all pb

>>22283451

>>22283451

>General Stanley McChrystal Call To Dig

>>22284108

4887

Q !!Hs1Jq13jV6 10/17/2020 19:14:36 ID: 0d5904

8kun/qresearch: 11125161

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1559047454356/dems-deploying-darpa-funded-ai-driven-information-warfare-tool-to-target-pro-trump-accounts

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dems-deploying-darpa-funded-information-warfare-tool-to-promote-biden

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/technology-once-used-to-combat-isis-propaganda-is-enlisted-by-democratic-group-to-counter-trumps-coronavirus-messaging/2020/05/01/6bed5f70-8a5b-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html

Worth remembering.

Q

Dems deploying DARPA-funded AI-driven information warfare tool to target pro-Trump accounts

By Gregg Re Fox News

Published May 4, 2020 2:20am EDT | Updated May 4, 2020 5:41pm EDT

An anti-Trump Democratic-aligned political action committee advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal is planning to deploy an information warfare tool that reportedly received initial funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon’s secretive research arm – transforming technology originally envisioned as a way to fight ISIS propaganda into a campaign platform to benefit Joe Biden.

The Washington Post first reported that the initiative, called Defeat Disinfo, will utilize "artificial intelligence and network analysis to map discussion of the president’s claims on social media," and then attempt to "intervene" by "identifying the most popular counter-narratives and boosting them through a network of more than 3.4 million influencers across the country — in some cases paying users with large followings to take sides against the president."

Social media guru Curtis Hougland is heading up Defeat Disinfo, and he said he received the funding from DARPA when his work was "part of an effort to combat extremism overseas."

After this article was published, the Post updated its reporting to clarify that Hougland was "using open-source technology initially incubated with funding from DARPA." The Post originally reported: "The initiative is run by Curtis Hougland, who received initial funding for the technology from DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, as part of an effort to combat extremism overseas."

Hougland explained in an interview with the Post that he was unhappy that top social media accounts often supported Trump, and had effectively defended the president in recent days from claims that he had suggested Americans inject themselves with disinfectant.

>>22284303

>The Washington Post first reported that the initiative, called Defeat Disinfo, will utilize "artificial intelligence and network analysis to map discussion of the president’s claims on social media," and then attempt to "intervene"

The effort raised the question of whether taxpayer funds were being repurposed for political means, and whether social media platforms have rules in place that could stymie Hougland's efforts – if he plays along.

In a statement to Fox News that was posted on social media, DARPA flatly rejected the Post's reporting, and said Hougland was apparently misrepresenting the agency's work.

"Hougland's claim DARPA funded the tech at the heart of his political work is grossly misleading," DARPA tweeted. "He advised briefly on ways to counter ISIS online. He was not consulted to design AI or analysis tools, nor certainly anything remotely political. DARPA is strictly apolitical."

"Hougland had a tertiary consulting role advising an agency program on how to explore new and better ways to counter America's adversaries online," a spokesperson for DARPA separately told Fox News. "He was not consulted for technical expertise designing artificial intelligence or network analysis tools, nor certainly any research that was remotely political. … Unequivocally, DARPA funding did not help advance the technology with which Hougland now works any more than does his use of other agency technologies like the internet or mobile phone."

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Facebook told Fox News that "our policies require creators and publishers to tag business partners in their branded content posts when there's an exchange of value between a creator or publisher and a business partner."

Politicians and PACs who are authorized under Facebook's policy entitled “Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics” are allowed to use the site's branded content tool, the spokesperson added. The policy suggested that if Hougland paid any influencers, the arrangement would need to be disclosed.

As part of the authorization process for advertisers, Facebook says on its website that it "confirms their ID and allows them to disclose who is responsible for the ad, which will appear on the ad itself. The ad and 'Paid for by' disclaimer are placed in the Ad Library for seven years, along with more information such as range of spend and impressions, as well as demographics of who saw it."

After this article was published, a Twitter spokesperson told Fox News that the site doesn't have any comment "on the tactics of a political consultant or similar organization." But, the spokesperson did point to Twitter's platform manipulation and spam policy, adding that "if we find anyone to be in violation of these rules, we’ll take a range of enforcement actions." Further, the spokesperson said Twitter also has a "thorough policy on automation and the use of third-party applications on our service."

In 2018, Twitter launched its Political Campaigning Policy, which promises a degree of "transparency" for paid political communications.

The policy requires "advertisers who want to run political campaigning ads for Federal elections to self-identify and certify that they are located in the US Candidates and committees will have to provide their FEC ID, and non-FEC registered organizations and individuals will have to submit a notarized form."

Additionally, "handles used for political campaigning advertising will have to comply with stricter requirements," Twitter's policy states. "The handle’s profile photo, header photo, and website must be consistent with its online presence and the Twitter bio must include a website that provides valid contact information. We will also be including a visual badge and disclaimer information on promoted content from certified accounts in the near future. This will allow users to easily identify political campaigning ads, know who paid for them, and whether it was authorized by a candidate."

Twitter provided an image of what promoted political content ideally would look like.

>>22284303

>Worth remembering.

>Q

>Dems deploying DARPA-funded AI-driven information warfare tool to target pro-Trump accounts

>>22284321

McChrystal, who led U.S. forces in Afghanistan before he was fired by then-President Obama in 2010 for deriding his civilian bosses in a Rolling Stone interview, told the Post that the operation was necessary, even if it might appear unseemly.

“Everyone wishes thePandora’s boxwas closed and none of this existed, but it does," McChrystal said.

McChrystal has not explicitly endorsed Biden, even though the new information warfare project is intended to help his candidacy. The former general has previously gone on the record with a less-than-glowing assessment of Biden's competence.

One of the tidbits inthe Rolling Stone interview by Michael Hastings recounted how McChrystal had lost confidence in Biden after he had suggested a counterterrorism strategy.

"'Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal said, imagining a way to dismissively mock Biden if someone were to ask about him during an upcoming question-and-answer session. 'Who's that?'"

"'Biden?" another adviser chimed in, according to Hastings.'Did you say: Bite Me?'"

>>22284375

>this McChrystal "dig" looks an awfully lot like a SLIDE

Digging on Q drops is a slide?

>>22284303

>4887

>Q !!Hs1Jq13jV6 10/17/2020 19:14:36 ID: 0d5904

>>22284303

>4887

>Q !!Hs1Jq13jV6 10/17/2020 19:14:36 ID: 0d5904

>>22284303

>4887

>Q !!Hs1Jq13jV6 10/17/2020 19:14:36 ID: 0d5904

>>22284393

>Digging on Q drops is a slide?

Looks like that dig is way past due

>>22284398

>dredging up old material either to distract from newer or to cast doubt on the loyalty of Trump supporters (Flynn)

I'm not doing that…I'm just digging Stanley Mccrystal

PB

>>22284236 pb

>Except the corrupt Injustice Department, never went after Stanley

>weird

>>22284236 pb

>Except the corrupt Injustice Department, never went after Stanley

>weird

>>22284303

>>22284321

>>22284352

>>22284393

>>22284398

>got anything NEW?

>>22284412

>>dredging up old material either to distract from newer or to cast doubt on the loyalty of Trump supporters (Flynn)

>I'm not doing that…I'm just digging Stanley Mccrystal

>>22284447

>sorry anon if you are sincere

>anon posted on McChrystal two breads ago, all about linking Genl Flynn to him (guilt by association)

o7

Yes the anti-flynn always looks for any excuse to smear. I legit don't know much about Mccrystal and was wondering if he has been a plant

>>22284352

>before he wasfired by then-President Obamain 2010 for deriding his civilian bosses in a Rolling Stone interview

> https://georgeeliason.substack.com/p/what-stanley-mcchrystal-isnt-saying?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

What Stanley McChrystal ISN’T Saying About His DARPA-Funded Military Software

George Eliason

Mar 22, 2022

McChrystal Group’s 2011 DARPA-funded entry to elect Joe Biden and destroy Donald Trump was outdated within a few years of its inception by commercial software as early as 2014.

That particular commercial software’s outrageous by comparison capabilities are legal to use on US citizens. But, it had to be checked for International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) approval requirements for export use in Ukraine. ITAR governs the export of military munitions.

Let’s take the magic out of McChrystal.

Whenever someone mentions DARPA I get this immediate picture of a giant robot dog shooting lasers and breaking down doors. While it may have a small basis in reality and action movies, a DARPA-funded project isn’t always that exciting, which describes McChrystal’s software without the hype.

By the end of this article, you’ll know the difference between a DARPA-funded project that’s rumored to work and a DARPA-certified project that delivers as advertised.

What the DARPA-funding part means is the DoD (Department of Defense) is looking for a tool or method to tackle a problem or add an advantage that didn’t exist before for the DoD. DARPA provides the research grants. In 2007, the DoD made its first foray into the social media world with a project called Interactive Internet Activities or IIA. The goal of the project was to allow U.S. Army public affairs personnel to go online and have the ability to write comments etc. This first step proved to be a square wheel in the ‘win the hearts and minds’ campaign. The following is from the DoD policy for IIA.

>>22284473

>What Stanley McChrystal ISN’T Saying About His DARPA-Funded Military Software

As you can see, there is nothing remotely threatening because the policy was restricted to real news from established organizations, and PR commenting, as a means of communicating with the public. It wasn’t meant to be particularly invasive and is quite limited in scope. It was a square wheel approach and didn’t work as well as they hoped. Except for a limited use basis revolving around PR, IIA is a non-performer.

This resulted in the 2011 DARPA-funded SMISC BAA or Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) Broad Agency Announcemen(DARPA‐BAA‐11‐64) for development of the softwareCurtis Hoaglanddeveloped for the McChrystal Group. His was one of many projects funded.

None of the research was classified.

According to Rand Waltzman, who wrote the DARPA project announcement and managed the project, the SMISC project scope and limits are:

Technology areas particularly relevant to SMISC are shown here grouped to correspond to thefour basic goals of the program as described above: 1. Linguistic cues, patterns of information flow, topic trend analysis, narrative structure analysis, sentiment detection and opinion mining; 2. Meme tracking across communities, graph analytics/probabilistic reasoning, pattern detection, cultural narratives; 3. Inducing identities, modeling emergent communities, trust analytics, network dynamics modeling; 4. Automated content generation, bots in social media, crowd sourcing.

What makes the SMISC iteration an entirely different animal from IIA is how the program is geared. IIA is a strictly public relations effort inside an environment using factual information.SMISC is designed around Strategic Communications messaging and is considered a social media influence engine.

SMISC gave what IIA didn’t — the real-time ability to influence sentiment on social media. Because it measures, monitors, and interacts with groups, the military could see problems or opportunities developing with the use of bots or personnel diffuse or influence outcomes. The Waltzman link gives a real example of use.

The real question is how effective is McChyrystal’s DARPA magic?

>>22284490

>The real question is how effective is McChyrystal’s DARPA magic?

The biggest strength of the McChrystal entry is also its greatest weakness. It relies on infiltrating social media influencer communities and specific social media pages to influence in a shotgun spread fashion into a community.In the US, even online, the communities are very diverse.

According to ZDNet- User behavior is inherently different on social networks and search engines, Mortensen argued. He pointed out that on social networks, it is “more a question of an individual being made aware of a piece of information” he did not know before, by those in his online social circle. In this case, “[the referral traffic] makes you aware of something you didn’t know, and the referral comes from someone you trust, he explained.’

By using a social media community effort, targeting messages are limited in the sense you are;

∙ Preaching to the choir and just reinforcing political messaging which can take advantage of using strong language. This is happening a lot through the use of negative memes.

∙ Reaching out to undecided people and influencing them with a one fact message and emotional cues. An example could be “Donald Trump is sending federal police to Wisconsin” as the fact. The emotional cues could range from “police violence needs to stop,” #BlackLivesMatter, “police attack peaceful protesters.”

∙ Seeding strong messaging through memes about the opposition that are factless. The only point is to drive emotions and break the community on political lines.

The downfall of SMISCwas and is it doesn’t go much farther than the community level. This over-generalizes the demographic to a degree that mutes the message.

The largest part of the failure is SMISC type software was developed for Strategic Communicators by software and network engineers and not the other way around. There are too many variables to account for within an operational environment.

In Afghanistan, a McChrystal type program’s success rate is a lot higher because the community is homogenous in social, religious, and political beliefs and norms. Finding the groups to influence is easy and message composition is fairly straightforward.

In the US, social media communities reflect a lot of diversity including religion and political beliefs across the entire spectrum. Social norms and customs within a single online community are a big variable. Social communities carry too much variegation for large decisive groups to be McChrystalized and turned into a voting bloc for Joe Biden.

If all this is true and he’s hot for Biden, why would the McChrystal Group offer such an impotent service

SCL-IOTA’s TAA the McChrystal Connection

Stanley McChrystal worked with the developers of the only DARPA-certified regime change IO in existence. Of course, you won’t learn that reading through the McChrystal Group’s webpage.

SCL-IOTA’s program wasn’t designed by software and network engineers. It was designed by “ the world’s most recognized military IO and Influence professionals, backed by proven social and behavioural scientists, who provide capability transfer to military clients, globally. Our members have commanded IO and PsyOps units on operations; they have written NATO and national doctrine; they lecture in the world’s Defence Academies. Teamed with some of the leading behavioural scientists in the field, there is no other organization with the same experience and knowledge.” SCL-IOTA programming described here doesn’t rely on social communities. As you can see from this dashboard, this emotional programming has the ability to target groups at infinitely precise levels which mean each small subgroup within a community can be targeted through Information Operations.

>>22284473

>What Stanley McChrystal ISN’T Saying About His DARPA-Funded Military Software

>>22284490

>>22284511

>>22284511

>If all this is true and he’s hot for Biden, why would the McChrystal Group offer such an impotent service

Each parameter adjustment opens new groups and opportunities across multiple communities in the network. Media insertion can be active and aggressive because it’s geared to create strong emotional responses with sections of the community.

The strength of doing this is being able to channel multiple subgroups simultaneously with different and even opposing fears and hopes into one single whole based on emotional values. By flooding each subgroup with custom messaging creating a single common enemy to their security, welfare, or sense of patriotism, it’s not difficult to funnel masses of people into the streets using memes and narratives without ever presenting a single shred of evidence to back it up.

Stanley McChrystal captured America’s attention with a legal moderately performing social media tool. Is it to take American eyes off the real information operation? You decide.

>>22284524

>>22284524

>Stanley McChrystal captured America’s attention with a legal moderately performing social media tool. Is it to take American eyes off the real information operation? You decide.

>https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9154623/General-McChrystal-compares-MAGA-riot-evolution-Al-Qaeda.html

'Homegrown insurgency': General McChrystal compares MAGA rioters to Al-Qaeda - saying they also followed a 'powerful leader' - and claims that 'Stop the Steal' is a rallying cry like the Lost Cause was after the Civil War

Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal said there are terrifying parallels between the birth of Al-Qaeda and the violent siege on the US Capitol last week

Trump has given his supporters 'legitimacy to become even more radical', he told Yahoo News

His Stop the Steal rhetoric is now a radical rallying cry similar to the Lost Cause adopted by the Southerners in the American Civil War

McChrystal warned that now 'the fabric of something very dangerous has been woven', the consequences will continue long after Trump leaves office

McChrystal led the army's fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

McChrystal was fired by President Barack Obama after he made disparaging remarks about him and then-Vice President Joe Biden

Other counterterrorism experts fear that all the signs are there of growing violent extremist movements on American soil

Security is being ramped up ahead of President-elect Biden's inauguration amid fears of further violence from extremists

By RACHEL SHARP FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 11:21 EST, 16 January 2021 | Updated: 20:19 EST, 16 January 202

Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal has compared the MAGA riot to the evolution of Al-Qaeda saying in both instances people followed a 'powerful leader' who 'justified their violence', as he warned America is headed for a homegrown insurgency.

McChrystal, the former commander of American troops in Afghanistan, said there are terrifying parallels between the birth of the terrorist group responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks and the violent siege on the US Capitol last week that left five dead and sent shockwaves around the world.

Donald Trump has given his supporters 'legitimacy to become even more radical', he told Yahoo News, with his Stop the Steal rhetoric now a radical rallying cry similar to the Lost Cause adopted by the Southerners in the American Civil War.

McChrystal, who was fired by President Barack Obama after he made disparaging remarks about him and then-Vice President Joe Biden, warned that now 'the fabric of something very dangerous has been woven', the consequences will continue long after Trump leaves office.

>>22284727

His comments come as the nation is still reeling from the January 6 attack on the seat of American democracy and security is being ramped up ahead of President-elect Biden's inauguration.

As more arrests of mob members are made and new details of the siege continue to emerge, it has become increasingly clear that among the rioters were members of several extremist groups including white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Proud Boys.

McChrystal led the army's fight against the the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

He said the recent events on the US soil are drawing concerning reminders of the rise of the terrorist group.

Back then, people with 'very poor prospects' followed Osama Bin Laden 'who promised to take them back in time to a better place', he said.

For the last four years, Trump has taken on that role with a radical group of American citizens.

On January 6, he riled up the crowds at a DC rally telling them to march to the Capitol and 'to fight', moments before the mob broke into the building to stop the Electoral College votes being counted.

I did see a similar dynamic in the evolution of al-Qaida in Iraq, where a whole generation of angry Arab youth with very poor prospects followed a powerful leader who promised to take them back in time to a better place, and he led them to embrace an ideology that justified their violence,' McChrystal told Yahoo News.

'This is now happening in America.'

McChrystal also drew comparisons to another dark time in American history.

'President Trump has updated Lost Cause with his 'Stop the Steal' narrative that they lost because of a stolen election, and that is the only thing holding these people down and stopping them from assuming their rightful place in society,' McChrystal said.

The Lost Cause myth came out of the Confederate states at the end of the Civil War as they tried to rewrite the narrative after losing.

They falsely claimed the war was caused by secession and what they said was a noble pursuit to protect the country - not about slavery, which they still believed was just and moral.

Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly sought to rewrite his legitimate 2020 presidential election loss by pushing unfounded claims of mass voter fraud - claims that his avid fans have latched onto.

'That gives them legitimacy to become even more radical,' McChrystal told Yahoo News.

He warned that the problem is already much deeper than people realize: 'I think we're much further along in this radicalization process, and facing a much deeper problem as a country, than most Americans realize.'

And the radicalization which has already taken deep roots in the US will not simply disappear when Trump does, McChrystal warned.

Federal authorities are still rounding up perpetrators of last week's riot and have vowed to come down heavily on those involved.

When this happens, McChrystal said, extremists tend to go quiet and regroup and will likely become 'more professional'.

'As this extremist movement comes under increasing pressure from law enforcement in the coming days and weeks, its members will likely retreat into tighter and tighter cells for security, and that will make them more professional, and those cells will become echo chambers that incubate even more radical thinking along the lines of armed insurrection,' he said.

>>22284727

>>22284744

So even if Trump exits the scene, the radical movement he helped create has its own momentum and cohesion now, and they may find they don't need Trump anymore.'

Another 'charismatic leader' will step up and fill the gap left by Trump, McChrystal added.

'They can just wait for another charismatic leader to appear,' he said.

'So the fabric of something very dangerous has been woven, and it's further along than most Americans care to admit.'

McChrystal was the head of Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq during the 2000s and the commander of all US and allied troops fighting the terrorist organization in Afghanistan.

In 2006, he was credited with leading the airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But in 2010 he was fired from his role as the commander of multinational forces in Afghanistan by Obama after a Rolling Stone article revealed he made disparaging remarks about the president and senior administration figures.

In the article, McChrystal said it was 'painful' to watch Obama's slow approval of the deployment of thousands more US soldiers to Afghanistan.

An aide to the army boss also said McChrystal had been 'disappointed' after he had a meeting with Obama who 'didn't seem very engaged'.

McChrystal also pretended not to know Biden who was Obama's Vice-President at the time while an aide mocked Biden's use of the phrase 'bite me.'

McChrystal was promptly fired. But despite their speckled past, the retired general said he was endorsing Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

hey didn't see everything the way I did. But in every instance, they listened. In every instance, they took in my view,' he said of Biden and Obama in an MCSNBC interview in October.

'In every instance, I felt that they were trying to make the best decision based on all the information they had, and based on a bedrock of values.'

In 2018, McChrystal described Trump's behavior toward the military as 'deeply disturbing' and said 'the size of the defense budget is not a measure of patriotism or connection with those in service'.

'I don't think that President Trump has developed as deep - a real connection of trust - with the military as perhaps he thinks he has,' he said.

McChrystal's warnings of escalating extremism on US soil were echoed by other counterterrorism experts who fear that all the signs of growing violent extremist movements are there to see.

Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation, also compared the January 6 mob to the devastation caused by Al-Qaeda, saying both are the result of extremists mobilizing behind one common view.

Osama bin Laden's major contribution to the terrorist pantheon was to create a mythology around the narrative that a band of Arab fighters defeated the Soviet superpower in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and he used that mythology to bring together a lot of disparate terrorist groups from all over the world under the single banner of al-Qaida, giving them cohesion and an organizational structure,' he told Yahoo News.

'Similarly, the people behind January 6, 2021, mobilized right-wing extremists of every stripe - white supremacists, neo-Nazis, QAnon, anti-Semites, antigovernment militias, xenophobes, anti-feminists - and brought them together as a movement in what amounted to a Woodstock festival for extremists.

>>22284768

'And now the 'Battle of Capitol Hill' has become symbolically important and central to right-wing mythology, and it will lead to more organizing and escalating threats from this movement, which we're already seeing.'

Symbols for right-wing fanatic groups the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters were spotted among the mob on January 6.

Others rioters spewed the QAnon conspiracy theory - the debunked extreme right wing theory that claims Satan-worshipping pedophiles are plotting against Donald Trump and are running a global child sex trafficking ring - and one rioter was seen wearing a 'Camp Auschwitz' sweater.

Experts told Yahoo extremist terrorist movements start with lots of small similarly-minded groups like this before they join together over time to form a larger group.

As the group gains ground, the leaders often make themselves known to fuel the recruitment of more followers.

It is common for extremist movements to recruit from law enforcement and the military communities - something Islamic State did in recruiting Baathist military officers, reported Yahoo.

Several former military members took part in the violent riot on the state Capitol last week.

Ashli Babbit, the woman who was shot dead while she tried to climb through a window into the congressional chambers served 14 years in the Air Force.

Meanwhile, Larry Rendall Brock Jr., 53, who was seen dressed in combat gear and carrying zip ties in the Senate is a retired lieutenant colonel who was in the Air Force for more than two decades.

The US Army is said to be investigating 25 people including active-duty members thought to have participated in the mob.

Experts said extremist groups then often join with similar organizations operating in other countries.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory special agent and counterterrorism expert, said Thursday that some of the white supremacist groups at the Capitol riot had ties to overseas groups including the Nordic Front, a neo-Nazi group in the Nordics.

The growth of the extremism reached a tipping point last week when the rhetoric turned into violent action, experts said.

Concerns of 'major security threats' at Biden's inauguration have sent Washington DC into lockdown.

A Baghdad-style 'Green Zone' perimeter has been set up and more than 20,000 armed National Guard troops have been mobilized.

The Secret Service released its restricted access plan, which includes what the agency is calling a 'Green Zone' in the heart of DC.

The term 'Green Zone' was the same name given to the heavily-fortified area in Baghdad during the Iraq War.

Most of downtown DC is now off-limits to traffic and has already drawn comparisons to Baghdad's high-security zone.

In extraordinary scenes out of the capital, thousands of armed military members are patrolling the streets and anti-climb steel fences and road blocks continue to be installed in the wake of last week's deadly siege.

>>22284490

>This resulted in the 2011 DARPA-funded SMISC BAA or Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) Broad Agency Announcemen(DARPA‐BAA‐11‐64) for development of the software Curtis Hoagland developed for the McChrystal Group. His was one of many projects funded.

>>22284772

Company Profile: Main Street One

Maggie Stohler

/ September 9, 2019

Main Street One was built to counter disinformation and fight the information war online.Founder and CEO Curtis Hougland believes that progressives must play offensein order to restore balance to the Internet. Hougland had experimented with different tech-enabled mechanisms to do so through working with Google, Facebook, and Microsoft to counter ISIL propaganda and with the federal government to combat Russian disinformation campaigns.

The Main Street One team fell into place as Curtis saw the application for his work in politics. He met Main Street One’s Digital Director, Ryan Davis, through collaborating on education reform; and Richard Panter, CTO, across several government initiatives. Together, the team has developed a scalable, machine-learning platform that directly challenges the political right’s weaponization of the Internet.

How does it work? Main Street One tracks false narratives and their online impact, develops authentic, ideologically combative, and wholly accurate content backed up by analytics, and then disseminates this content out to its network of 3.5 million influencers who subsequently sway the online discourse. Most importantly, Main Street One acknowledges that disinformation is a human problem amplified by technology, and its platform studies real-life actors to determine the best types of responsive content to expose bots and blatant falsehoods. Through stressing the human element of persuasion and content creation, Main Street One aims to identify the most compelling means for helping voters cut past the noise of misinformation.

“There is no reason we can’t create a [digital] army that is dedicated to progressive values,” Curtis said. “It is the implicit emotional things that move voters — I can tell you about gun violence all day, or I can show you pictures of what happened in El Paso.”

With the help of retired four-star general Stanley McChrystal, one of Main Street One’s board members, Curtis and his team hopes to inspire the creation of a nonpartisan, non-governmental Fair Digital Election Commission, that “protects the integrity of our elections by detecting, exposing, evaluating, and remediating the impact of disinformation.” According to General McChrystal’s recent Op-ed in Politico, the commission would amplify Main Street One’s research by publicizing notable instances of fake news and demonstrating the subsequent impact.

Main Street Oneworks with campaigns, advocacy organizations, and companies to manage relevant online discourses — including the Brady Campaign, Johnson & Johnson,Mercedes Benz, andthe Child Mind Institute.The team plans to support campaigns around the country in 2020, especially in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia.Curtis explains that we “can’t fix the health of our democracy without repairing the state of our discourse online,” and he hopes that through building the online and offline networks necessary to effect change, Main Street One can tackle one of the greatest existential challenges of our time.

https://highergroundlabs.com/company-profile-main-street-one/

>>22284913

>https://highergroundlabs.com/company-profile-main-street-one/

YOUR PARTNERS IN CREATING IMPACT AND SAVING DEMOCRACY.

OUR TEAM

>>22284913

>Company Profile: Main Street One

>>22284933

2024 impact of HGL’s portfolio companies

HGL Team

/ December 19, 2024

This year, our portfolio companies delivered transformative impact across the progressive ecosystem. From empowering campaigns to save valuable time and resources to running smarter, data-driven strategies, they’ve supported candidates, organizers, and advocacy groups at every level. Together, they’ve helped mobilize millions of voters, strengthen security, and drive innovation in the digital tools powering our movement. Read more about our Portfolio’s Impact below.

>>22284959

>2024 impact of HGL’s portfolio companies

TOP kek

Wake-Up Call: Why Progressive Tech Must Transform Post-2024

Betsy Hoover

/ November 15, 2024

This is not the election outcome we hoped for. To everyone feeling hurt and pain in this aftermath: We see you. To all who poured their hearts into this fight, from organizers on the ground to our portfolio companies working behind the scenes: We thank you. Under exceptionally challenging circumstances, your work made a real difference, particularly in battleground states and down-ballot where Democrats defied national trends.

Higher Ground Labs portfolio companies delivered on their mission this cycle: They helped campaigns work faster, spend smarter, and reach more voters. They saved campaigns and organizations time and money when they needed it most, reaching dozens of millions of voters across all 50 states – as they were designed to do.

But the outcome of this Election, particularly at the top of the ticket, surfaces several stark realities for our party and our movement. Among them, we are reminded that our opposition is adept at shaping narratives, building communities, and mobilizing voters across social media, messaging apps, and online platforms – and we are falling behind. We are not evolving our campaigns at the pace necessary to keep up with society.

Many of our campaign tactics are out of date. We can more effectively utilize channels that are core to communicating with our voters. The world around us is moving into a new information paradigm at a dizzying pace — and we need to catch up. The gap between tech innovations and campaign strategies is becoming too large, inhibiting us from reaching the people we need to engage.

This is an opportunity to reimagine our investment in experimentation, innovation, and the adoption of digital media and technology to reach voters crucial to future victories and a thriving democracy. How can we better meet voters where they are today?

Higher Ground Labs has helped make our democracy more accessible for eight years now. We started in the wake of Trump’s first victory and have built a stronger startup culture than the progressive movement has ever seen. Our focus has been to help campaigns execute on the existing playbook well. But how do we change the playbook? In the coming weeks, we intend to spend time listening, learning, and strategizing with you to learn quickly and implement accordingly.

This is a moment to dive in, not step out. We owe it to our democracy, our neighbors, our children. We are charging forward on these questions because we must transform how progressives engage in the new technological and social landscape. We can’t take for granted that the tools and strategies that got us here will take us where we need to go.

Reach out to us. Whether you’re running campaigns, building technology, or reimagining how progressives and Democrats approach media and voter outreach, we want to be your partners in this crucial work. Our democracy depends on getting this right – and we can only do it together.

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> https://politics.uchicago.edu/uploads/homepage/I-2018-2019.pdf

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>Company Profile: Main Street One

>>22285019

Main Street One name change

People First Launches First Microinfluencer Platform For Politics & Advocacy

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People First

Jun 16, 2022, 14:05 ET

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People First, formerly Main Street One, today announced the first microinfluencer platform for political, brand, and social advocacy campaigns.Progressive organizations may now source and distribute authentic videos, posts, and comments from any audience or any voter segment at scale.

NEW YORK, June 16, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ – People First, formerly Main Street One, today announced the first microinfluencer platform for political, brand, and social advocacy campaigns. Progressive organizations may now source and distribute authentic videos, posts, and comments from any audience or any voter segment at scale.

Unlike networks of like-minded or politically active people, clients can commission content from virtually anyone, any voter segment, geography, profession, party affiliation, identity, age, race, sexuality, or gender. Campaigns are no longer restricted by the size and composition of an existing database, lack of quality and verification with influencer search engines, or lack of persuasion from celebrity endorsements.

“People are both the medium and message in advocacy today.” - CEO Curtis Hougland

People First's managed services platform offers an end-to-end solution for organizations to source and distribute personal and local peer-to-peer content at both speed and scale. Its digital relational organizing team and tool manages the A) Identification, B) Approval, C) Recruitment, D) Briefing, E) Copy/Art Editing, F) Distributing (via organic and paid channels such as whitelisted social ads), and G) measuring campaigns (persuasion, performance, and recall) through secure client portals.

"Americans increasingly distrust institutions, including political campaigns, the media, government, and corporations," said CEO Curtis Hougland. "Instead, they build trust through their relationships online. So, we built a platform that invites real people to share their lived experiences on behalf of causes and campaigns that they support. Real people are the most persuasive messengers to skeptical audiences. People are both the medium and message in advocacy today."

The platform is channel-agnostic with the functionality to source content on any social or mobile messaging platform, including TikTok, Instagram, Vkontakte, WhatsApp, YouTube, LinkedIn, Next Door, Weibo, and Facebook, among others.

As a result of this specialized approach, People First fuels advocacy campaigns on public health issues such as vaccine hesitancy and mental health for Ad Council, up and down ballot political races for Democratic committees such as DGA, workers' rights and the benefits of Unions for AFSCME, and social justice and equal rights campaigns for organizations such as Black Lives Matter. During this critical period in advance of the midterm election in the U.S., Unite the Country PAC is partnering with People First to execute the most extensive microinfluencer campaign in U.S. political history on behalf of the president's economic and social agenda.

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>People First fuels advocacy campaigns on public health issues such as vaccine hesitancy and mental health for Ad Council

In a recent study in partnership with the DGA, microinfluencer content from People First was 28% more likely to be recalled versus a control ad and 45% more likely to be recalled by regular Instagram users. In a recent study by The Ad Council people reported that "trusted messengers" are perceived as 79% honest and 71% are seen as unbiased "presenting multiple points of view/give both sides of an issue."

"People trust their communities," added Chief Digital Officer Ryan Davis. "This highly personal content is 6x more likely to be shared and 14x more likely to be clicked on average than benchmarks published by the technology platforms. It is state of the art digital organizing."

People First will remain available and viable despite any potential political ad bans by the tech platform and enables affinity-based campaigning regardless of platform changes.

ABOUT PEOPLE FIRST

People First, formerly Main Street One, pioneered microinfluencer marketing for brands, political, and cause-advocacy campaigns.Founded originally to remediate disinformation, the company now sources and distributes more peer-to-peer videos, posts, and reviews than any other advocacy organization. In the run-up to the 2020 election, People First sourced and distributed more than 15,000 individual posts and videos on behalf of progressive organizations, as well as dozens of campaigns, NGOs, PACs, and other IEs – illustrated here. People First received original funding from Higher Ground Labs and works in partnership with Village Square on integrated political media campaigns. People First is a member of the Dawn Network.The company is based in New York City; however, we have been a remote office since inception with organizers across the country and unlimited PTO.

https://www.prweb.com/releases/people-first-launches-first-microinfluencer-platform-for-politics-amp-advocacy-845636790.html

>>22285084

>People First Launches First Microinfluencer Platform For Politics & Advocacy

>>22285090

As influencer marketing grows, one agency startup targets your friends and neighbors to win you over

By Digiday • May 21, 2021 •

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Ivy Liu

Who do you listen to when you’re thinking about what to buy or subscribe to? In a bid to answer that question, brands are trying to turn everyday people into influencers to help win over consumers.

According to an eMarketer report just out this week, titled Influencer Monetization 2021, 68 percent of U.S. companies plan to include influencer marketing (paid or unpaid) as part of their media plan in 2021, up from 62 percent last year. That number is expected to rise to 72 percent in 2022.

It’s clear influencer marketing is here to stay, but as the field gets more crowded and even diluted, newer forms are taking shape, particularly in the word-of-mouth subset. One effort is even trying to drill down to an hyper-local level in the belief that hearing from your friends and neighbors carries more weight and trust than either famous or known influencers or brand advertising.

People First Marketing, based in New York, which describes itself as a peer-to-peer persuasion company, launched in January and since partnered with independent media agencyCrossmedia, and Main Street One, a sister agency to People First. All three are members of the Dawn network of agencies.

People First’s CEO and founder,Curtis Hougland, is working with clients to create content that gets disseminated by ordinary people through their own social reach. “When you use real people, the average share rate is about six times higher than what a brand will do — it’s 300 percent more likely to be remembered,” said Hougland.

The technology that powers People First is essentiallyan online listening engine that uses conversation modeling to identify things People First’s clients want talked about and recommended by social word of mouth. The tool was initially developed when Hougland worked with DARPA (the government’s Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency) to battle Russian misinformationcampaigns leading into the 2016 presidential election, as well as combatting social recruitment methods being used by ISIL and other terrorist organizations.

In essence,People First pays people (on average $300) identified through the technology to endorse its clients through videos or posts that have been pre-approved by the clients.People First works with clients to source and distribute to each micro- or nano-influencer/creator (between 2,000 and 20,000 followers) about 100 individual digital narratives per month.

The fact that they’re sponsored content is made clear, said Hougland. “Any post or video funded by a brand is disclosed prominently as an #ad, #sponsoredby according to the terms and conditions of each platform,” he said. “Most brands have strict compliance departments, and our reputation relies on maintaining this transparency. For this to be real and trusted it has to be clear.”

Anne Bologna, chief strategy officer at Crossmedia, said the concept is attractive not only for tapping into real people, but also because of what comes out of the efforts. “There’s the optimization analytics in the backend, which is this beautiful loop that can be inserted into a media and marketing program,” she said.

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>People First pays people (on average $300) identified through the technology to endorse its clients through videos or posts that have been pre-approved by the clients

The approach seems to lend itself well to health-related clients, notably ones that touch on sensitive topics.

“People First recruited more than 400 real people to share real stories about their desire for clean medicine,” said Kelli Lane, CMO at Genexa, which removes unnecessary ingredients out of traditional medicine brands. “The agency has been a critical part of Genexa’s growth by building a foundation of word-of-mouth advocacy and education,” Lane said. “This authenticity is invaluable in modern marketing.”

“These peer-to-peer influencers spoke openly about how [irritable bowl syndrome] has affected their lives, tips and tricks for managing IBS, and how their lives would be different with more IBS symptom-free days,” added Jen Ilacqua, senior director, North American marketing at i-Health, which markets Culturelle probiotics products.

Based on the eMarketer research cited above, influencers are big drivers of newer social platforms and brand activations on them and that could trickle down to the more local and intimate level where People First wants to play. The report cites research from influencer marketing platform Linqia, which noted the rising and falling trajectories of influencer use on the major social platforms from February 2020 to March 2021. As expected, TikTok surged the most, to 68 percent in 2021 from 16 percent in 2020, Snapchat rose to 26 percent from 16 percent, and Twitch lifted to 13 percent from 5 percent. Meanwhile, Facebook, the top platform for influencers per the report, saw its dominance slip just a bit, to 93 percent from 97 percent, while Instagram Stories held steady at 83 percent, and Instagram Reels, which launched in the U.S. last August, snagged 36 percent in March.

Even with the rise in these new channels for influencers, Hougland insists he wants to prevent People First from becoming spam from friends and family. “Everything that we do is 100 percent transparent as to who the brand is, who funded it,” he said. “There’s no fraud, there are no bots, there’s nosock puppets.There’s nothing that’s dark about any of it.”