SDNY Sentencing of 6ix9ine Tweeted By Inner City Press Then Imposter Screen Shot Ignored By Twitter

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon ThreadBBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - The Source

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Dec 21 – When Daniel Hernandez a/k/a Tekashi 6ix9ine was sentenced to 24 months of total imprisonment on December 18  before U.S. District Court Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, Inner City Press live-tweeted the sentence, here.

   Inner City Press' live tweeted thread of the entire proceeding is here. Post-sentencing Periscope video here.

   The tweets got thousands of re-tweets, each. They were quoted and quotes in publications ranging from BuzzFeed to Gothamist to Vanity Fair to Vibe and many publications in languages that are not readily translateable. Here is a sample profile.

  Just after the sentencing ended, and Inner City Press tweeted that the U.S. Marshals had taken Hernandez away from the courtroom to prison undislosed, an imposter Twitter account using InnerCity Press' name with one letter missing sprung up, and "reported" that while being escorted by the Marshals, Hernandez had been shot.

  At first Inner City Press assumed that this impersonation would be taken down, or descend into oblivion. But throughout the afternoon and evening of December 18, it got more retweets. Notably, many were from accounts with Russian names, perhaps an amorphous zombie army.

  On the night of December 18 Inner City Press notified Twitter about the impersonation. It was asked to submit identity document and did.

  Then, nothing.  By December 20 the Hernandez-was-shot tweet had hundreds of re-tweets. An account named Alejandro asked, Is this really happening??? An account labeled Turkin Sergej gave four thumbs-up emoji.

  Inner City Press wrote to Twitter and, having no response, took a photo of the imposted tweeted, labeled it such with a watermark, and put that online: "Just after reporting on #6ix9ine's sentencing, Twitter was alerted to this imposter account ("innr," not "inner" city press). Two days and 166 re-tweets later, for all the hoopla about fake news & 2020,  @Twitter  has done nothing. Live-tweeting of #SDNY to continue."

   Tellingly, the imposter false report of a shooting that did not happen as of this writing has more than ten times as many re-tweets and Likes as Inner City Press' tweet disavowing and seeking to debunk it.

  Now on December 21, three days after the introduction of and formal complaint to Twitter about the false report, Twitter has responded - and said it is unconvinced it is an imposted account. "Hello,  Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We have been unable to determine that the account you reported is in violation of our Impersonation Policy."

  Is this an acceptable response? After three days? What does it say about preparations for the elections in 2020? At the SDNY courthouse from which Inner City Press is, for example, live tweeting the T-Mobile / Sprint merger antitrust trial, what if an imposter account false reports that Judge Victor Marrero as approved, or disapproved, the merger? Maybe then Twitter would act, because money and not truth is on the line.  Inner City Press will continue to pursue this.

Serving French, Reuters' Lou "Mean Girl" Charbonneau Silent On His Spying for UN - and Others?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 11 -- It's a dynamic that often comes through the UN: after a year of sneak attacks for which no one took credit, the anonymous attacker steps forward to present himself as the victim.

  So it is with the UN Correspondents Association's Executive Committee under 2013 president Pamela Falk of CBS and seemingly permanent first vice president Louis Charbonneau of Reuters, known for spoon-fed Western pass-through.

  But does Charbonneau serve his masters by being, as one UN analyst not in the press corps put it, such a Mean Girl?

  Both Charbonneau and Falk were informed, at latest on February 22, of obviously and openly UNCA linked anonymous social media accounts which sought to trash Inner City Press and the new Free UN Coalition for Access -- not for any attribution, of course.

  But they did nothing. Charbonneau at that on the record meeting told Inner City Press, the fundamental problem is your website. Audio here. But InnerCityPress.com is on the record. The UNCA trolls are not.

The UNCA-linked accounts proliferated. One was noticed by a pro UN analyst who asked, "why are they tweeting like a 'mean girl'? No pic, either. Weird." But it continued.

  Last week, right after InnerCityPress.com published an on the record article noting that for US Ambassador Samantha Power's stakeout the three questioners selected were all UNCA Executive Committee members who had sponsored the faux "UN briefing" in late July by Saudi sponsored Syria rebel leader Ahmad al Jarba, the UNCA (Executive Committee) trolls went lower still.

  They started one then two counterfeit Twitter accounts with Inner City Press' name only slightly varied, and started following every single follower of @FUNCA_info then@InnerCityPress.

  Inner City Press wrote about it, but it continued. MediaBistro's FishBowlNY wanted to write about it, and did, after seeing the documents showing Voice of America saying Reuters under Charbonneau and AFP under Tim Witchersupported VOA's attempt to get Inner City Press thrown out of the UN. There are yet more damning documents; the Freedom of Information Act process at VOA's Broadcast Board of Governors continues.

  The response? An anonymous comment to MediaBistro purported to speak for all UN journalists (as UNCA always purports to do), calling Inner City Press "pro Syria, pro Rwanda, anti French."

  This last, "anti-French," is very telling.

  Then, the belated addition to the smaller of the two accounts of the word "satire" and "(Not)." The other, pitched at diplomats, does not contain these words.

And then... yet more anonymous tweeting, continuing. Or as the pro UN analyst called it, "Mean Girl" tweeting. And who is responsible? Louis "Mean Girl" Charbonneau?

  Charbonneau did, as documented, SPY for the UN, giving UN accreditation official Stephane Dujarric an anti-Press internal UNCA document three minutes after promising he would not. Story here, audio here, document here. 

  UNbelievably,or oh-so-UN, neither Dujarric or his DPI, nor Charbonneau, Reuters or Falk's UNCA have ever explained this. So "Mean Girls" is the least of it. Pass-through for war continues. Watch this site.