2021 American Civil War

VidaRed

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“Hacker X”—the American who built a pro-Trump fake news empire—unmasks himself
He was hired to build a fake news op but now wants to put things right.


This is the story of the mastermind behind one of the largest "fake news" operations in the US.

For two years, he ran websites and Facebook groups that spread bogus stories, conspiracy theories, and propaganda. Under him was a dedicated team of writers and editors paid to produce deceptive content—from outright hoaxes to political propaganda—with the supreme goal of tipping the 2016 election to Donald Trump.

Through extensive efforts, he built a secret network of self-reinforcing sites from the ground up. He devised a strategy that got prominent personalities—including Trump—to retweet misleading claims to their followers. And he fooled unwary American citizens, including the hacker's own father, into regarding fake news sources more highly than the mainstream media.


Previously dubbed "Hacker X," he's now ready to reveal who he is—and how he did it. The fake news impresario who has now decided to break his silence is "ethical hacker" Robert Willis.

But back in 2015, Willis was just another hacker looking for an IT job. He had already received one job offer—but still had an interview scheduled at one final company.

"I was thinking of not showing up to the interview," he told me. "I had, after all, just committed to another company."

That final company was opaque—it would not reveal either its name or the actual job duties until Willis showed up in person. But the opacity was itself intriguing. Willis decided to do the interview.

"I showed up at the location, which was a large corporate building. I was given directions to wait downstairs until I was collected. The secretiveness was intriguing. It may have turned some people off, but I love an adventure. I had not been given any information on the job other than that they were very excited, because to find someone like me was very rare—I had tons of random, overlapping, highly technical skills from years of wearing multiple hats at smaller private companies."

At the interview site, a man came down to get him, and they rode the elevator to a floor with a nearly empty office. Inside waited a woman beside three chairs. They all sat. His hosts finally revealed the name of their company: Koala Media. The moment felt like an orchestrated Big Reveal.

"I wasn't scared but excited at how crazy this was already turning out [to be]," Willis told me. "I listened. I was told that there were big plans for the office I was sitting in and that they had already hired the initial writers and editor for the new operation."

The interviewers at the company told Willis that "everything was to be built with security in mind—at extreme levels."

Should he get the job, his primary role would be to rapidly expand a single, popular website already owned by Koala Media. For this, they needed someone with Willis' diverse skill set.

Then the interviewers told him, "If you work for us, you can help stop Hillary Clinton."

Willis says he had no indication that the company that was about to recruit him was extreme or would become so in the future. In his perception, the company was just "investigative" with regard to its journalism.

When Koala offered him the job, he took it.

As Willis came on board, Koala's stories got more controversial.

A former Koala Media writer who has worked with Willis told Ars, "In the beginning, the job was fine, writing regular AP-style news articles. Then, it went toward goofy stuff, like 'lemon curing cancer.' And eventually, it went to super-inaccurate stuff." That is when the writer knew it was time to call it quits. But Willis stayed on, even as one of the site owners personally contributed content that made him uncomfortable.

"What saved me was a couple [of Koala Media] employees," he added. "One came into my office and closed the door and looked at me and said, 'You don't actually believe this stuff, do you?' and I let out a sigh of relief when I said, 'God, no'—and laughed. It became an ongoing joke."

From that moment onward, the hacker and office staff would joke about the stuff they were being assigned to write—like a conspiracy-laden writeup on "chemtrails" or a piece on "lemons curing cancer"—thinking that only a small "ultracrazy" percentage of readers actually believed what was being written.


Toward the end of 2015, more and more pro-Trump stories started emerging on Koala. But after Trump won the Republican primary in 2016, the focus shifted heavily toward anti-Clinton stories. During this time, Koala's already-loose editorial standards relaxed even further. Stories became increasingly bizarre or opinionated. Citations that did exist were often placed in a misleading manner, misconstruing the linked stories or pointing to existing stories in the Koala webring, making it hard for readers to fact-check the material. The "search bar" on these news sites even took users to a search engine created by Koala; it showed stories from "independent media," i.e., sites from the webring. Pieces that ran during this crucial period claimed, among other things, that Clinton had plans to "criminalize" gun owners, to kill the free press, to forcefully "drug" conservatives, to vaccinate people against their wills, to euthanize some adults, and to ban the US flag.

Yet Facebook, which directed plenty of traffic to Koala, never cut the site off. In the two years of the operation that Willis oversaw, Facebook banned only one of Koala's posts, Willis said.


Through it all, Willis did what he was hired to do: he put his technical skills in the service of boosting Koala's reach—by any means possible.

The basic approach involved the creation of a massive syndication network of hundreds of specialty "news" websites, where articles from the main Koala website could be linked to or syndicated. But these additional websites were engineered so that they looked independent of each other. They were "a web ring where the websites didn't look like they had any real associations with each other from a technical standpoint and couldn't be traced," said Willis.

Each fake news website was on a separate server and had a unique IP address. Each day's stories were syndicated out to the fake news sites through a multistep sync operation involving "multiple VPNs" with "multiple layers of security." Eventually, each public-facing fake news site received its daily content payload, and the stories would go live at scheduled times. In addition to Americans, Willis' team also comprised outsourced web developers working from Mexico, Eastern Europe, South Africa, and Taiwan.

"I oversaw everything and even had stacks of SIM cards purchased with cash to activate different sites on Facebook since it was needed at that point in time," admitted Willis. "Every website had a fake identity I made up. I had them in a sheet where I put the name, address, and the SIM card phone number. When I accessed their account I created on Facebook, I would VPN into the city I put them in as living in. Everything attached to a website followed these procedures because you needed to have a 'real' person to create a Facebook page for the websites. We wanted no attachment, no trace of the original source. If anyone were to investigate who owned a page, they would be investigating a fake person."

Eventually, carriers started asking for Social Security numbers (SSNs) prior to issuing and activating SIM cards. But "they took anything resembling an SSN, even ones generated from dead people," Willis said. As a test, Willis once provided Elvis Presley's SSN, which he had found on Google Images. The number worked.


After carefully studying the Facebook pages maintained by Koala staff, which were reaching about 3 million people weekly, Willis began using information-warfare tactics, some inspired by young Macedonians. Willis studied the connection between Koala headlines and the emotions they triggered among readers. The next time Koala Media's owners came into the office, Willis showed them a carefully outlined posting schedule.

"I surprised them by holding up a large poster board with what became the schedule and deep explanations from a psychological standpoint on what articles to put at what times," he said. "Early morning was positive articles—people will interact with positive things when they first wake up, they had the big story of the day at 11 am already, which they previously noticed was the most powerful slot of the day, afternoon prior to 2 pm was articles to really push hard, late night (11 pm to the early morning) was fringe content."

The new publishing strategy, along with the additional fake news sites, caused a rapid spike in traffic. As Willis puts it, this all felt "like playing a video game and getting new high scores to me. I did not think of the readers as people but more like background characters in a video game. I am neurodiverse and have major issues with understanding empathy due to my condition. Crunching numbers is something I love to do; these were numbers I wanted to go up, and I would do it with no emotional attachment to the material or people."

Soon enough, Koala's published "news" pieces reached over 30 million people a week.

"I was completely caught off guard while pushing nonstop Trump news through the election cycle," said Willis. "One of our websites was the No. 1 Google search result for the term 'Trump News'!"

At one point, then-candidate Trump himself retweeted a shout-out from the Twitter account "@debateless." The account was set up by Willis for his personal BloodyRubbish.com blog, as confirmed by Ars.




The results of the 2016 election left Willis and his team in shock. Willis and his army of fake news editors knew that millions of Americans targeted by their pro-Trump and anti-Clinton propaganda were real people who actually showed up to vote. Countless studies, including one from Stanford, attempted to pin the election outcome on fake news.

By 2017, after being with the fake news farm for nearly two years, Willis couldn't take it anymore. "I had a soul-searching moment and money in the bank and decided what I liked doing most was hacking, and I wanted to get back to it. So I decided to get a job in the security industry as a hacker," he said.

He knew he should talk about the system he had helped to build. "I helped contribute to the monster of fake news," he said.

Willis' decision to reveal his identity now, he told me, is fueled by the continuing damage that he sees from fake news stories about COVID, especially those spreading anti-vaccination propaganda.

"The new war is to wake up those who have been manipulated, while actively taking out the fake news campaigns," writes Willis in a blog post. "COVID has shown me the deadly side of fake news and anti-vaccination people. After multiple conversations with my father, who refuses to wear a mask or get vaccinated, I was getting very concerned. I asked him what sites he would read the conspiracy-based things on, and he mentioned the website that ran the network I had built the machine on."

Prior to approaching me, Willis had disclosed his history with fake news farms to his family, hoping to undo the brainwashing done by these websites. Unfortunately, it was too late. To this day, Willis' father does not believe the hacker's story, Willis said, adding, "He has been too manipulated."


https://arstechnica.com/information...a-pro-trump-fake-news-empire-unmasks-himself/
 

MrMarcello

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She needs to be ousted from politics. This rhetoric is dangerous and insightful. Also, Trump was still POTUS, does this mean she's inadvertently calling him a tyrant? Pence as well?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/26/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-january-6-riot/index.html
Marjorie Taylor Greene is now trying to justify the January 6 riot

There have been lots and lots of attempts by Republicans -- from Donald Trump on down -- to rewrite the history of what happened on January 6 at the US Capitol.

There was Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde (R) casting the insurrection as "a normal tourist visit." And Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) insisting that it wasn't an "armed insurrection" despite loads of evidence that it was. And House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R) trying to cast Trump as blameless.

But all of these efforts were aimed at downplaying what happened that day. Which is what makes what Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) said in an appearance on Steve Bannon's podcast Tuesday all the more fascinating and appalling.

"January 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants," Greene told Bannon.

Greene was attempting to draw a contrast between the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 -- "an attack on innocent American people" and the January 6 riot at the Capitol. That comparison, of course, makes no sense.

But consider what Greene is advocating here. She isn't saying that January 6 wasn't as bad as the media says it was. She's saying that it was an entirely justified action -- necessary to "overthrow tyrants" as outlined in the Declaration of Independence.

Which is some argument! Especially when you consider that five people died that day and more than 100 police officers were injured. Or that more than 600 people have been charged with criminal behavior that day.

Greene's comments to Bannon should be condemned by every elected Republican in Washington -- who knows that using the phrase "just a riot" and trying to somehow use the Declaration of Independence to justify the violence that day is idiotic, disrespectful and wrong.

That such condemnation almost certainly won't happen speaks to the current state of the Republican Party.
 

calodo2003

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There are millions of people like this currently in my country, utterly irredeemable & worthless…

 

Dumbstar

We got another woman hater here.
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There are millions of people like this currently in my country, utterly irredeemable & worthless…

What if a couple of native Americans were talking so open like that? They'd be on the electric chair for suspected treason already, no?
 

Dr. Dwayne

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There are millions of people like this currently in my country, utterly irredeemable & worthless…

The irony being that they're on the side of the party that actually did steal an election result, crying about Joe Biden beating the worst president in history quite easily and with no evidence of theft.
 

calodo2003

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The irony being that they're on the side of the party that actually did steal an election result, crying about Joe Biden beating the worst president in history quite easily and with no evidence of theft.
They’re acting like the aggrieved party in all this. Totally lost causes.

I would have liked to have heard a bit earlier in the mensa’s diatribe. You can just hear ‘fascism’ as the clip starts, although he has no earthly idea what fascism actually is.
 

Dr. Dwayne

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They’re acting like the aggrieved party in all this. Totally lost causes.

I would have liked to have heard a bit earlier in the mensa’s diatribe. You can just hear ‘fascism’ as the clip starts, although he has no earthly idea what fascism actually is.
My money would be on the fascism remark being in reference to the pandemic related restrictions.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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Civil war is brewing.
The South shall rise again!

To be serious though, violence will definitely escalate, but full on armed conflict is unfathomable with how economically intertwined the country has become. More likely to be a series of Bleeding Kansas scenario happening over different states.
 

WPMUFC

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The South shall rise again!

To be serious though, violence will definitely escalate, but full on armed conflict is unfathomable with how economically intertwined the country has become. More likely to be a series of Bleeding Kansas scenario happening over different states.
think you're on the money there. i fully expect militias and the brown shirt wannabe's to conduct terrorist attacks if Trump doesn't win 2024, potentially mid terms as well if dem's hold.
 

calodo2003

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think you're on the money there. i fully expect militias and the brown shirt wannabe's to conduct terrorist attacks if Trump doesn't win 2024, potentially mid terms as well if dem's hold.
We won’t hold in the midterms, so there’s not too much worry there. History plays against any president’s party doing well in that specific election, at least recently.
 

WPMUFC

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We won’t hold in the midterms, so there’s not too much worry there. History plays against any president’s party doing well in that specific election, at least recently.
I agree, but also hedge on whether we get Trump telling voters not to vote for XYZ candidate, thus potentially creating an abnormal situation. I do think we could see attacks if MAGA-backed/MTG style candidate lose and go straight to "stolen election" claims and call for violence.

I fully expect the hardcore MAGA crazy candidates to call for violence if they lose elections from the midterms onwards.
 

Anustart89

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Scurvy…

Imagine that they marched for a fascist to try to overthrow the government and stage a fascist coup and then ended up being subjected to this whole incarcerated for their involvement in a fascist coup attempt. Oh, lordy, the irony.

*assuming there’s the tiniest bit of truth in all of this.
 

calodo2003

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Imagine that they marched for a fascist to try to overthrow the government and stage a fascist coup and then ended up being subjected to this whole incarcerated for their involvement in a fascist coup attempt. Oh, lordy, the irony.

*assuming there’s the tiniest bit of truth in all of this.
The guy who supposedly wrote it has a litany of charges against him from his participation in the insurrection, so there’s a connection.

The replies from the suddenly ‘concerned for prison conditions’ right wingers are priceless. They are acting as if these conditions are unique to the insurrectionist’s pod only & they most assuredly are not.
 

ooeat0meoo

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Enough of the joker in the DC jail...

Let's get back to the real conversation of the present danger.

The NYPD and NYFD are quitting (or being fired) over the current deadline of vaccination mandates that reached the deadline this weekend.
Thousands of cops and firefighters have walked off the job

It's worth pointing out that the anti-socialist factions of Trumpism in NYC fail to realize that it's taxpayer money that pays their salaries.
We in New York are in for some dangerous times as these far-right radicals no longer have a paycheck... stay tuned.
 

calodo2003

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Enough of the joker in the DC jail...

Let's get back to the real conversation of the present danger.

The NYPD and NYFD are quitting (or being fired) over the current deadline of vaccination mandates that reached the deadline this weekend.
Thousands of cops and firefighters have walked off the job

It's worth pointing out that the anti-socialist factions of Trumpism in NYC fail to realize that it's taxpayer money that pays their salaries.
We in New York are in for some dangerous times as these far-right radicals no longer have a paycheck... stay tuned.
Great to see all those pro-choice marchers in that clip. Heartening.
 

Florida Man

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Enough of the joker in the DC jail...

Let's get back to the real conversation of the present danger.

The NYPD and NYFD are quitting (or being fired) over the current deadline of vaccination mandates that reached the deadline this weekend.
Thousands of cops and firefighters have walked off the job

It's worth pointing out that the anti-socialist factions of Trumpism in NYC fail to realize that it's taxpayer money that pays their salaries.
We in New York are in for some dangerous times as these far-right radicals no longer have a paycheck... stay tuned.
I predict that privatized police force will be more normalized.
 

maniak

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An "actor" who is most famous for playing the son of a fictional obscenely rich manchild. Now he just worships a fictionally rich manchild.
After googling him I guess I saw in scrubs.