Elise Thomas
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elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas
@elisethomas.bsky.social
8.5K followers 1.6K following 870 posts

Senior OSINT Investigator at @cen4infores.bsky.social. Former disinfo and extremism researcher. Opinions, hot takes, mistakes all my own. https://www.clippings.me/elisethomas

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Sociology 33%
Political science 33%
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elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 13h
Is the person she knows who is very close to this case Ghislaine Maxwell

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 22h
Can we ditch the metaphor that you should think of ChatGPT and similar LLMs as "like an intern."

If your intern is habitually confidently lying to you, you should fire them, and if they're constantly hallucinating then you should help them find medical help. AI is not like an intern.

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 1d
And into A7's use of shell companies for sanctions evasion here: www.info-res.org/cir-2/report...
A7 Abroad: Sanctions evasion as a service
A7, led by convicted fraudster Ilan Shor and backed by sanctioned Russian banks, claims to have moved over $86 billion in less than a year. CIR’s investigation details how A7 uses shell companies and ...
www.info-res.org

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 1d
Our previous investigation into A7 and A7A5 is here www.info-res.org/reports/a7a5...
A7A5: Circumventing sanctions with stablecoin cryptocurrency
A CIR investigation suggests that Russian company A7 has been constructing a system based on both fiat currency and cryptocurrency to transfer money into and out of Russia.
www.info-res.org

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 1d
I wonder whether we may be about to see a similar thing happen here: the Kremlin picking a winner it can control, and then taking out competitors at the kneecaps.

It'll be very interesting if we start to see Russian law enforcement begin cracking down on other cross-border payment providers.

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 1d
"digital asset" for legal cross-border trade. In the weeks leading up to the announcement, raids were launched on Moscow City, a Moscow office building infamous for housing dodgy crypto payments companies - basically, A7A5's competition.

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 1d
I suspect that what we are seeing is an effort by the Kremlin to get the wild west of cross-border payment services and sanctions circumvention methods in Russia under state control.

In September, they declared A7A5 (A7's own stablecoin registered in Kyrgyzstan) as Russia's first...

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 1d
The Russian government has just created a partially state-owned company with A7 and Promsvyazbank.

We @cen4infores.bsky.social have published two investigations into how A7, and its convicted criminal CEO, is evading sanctions and laundering money via cryptocurrency and shell companies. 1/

Reposted by Elise Thomas

transform6789.bsky.social
Spencer Sunshine @transform6789.bsky.social · 1d
Rubio is working on legal grounds to persecute antifa. Four foreign groups are now Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) and they hope to designate them FTOs. Only one is actually an antifascist group: Hungary has previously focused on Antifa Ost (Hammerbande).
www.state.gov/releases/202...
Designations of Antifa Ost and Three Other Violent Antifa Groups - United States Department of State
Today, the Department of State announces the designation of Antifa Ost, Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front, Armed Proletarian Justice, and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense...
www.state.gov

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 1d
excuse me what
bgrueskin.bsky.social Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 2d
This story by @davidfolkenflik.bsky.social about Landon Thomas, former NYT reporter now appearing in the latest email tranche, soliciting a $30k contribution from Jeffrey Epstein?

Yes, you can read it here

www.npr.org/2019/08/22/7...

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 2d
I’m not commenting to anyone specifically, what are you talking about?

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, Christian E. Weller, Anne Norton , and 2 more

measuredandslow.bsky.social
Alyssa Long @measuredandslow.bsky.social · 2d
Hey so “underage girls” are…children. The word you’re looking for is children. They’re not like, women-in-waiting or women-lite or whatever. They’re children. I think some of you are very uncomfortable with what that means for you but it is still true.

Reposted by Elise Thomas

bgrueskin.bsky.social
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 2d
This story by @davidfolkenflik.bsky.social about Landon Thomas, former NYT reporter now appearing in the latest email tranche, soliciting a $30k contribution from Jeffrey Epstein?

Yes, you can read it here

www.npr.org/2019/08/22/7...

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 2d
"So look the sand's black and it smells like death and sewage but don't worry, we've tested it and it's definitely fine.

Except for the microbes. Don't touch the microbes."

www.theage.com.au/national/vic...

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 2d
I assume and hope she has a folder somewhere on her desktop of articles like this to publish as the subjects shuffle off this mortal coil.

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 2d
Giving the Nazis days of nation-wide headline media coverage every time they do a ten minute photo op is not a good way to get them to stop doing photo ops.

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 3d
“What’s the point of standards” is the harshest self-burn I’ve ever heard. Instant classic.
justinbaragona.bsky.social Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 3d
“I’ve been hearing that standards will be eliminated or severely cut back. Bari has told people that she wants to get rid of standards and is shocked that they have so much power. She also asked openly, ‘What’s the point of standards?’” one CBS source said.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
Bari Weiss wants to take down ‘too much power’ CBS News Standards unit: sources
EXCLUSIVE: Internal rumblings within the newsroom come after the S&P head resigned and the network disbanded its vaunted Race and Culture unit.
www.independent.co.uk

Reposted by Elise Thomas

rohan-p.bsky.social
Rohan Pearce @rohan-p.bsky.social · 3d
For the first four months of its existence ASIO was named Australia's Security Service. It was quickly changed and we were robbed of a great acronym.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Jon Green, Brett Christophers , and 6 more

justinbaragona.bsky.social
Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 3d
“I’ve been hearing that standards will be eliminated or severely cut back. Bari has told people that she wants to get rid of standards and is shocked that they have so much power. She also asked openly, ‘What’s the point of standards?’” one CBS source said.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
Bari Weiss wants to take down ‘too much power’ CBS News Standards unit: sources
EXCLUSIVE: Internal rumblings within the newsroom come after the S&P head resigned and the network disbanded its vaunted Race and Culture unit.
www.independent.co.uk

Reposted by Elise Thomas

joshtaylor.bsky.social
Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social · 3d
Kate McClymont free from the threat of a defo suit is a wonderful thing www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...
Long lunches, Swiss bank accounts and a kangaroo scrotum: My decades pursuing Graham Richardson
For a reporter whose career has been spent uncovering crime and corruption, the Labor senator was the one who got away.
www.smh.com.au

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Mark D. White, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 5 more

kyledcheney.bsky.social
Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 4d
NEW: Donald Trump has pardoned a long list of allies in his bid to subvert the 2020 election including:

-Rudy Giuliani
-John Eastman
-Mark Meadows
-Sidney Powell
-Ken Chesebro
-Christina Bobb
-Kelli Ward
-Jenna Ellis

www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

Reposted by Axel Bruns

elisethomas.bsky.social
Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 5d
Gotta say, the whole concept is giving me visions of people in Bangladesh being paid 20 cents an hour to sit in VR acting as the Mechanical Turk-esque robot servants of people in rich countries, but hopefully it won't evolve that way.