Back on Twitter after 4 year ban

A dispatch from the information war front lines

look who’s back!

In international relations theory, a “black swan” event is a rare occurrence that is unexpected, unprecedented, has major consequences across the board, and is likely to never repeat. For example, The Great Depression giving rise to Hitler is widely considered a “black swan”. Little old me being reinstated on Twitter 2 weeks ago (@timrusscle - gimme a follow) after 4 years being banned for calling Lawdork Chris Geidner a Russiagate “whore” is, of course, not a “black swan” event. But Elon Musk’s $44 billion dollar purchase of Twitter, the only reason I’m unbanned, may be the blackest of swans.

Prior to Musk’s Twitter purchase on October 27, 2022, Twitter was a teeming politburo of censorship, like every other online platform continues to be. One doesn’t need Matt Taibbi’s Twitter files dump in December to know that the FBI, CIA, NSA, and every other government security agency in every corner of the globe obsesses about online discourse 24/7 to prevent any challenge to power arising from anyone, anywhere. But the censorship is not just from the top down, it’s more importantly from the bottom up - a grassroots fascism, easily manipulated, enforcing itself by acquiescence of the masses via a bristling arsenal of downvotes, blocks and mutes, algorithmic control for advertising dollars, and mass reporting Karens on the hunt for a dopamine hit. Right now, a 2 hour interview I did with Russians With Attitude in October is buried under precisely this grassroots censorship dynamic - they haven’t aired it, and may never. Facebook is by far the worst - I finally deleted FB for good in 2021 when vaccine mania overwhelmed filthy unvaxed me into an online ghetto.

After Musk’s purchase, two globally dominant topics on Twitter were instantly given air to breathe - covid, and the Ukraine war. In the two weeks I’ve been back on Twitter, I’ve tested both topics in my usual lovable way, but mostly on the war (having lived in the FSU for nearly 3 years). From the outset in February, 2022, the only part of the Ukraine war that NATO and the west have been winning is the propaganda war - by a mile. That won’t last much longer. As with the fraudulent covid “vaccine”, reality on the ground in Ukraine is seeping through, thanks almost entirely to random individuals covering the war online in the face of these headwinds, torpedoes be damned.

One such rando is a fellow calling himself GeromanAT on Twitter, who appears to be a leftist in Austria. Geroman’s feed is a firehose of news spanning the frontline to the global stage, all with a very pro-Russia bias. Like I did four years ago, Geroman called someone a “pussy” on Twitter. Horrors. The Karens swarmed, largely from the paid troll operation called “NAFO”, an almost entirely astroturfed online gang of pro-Ukraine tweeters (likely paid by American tax dollars), who got Geroman’s Twitter banned on February 28. I’ve documented such a paid operation before, 2015’s Issue 3 campaign in Ohio, an attempt to legalize marijuana via a monopoly for its funders written into the Ohio constitution. Our coverage at the Cleveland Leader helped crush Issue 3, which went down in flames 64-36. Below is just one nugget of how the troll op was uncovered. I would be wholly unsurprised if the same people now run NAFO twitter accounts.

Before Musk’s Twitter purchase, like myself, Geroman would never have returned to Twitter, not a chance in hell. Had Twitter ownership remained as it was, by now I doubt a single pro-Russia peep would exist on Twitter at all today, especially given that the actual war is going so poorly for Ukraine. That’s how thorough the censorship dynamic online has become, quite totalitarian in the most grassroots sense.

But on March 3, after only 4 days of the pro-Russia online community mobilizing (what I call Z Twitter) Geroman was re-instated. Whether or not Elon himself was involved in that decision, this is how the internet used to work - a manufactured swarm would get a victory or two, but not for long. If that dynamic is slowly returning, Musk’s purchase may indeed be a “black swan” event, which has broken an iron grip on information at the front lines of a global hot war.

Must say, it’s very strange to be back on Twitter after 4 years. Hard to describe how deep and vast the censorship black hole really is, unless you’re in it. One day, you’re just gone. Not merely “un-personed” but un-existed. I swear people thought I was dead. Well, I’m not. Until I’m banned again (or not) I’ll use coverage of the war and other matters on my Twitter to give some air to my fiction series, Ghosts of Plum Run. After all, it seems I’m a ghost too.