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Renee DiResta

@noupside.bsky.social

170K followers 1.2K following 4.8K posts

🌐Studies influence, propaganda, platform design@Georgetown ✍🏼Lawfare,The Atlantic 📕Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality (invisiblerulers.com) —how influencers, algorithms, &online crowds shape public opinion 🦹🏻‍♀️Twitter Files supervillain

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · Apr 15

New from me: an essay on the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, and its remarkable 30 year history of witch hunts & blacklists.

It chronicles the progression of how industries & academia went from capitulation to defiance,& what we can take from that today

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/proc...

Process as Punishment: An American History of Political
Spectacle
Renee DiResta
Monday, April 14, 2025, 12:00 PM

American political theater isn't new.
The House Un-American Activities Committee operated for decades— until targets learned to fight back.

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Reposted by Renee DiResta

Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 6h

I want to highlight this excellent piece by @noupside.bsky.social and @rachelkleinfeld.bsky.social on the rapidly shifting information & media landscape. Domain experts and the institutions that support them must rapidly change tactics to meet the moment.

For Expertise to Matter, Nonpartisan Institutions Need New Communications Strategies

To avoid irrelevance when they are needed most, experts and nonpartisan analysts must rethink not just their channels of communication but also their theory of influence.

carnegieendowment.org

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 3h

Thanks :)

Reposted by Renee DiResta

Jacob Shamsian @jayshams.bsky.social · 11h

I've been wondering why Dominion Voting Systems suddenly reached settlements with Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and One America News.

Turns out, it's been purchased by a Republican-owned election tech firm that insisted on it, per Axios.

www.axios.com/2025/10/09/d...

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Reposted by Renee DiResta

Alexios Mantzarlis @mantzarlis.com · 8h

"A group of suspected scammers in Brazil using Instagram ads featuring deepfakes of supermodel Gisele Bundchen and other celebrities appears to have made millions of dollars through online fraud, according to police investigators."

Brazilian scammers, raking in millions, used Gisele Bundchen deepfakes on Instagram ads

A group of suspected scammers in Brazil using Instagram ads featuring deepfakes of supermodel Gisele Bundchen and other celebrities appears to have made millions of dollars through online fraud, according to police investigators.

www.reuters.com

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 11h

Good for him. More of this.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...

Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Criticizes National Guard Deployment in Chicago

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Renee DiResta

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 1d

She's Canadian, you wouldn't know her.

Schrödinger's Sneetch Belly @rtodkelly.bsky.social · 1d

"the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa"

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

My husband is amazing. He is currently watching a long thing I worked on but can’t make myself watch again — his effort means it will actually get out the door. He reads things. He gives unvarnished & honest, yet supportive, feedback. And he’s a great dad. I am very appreciative & incredibly lucky.

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

The Macedonian Teenagers, all grown up! 10 yrs later it turns out that tapping the right wing rage machine remains extraordinarily lucrative! Who could’ve guessed?

(I wrote a book about it lol and researched some of this guy’s prior art)

Meanwhile, the capacity for investigations has diminished.

Jacqueline Sweet @jsweetli.bsky.social · 1d

NEW: A MAGA X account often shared by Senator Mike Lee and House Republicans like Nancy Mace--that often alleges Democrats encourage voting fraud-- is run by a man who not only has never stepped foot in the US, he also illegally donated to an American campaign.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

The Viral MAGA Accounts Run by a Man Who Has Never Been to America

Two influential MAGA social media accounts are run by Rumen Naumovski, a Macedonian who may have illegally donated to a U.S. election.

www.rollingstone.com

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

the guy is an entitled antisocial prick and the airline legally has to have compliant passengers in an exit row. read the part where the flight attendant says they wouldn't have had to do it for other seats.

Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

entitled antisocial pricks willing to inconvenience 100+ other people are bad 🤷‍♀️

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

I am outraged on your behalf.

Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

This is the kind of plane incident where it's absolutely appropriate to post a photo of someone to the socials b/c deranged people walk among us.

Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 1d

This is absolutely wild. I’m on a cross country flight. We are being diverted midway through to Denver. The reason? Some dude is sitting in the exit row who didn’t pay the $155 fee and he refuses to move back to his seat.

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

Ask Mike Benz and Michael Shellenberger about all the lies they told to help accomplish this. Ask Joe Rogan about how he nodded along mutely while hosting Benz on his show while he spouted bullshit about “CIA fronts”.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/dog...

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

Eric Schmitt once again lies, says the EIP was taxpayer funded - it wasn't. Maybe he's an idiot.

Sean Davis claims a "censorship industrial complex" was created by the Biden Administration.

But he wrote his tweets about the *2020 election* were ""censored""??

Who was president in 2020, Sean?

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

The testimony of Eugene Volokh - invited by the majority - is honest about this.

Anti-jawboning legislation like FIRE's, for example, to require that government takedown requests be made public, is a worthwhile use of time. Pursuing these fantasies are not.

www.commerce.senate.gov/services/fil...

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

Every time someone points out that Murthy was tossed, Schmitt says "no no it was a procedural standing issue, but the district court said there was censorship!"

Senator, stop. Amy Coney Barrett said a number of the district court's findings were CLEARLY ERRONEOUS. There's no there there. It's cope.

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

God bless @edmarkey.bsky.social, who laid out what I argued in Lawfare last week.

1. Murthy case was tossed
2. The Twitter Files were BS
3. The Weaponization testimonies showed no coercion

"Meanwhile Carr turns the FCC into the Federal Censorship Commission"

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/spee...

Speech, Coercion, and the Myth of the Censorship Regime

Google's letter to Rep. Jim Jordan inadvertently provides evidence against the "censorship industrial complex" narrative he is using it to support.

www.lawfaremedia.org

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

I got in a debate about this live on stage at a free speech conference last week yaschamounk.substack.com/p/the-good-f...

The Good Fight Club: Who’s a Hypocrite About Free Speech?

Yascha Mounk is joined by Renée DiResta, Jacob Mchangama, and Jonathan Rauch at the Global Free Speech Summit in Nashville!

yaschamounk.substack.com

Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

Another thread from @berinszoka.bsky.social here who is also following the hearing and has Legal Takes

bsky.app/profile/beri...

Berin Szóka @berinszoka.bsky.social · 1d

The Federalist wasn't censored for their content. Google simply requires moderation of hate speech *in user comments,* which The Federalist refused to moderate (or move to a separate page

www.techdirt.com/2020/06/16/n...

No, Google Didn't Demonetize The Federalist & It's Not An Example Of Anti-Conservative Bias

So, earlier today, NBC reported that Google had “banned” two well known websites from its ad platform, namely The Federalist and Zero Hedge. The story was a bit confusing. To be clear, …

www.techdirt.com

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

Ted Cruz didn't show up to his own hearing, so Sen Schmitt - the crank former AG who brought the Murthy v Missouri case that SCOTUS tossed -- is ranting about universities flagging content to tech platforms, claiming the govt made them.

This is another lie. Weaponization found no evidence of this.

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

These people say that labels and fact-checks - counterspeech against their bullshit allegations of election fraud - are "censorship".

Sean is ranting now about "thoughtcrimes" and being 'sentenced to financial death' and Big Tech and government plots against the Federalist. In 2020. Who was Pres?

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

Here's Sean Davis complaining about the Election Integrity Partnership, which wasn't funded nor controlled by the government, flagging a few of his tweets claiming the 2020 election was rigged. It wasn't.

His tweets were labeled. Mollie Hemmingway's account was never taken down. These ppl just lie.

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

Sens Ted Cruz and Eric Schmitt are holding their hearing on the Biden Censorship Regime of 2018. Watch live here as they try to figure out: who was president in 2020?

Witnesses: Alex Berenson, Sean Davis of the Federalist,
Eugene Volokh, Gene Kimmelman

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QRu...

LIVE: Ted Cruz Leads Senate Hearing About 'How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech Into Silencing Americans'

YouTube video by Forbes Breaking News

www.youtube.com

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 1d

Same shit for decades now

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Reposted by Renee DiResta

Rudy wants revolution. @rude1.blacksky.team · 2d

I hear and see your concerns. Over the weekend, a couple users hosted on Blacksky's PDS were banned from the Bluesky app and thus the Bluesky API servers. This was a weakness of our system I've been aware of and hoped we had more time to address before any kind of public incident. 1/11

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