reasoning for creating the tweet.
No one really cares about Russian bots, except those that are trying to lay the blame of Hillary Clinton's loss on the Russians! In other words, liberals and NeverTrumpers.
HAMILTON 68 WAS CREATED TO ATTACK INDEPENDENT MEDIA ..... PERIOD.
Since the 2016 presidential election where every media outlet, liberal and NeverTrumpers insisted, using their own skewed polling, that Donald Trump had barely any chances of winning, right up until he actually won the election, Independent Media has been under attack. The MSM ran articles claiming over 200 Independent media sites were pushing "Russian Propaganda," social media shadow banned conservatives, blocked, censored and purged conservatives from their platforms. Google cut ad revenue to Independent Media sites, attacked them by ranking them lower in their search results. Google owned YouTube demonetized them, placed them on age restriction mode.
Independent media has been attacked from every direction by the same people that wanted Hillary Clinton to win.
Including the NeverTrumpers that created Hamilton 68 to wage their attacks on Independent Media. A look at their explanation on top themes, says it all:
Between January 2 and January 13, we examined 97 unique articles that were among the top URLs shared by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter. As with past weeks, attacks on liberals/Democrats were prominent (featured in 27% of all URLs). The most common targets were the Clintons (11 articles), Oprah Winfrey (4 articles), and Barack Obama (4 articles). However, Republicans John McCain (2 articles) and Marco Rubio (1 article) were also targets. Other prominent themes were discrediting Fusion GPS and the Steele dossier (14% of examined URLs) and pushing "deep state" narratives/conspiracies (13%) -- (note: there was a significant amount of overlap between those two themes). Anti-immigration was another key theme (8% of all URLs), with promoted articles bashing both DACA and Europe’s migration policies. The focus on immigration and migrant crimes made the EU (7% of all URLs) the most prominent geopolitical topic (6 of the 7 articles focused on migration issues; the other one discussed crypto-currency in Estonia). Iran (6%) and Ukraine (5%) were the two other main areas of focus. Articles on Iran had two main themes: blaming the Obama administration for the Iran nuclear deal and suggesting the U.S. was engaging in "regime change."
Basically what these NeverTrumpers are saying is that if you write about or share articles critical of Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, they you are "siding" with the Russians!
If you think John McCain and Marco Rubio of faux Republicans, more interested in amnesty and anti-Trump propaganda than America First, well you are siding with those mean ole Russians!
If you write or tweet about the nature of the unverified, Kremlin sourced Fusion GPS Steele dossier, well you are on Russia's side!
If you talk about the "deep state," then you are a conspiracy theorist duped by... yes, you got it, the Russians!
This is why liberals love the NeverTrump website Hamilton 68, because they want to associate anybody pro-Trump and anti-Clinton, anti-illegal immigration, anti-deep state, as unwilling puppets for Russian propaganda.
It is the same attack, but those behind Hamilton 68 are just going about it in a different way, and the liberal media is helping them.
BOTTOM LINE
NeverTrumpers are the most dangerous group in the political world today, they pretend to be "conservative," but push liberal talking points, including the "Russia is to blame for everything" mindset because they cannot admit they were so wrong in their belief that Donald Trump could not win the presidency, they are willing to carry liberal water and spew liberal talking points.
More importantly, they are attacking anyone and everyone that disagrees with them by trying to "link," for lack of a better word, Independent Media that fought hard to bypass the MSM during the 2016 elections, with Russia propaganda. They know that without the combined efforts of Independent Media, only the MSM, which was 90 percent hostile to Donald Trump during the run up to the election, would have been able to influence voters and control the outcome, which would have given us a Hillary Clinton presidency.
Unfortunately over the last month we have seen two of those conservative websites, Red Flag News and Right Wing News, announce their demise, both citing the suppression by social media and the ongoing attacks from all directions against Independent Media.
Hamilton 68, liberal social media giants, and the MSM, are all teamed up to destroy Independent Media, in an attempt to once again be the dominating influence for the masses.
Recently Facebook, YouTube representatives testified before Congress, and below you will see their interactions with Senator Ted Cruz, where Cruz addresses the very topic of social media's relentless attacks against Conservatives, specifically highlighting the recent undercover videos from Project Veritas, of Twitter employees and former employees admitting to censoring conservatives on their platform, where topics of God, guns or America First were likened to Russian propaganda.
While their answers are full of doublespeak in order to try to deny their censorship practices, Senator Cruz's statement at the end of the nearly 7 minute video below, is key, as he issues a stern warning of what is coming to them if they continue their practices.
Cruz states that the "Pattern of political censorship we are seeing across technology companies is highly concerning." He goes on to tell them that "The opening question I asked you of whether you are neutral public platforms, if you are a neutral public platform, that does not allow for political editorializing and censorship, and if you are not a neutral public platform, the entire predicate for liability immunity under the CDA (Community Decency Act) is claiming to be a neutral public platform - so you cannot have it both ways."
Big tech should consider that a shot across the bow, letting them know that at least some in congress are thinking about stripping these companies of their liability immunity if they continue with their censorship practices while falsely claiming to be a neutral public forum.
