Wed Jan 05 19:21:53 +0000 2022
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One year ago today, Ron Watkins, Lin Wood and Q-influencer Neon Revolt would collaborate on a hype building exercise ahead of 1/6 with the goal of convincing their 1.6 mil (combined) followers that Mike Pence should be arrested.
Tweet of get_innocuous/1346706975204130822
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Watkins and Wood spent the weeks leading up to 1/6 frequently retweeting one another as they hyped the gathering in DC and Pence's role as the one person that could help keep Trump in office. On 12/22 Ron had even offered to sponsor people to make it out to DC.
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Looking at Ron's tweets in late Dec/early Jan are particularly interesting now that we've seen the "Strategic Communications Plan" memo that called for tapping social media influencers (including Ron specifically) to call for Congress to block the certification.
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It's worth noting the engagement on these tweets.
I've personally had a tweet with around 600 likes and 300 RT's hit 500,000 impressions in a couple days.
How many impressions is a tweet with 29k likes and 8k RT's going to get?
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In late December, Lin Wood's crosshairs were firmly on Chief Justice John Roberts because SCOTUS wouldn't interfere.
Pence hadn't announced that he wouldn't block Biden's win, so he wasn't the enemy yet.
Reminder: Watkins is running for Congress.
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Ron Watkins seemed to hope dangling the possibility of supporting Pence in a 2024 POTUS campaign would convince him to block the certification.
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It's interesting comparing Ron's strategy to Wood's. Ron tried to woo Pence with support, while Wood was constantly attacking anyone who he perceived as a threat to a 2nd Trump term. He accused John Roberts of being a pedophile, and Mark Meadows of being in bed with big pharma.
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By Jan 1, both Wood and Watkins had turned against Pence.
Wood, naturally, was considerably more aggressive than Watkins, to the point where he felt the need to address comments about his "insanity"
Wood also wanted Flynn instated as Trump's VP after Pence was arrested.
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Lin Wood likes to pretend that he doesn't know much about Qanon, but that's bullshit. He was intentionally weaving Qanon lore through his tweets in late Dec/early Jan.
- Military will be in control
- Flynn as VP
- Deep state is fighting a 2nd Trump term
- Everyone's a pedophile
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Things start to get even weirder when he doubles down on the pedophile storylines on Jan 1.
He starts talking about Isaac Kappy, and starts implying that Pence, too, is a pedophile.
Ron encourages his followers to turn on notifications for Wood and RT's one of his pedo posts
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If you're not familiar with Kappy, the tl;dr is that he was an actor that committed suicide in 2019.
Prior to his death, he started accusing other actors - Tom Hanks, etc - of being pedophiles. Qanon ATE THIS UP, and of course InfoWars helped amplify him
https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanons-newest-hero-is-a-d-list-vanderpump-rules-star
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By invoking Kappy, Lin Wood was catering DIRECTLY to the Qanon crowd.
He knew this made him come off as crazy - because frankly, it is - but appearing crazy was worth activating the Qanon crowd.
This is when Watkins and Wood really started to amplify one another.
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In another wink and nod to Qanon, Watkins pointed out that Trump had signed the STORM act on Jan 1. This, of course, was legislation related to extreme weather events.
But to Qanon, this was hope that the storm may finally be coming.
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The Watkins/Wood interplay is fucking nauseating.
The pattern:
- Wood posts a veiled threat. He KNOWS things. Things that could destroy people. But he won't say what
- Watkins chimes in with an affirmation, and a game component ripped straight from Q: "Anybody have clues?"
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Something that's lacking in a lot of these screenshots is the engagement numbers.
I really can't understate how rabid engagement was on these posts.
It was normal to see thousands of likes, RT's and comments within just a few hours of these being posted.
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Jan 6 was still the end game, and the Qanon subplot was their way of getting their followers pissed at the right people and ready to act.
You know who you don't want to piss off? Thousands of armed Qanon adherents that have been waiting 3 years for "the storm"
This is from 1/3
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Both Wood and Watkins also made sure to continue their harassment campaign against GA officials.
When Wood says "standing in line" - he's referencing a firing squad.
These are both from 1/3
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Back to the Q plot. Ron starts trying to find a genealogist because Wood claims Justice Roberts' kids were adopted.
Wood says a storm is coming.
Still 1/3.
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Things start to get worse at around midnight 1/4. Wood starts to get into his Isaac Kappy conspiracy.
Content warning: the following tweets will include screenshots that may include references to sexual assault of minors.
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Before Wood kicks off his tale, he asks people to "decide if the information conveyed demands that Patriots rise up so that every lie will be revealed"
Again, note the engagement.
(I can't get the embedded pic to load, but it's a bullshit article anyways)
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To raise the stakes and add legitimacy to his claims, Wood frequently insinuates that he may be killed as a result of him sharing the information.
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I've decided not to include the graphic content in Wood's claims. There's no point. It's there if you're curious.
The gist is that he claims that John Roberts was caught on video performing heinous acts, and that the video is being used to blackmail and control Roberts.
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He claims that The Lizard Squad - a group known for DDoS'ing gaming services - was able to obtain the content and provide it to Isaac Kappy, and it eventually ended up in his possession
Supposedly this plot was carried out by members of 10 of the worlds most elite intel agencies
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Wood claims that Kappy did not commit suicide, but was murdered before Kappy could provide the evidence to Trump. Wood's goal with all of this was to supposedly force resignations.
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Quick pause to re-iterate: ALL OF THIS IS FALSE
It's complete bullshit. And I believe Wood knew this. And of course he knew that people would not resign after he posted this. The goal was to drum up outrage prior to 1/6. Did it work? Let's look at the engagement..
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.@MikaelThalen even spoke to a member of the Lizard Squad who confirmed the entire thing was nonsense
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/lizard-squad-lin-wood-conspiracy/
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Wood then wraps up by basically going full Qanon. And of course he'd only provide the encryption key to Trump, Sidney Powell, or Flynn.
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How'd Ron Watkins react to all this?
Exactly how you'd expect.
He also encourages his followers to get into DC "ASAP" and says that Assange will be freed in 48 hours (lol). We're at about mid-day on 1/4
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I was following this as it was happening (so were a few others, shoutout @2022_Karma). One of the more surreal moments was when Ron interrupted his conspiracy theorizing with a fucking shovel ad. Of course some of his followers thought it was a coded message.
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Ron starts posting logistical information about getting into DC on 1/6.
Lin Wood starts referencing another bit of Qanon lore: the DECLASS - when Trump will supposedly declassify a bunch of documents - and continues to taunt Roberts
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Ron gets in on the DECLASS hype train...so does @JackPosobiec, naturally. You know the old saying: "Where there's smoke, there's a fucking asshole named Jack Posobiec"
He also RT's Jan 6 instigator and failed rapper Mike Coudrey
We're at the evening of 1/4
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Wood RT's Ron's "I'm just asking questions" style conspiracy about Paul Ryan and Pence conspiring to remove Trump from the ticket less than a month before the 2016 election. And then he starts teasing the "MOAB" I referenced in the original post...
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Before we get to the MOAB, a quick note about Neon Revolt. Neon was, for a time, one of Qanon's largest influencers, and had done a pretty good job of staying anonymous until the incredible lads @LogicallyAI unmasked him as a failed screenwriter
https://www.logically.ai/articles/exclusive-failed-screenwriter-from-new-jersey-behind-one-of-qanons-most-influential-personas
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The tl;dr of Neon's story is that Rod Rosenstein and Pence hired MS-13 to murder Seth Rich so that ultimately Pence could become POTUS and Rosenstein would be VP.
This, of course, was basically a longform recycled 3 year old Q drop.
Tweet of get_innocuous/1346760248372019200
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Ron basically hands the baton to Lin, who at this point has 1.16mil followers. Wood does his thing and colors Ron's story with aggressive innuendo.
We're in the early hours of 1/6.
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Wood quote tweets Bernard Kerik talking about the GA election, who knew they were running out of time to block the certification.
He also QT'd Patrick Byrne, who claimed he can vouch for Neon Revolts story, which earns him the "truth-giver" award from Lin.
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When I heard people were chanting "Hang Mike Pence", I wasn't surprised. Look at the numbers on this post.
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And then there's this post. Lin tweeted it the morning of 1/6.
"The time has come"
"Time to take back our country. Time to fight for our freedom."
"Pledge your lives"
"There will not be another chance"
"Be FEARLESS"
"TODAY IS OUR DAY"
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Wood wasn't done with Pence. Here's a post he made, also on 1/6, sometime in the early afternoon. At this point, based off comments on the post, things had already started to deteriorate in the capitol.
He intentionally fanned the flames.
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Watkin's remained relatively quiet, but at least he was right about something for once.
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Meanwhile, I was appalled that Twitter was letting Lin continue to post.
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Once things really hit the fan, Wood had already begun spinning the "Antifa did it" narrative.
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He doubles down on trying to claim the Q Shaman is antifa. His "discernment" post was the last before he was (temporarily, iirc) banned.
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Ron Watkins, for what I can only assume were legal reasons, continued to refer to the insurrection as a "peaceful protest", even as news broke of the Babbitt shooting. He also evaded a ban longer than Wood, and utilized that slack to theorize about what Trump may do before 1/20
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Bonus: Patrick Byrne tries to save face.
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Ok. So that's that. I wasn't expecting to spend all day putting this together. It was 50% therapy. 50% digital archeology. And 1000% fucking infuriating.
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I know Wood and Watkins weren't the sole players behind 1/6, but they absolutely played a part.
And we're gradually discovering that they were just part of a coordinated plan to stage a coup and keep Trump in for a 2nd term.
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My entry point into taking election fraud disinfo seriously was following Watkins in the summer of 2020, as he was spreading COVID disinfo. When he pivoted to the election fraud claims, I realized there weren't many people pushing back, so I did what I could, but it wasn't enough
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I watched in real time as Ron's reach and influence grew, and before long a network of election fraud disinfo spreaders started to appear. Chief among them were KanekoaTheGreat, we_have_risen, pepesgrandma (to name a few). Pretty much all of them had a Trump at least one Trump RT
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I believe 1/6 only happened because of social media and poor media literacy skills. The reach of the internet grew quicker than we could adapt to it. And as a result, people were subjected to a flood of disinformation without having the skills to discern fact from fiction
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That's not the fault of the individual, per se. You get your first smart phone so you can FaceTime your grandkids or nieces and nephews. You install Facebook. An old friend posts something that sounds SO crazy that it can't be true...but you also feel compelled to read it.
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You comment on it. Maybe you like it.
Then you start getting recommended articles. They seem to back up that crazy post. You see a notification for Facebook groups, and decide to check it out. They helpfully recommend a few groups to join. One's called "#savethechildren"
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Why wouldn't you want to save the children? You join it. You see more posts that are too insane, no way they're real. But how can so many posts be written about something that's not real? You watch a few videos. You watch a few more. You start thinking about it when you wake up.
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People in the group are asking questions that don't have an answer. So you want to be helpful and see if you can find one. Plus you enjoy the thrill of the hunt.
You realize all these weird, minor things that seem insignificant on their own are just pieces of a bigger puzzle
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Facebook could give a fuck what you're doing. But they love that you keep coming back. You keep clicking. You keep sharing. You keep liking. You're spending more time on their platform and their stock price is going up. Those are the only two metrics they care about.
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The major social media platforms all do this, it's not just Facebook, though I think Facebook is the worst offender.
It's either tune for engagement, or charge a fee, and people aren't likely to pay for Facebook.
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Point being: if we want to prevent another 1/6, we need to figure out how to help people filter the content their exposed to in a healthy way.
I don't think it's too late, but we're not in the best position to do this right effectively either.
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And at this point de-platforming (which could have been effective earlier) is only complicating things. I'm mostly hopeful for the future, but we have a metric. ton. of work. ahead of us.
Ok, I'm done for real this time. This was WAY too long, so sorry about that!
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Addendums: look at how Wood is second only to Trump here
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Don’t forget that David Hancock has said that Ron Watkins and Lin Wood had spoken towards the end of 2020
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