Hamilton 68, hosted by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, monitored a network of more than 600 accounts during 2017–2018. Taibbi’s January 27, 2023 report published internal Twitter messages sharply questioning the sample. Twitter’s analysis found many ordinary Western users and challenged the inference that their conversations measured a Russian influence operation. That exposed a serious gap between a dashboard’s apparent authority and what Twitter’s own analysts thought the data supported. [1]
ASD replied that the dashboard tracked networks amplifying Russian narratives, including unwitting participants, rather than a roster of people it had verified as Russian agents or bots. Earlier public guidance had indeed warned that the accounts included humans and automation, inside and outside Russia. ASD also acknowledged media misuse of its data and said the original dashboard was retired in December 2018; Hamilton 2.0 shifted to overt, attributable accounts. [2][3]
Two judgments can coexist: Russian origin or control should not be inferred from a hashtag’s popularity within a selected network; yet an American account can circulate state propaganda without being Russian or automated. Taibbi’s sweeping fraud characterization and ASD’s methodological defense should each face the actual sample, selection rules, and specific news report at issue. Neither establishes that all foreign interference was invented. [1][2]