PLEASE NOTE: This is the 2nd part of a three-part series describing the three-headed Hydra threatening free speech online. Read Part 1 about federal agencies' weaponization of Twitter here. Part 3 will call for the release of “Twitter Files” on the SPLC and the ADL.
Over the last couple of weeks, new Twitter owner Elon Musk began to remove the Twitter accounts of several notorious doxers and violent ideologues from the Antifa movement, including Chad Loder, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, Crimethinc and Its Going Down after users began flagging them for doxing activities committed with impunity during the previous Twitter regime.
However, Antifa’s years of using Twitter as a way to incite terrorism, riots, doxing/harassment campaigns and murder require further transparency and reconciliation. Particularly because so many Twitter employees were activists in the Antifa movement, followed its chief ideologues or, like Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, messaged privately with its most notoriously deranged adherents.
Twitter should come clean about decisions it has made about allowing incitement to violence on its platform in the name of Antifa extremism. Both in general and as it relates to the 2020 George Floyd riots, where between 25 and 35 people died [At least 25 Americans were killed during protests and political unrest in 2020, by Lois Beckett, The Guardian, October 31, 2020].
For years, Antifa extremist ideologues like Molly (@socialistdogmom) Conger (pictured above) used Twitter to egg on violent terrorism like the firebombing attack on an ICE facility by Dutch immigrant Willem Van Spronsen. Van Spronsen was a member of the John Brown Gun Club militia, whose Elm Fork chapter was only recently banned by the social media site (Armed 69-year-old ‘antifascist’ shot dead after firebombing immigration centre, by Vincent Wood, Independent, July 14, 2019). Conger’s account had almost 131,000 followers at the time of publication, from which she spreads doxes and mocks police who die in the line of duty. Twitter mods have given her activities complete immunity from suspension.
Twitter must come clean about staff coordinating with violent extremists like Emily (@EmilyGorcenski) Gorcenski to suppress lawful speech.
Who is Gorcenski? As profiled on VDARE.com, Gorcenski is a radical Antifa hacker and cyberstalker who doxes and harasses American citizens while hiding out as a foreign national in Germany. Gorcenski is fed-connected, having designed weapons software for the U.S. military. Gorcenski has repeatedly advocated violence on Twitter, apparently with the sanction of Twitter then-brass.
During the 2020 George Floyd riots, Gorcenski encouraged his followers to “punch the Nazi, burn a cop car.”
Gorcenski was a key organizer of the violent Antifa assault on the Charlottesville Unite The Right rally in 2017 (I was the holder of the legal permit) and claims to have pulled a gun on protesters.
Antifa activist Gorcenski has bragged on multiple occasions about the fact that he is followed on Twitter by former CEO Jack Dorsey and was able to Direct Message with him to request bans and censorship.
In the following example, Gorcenski DMed Dorsey requesting censorship of journalist Andy Ngo, who was in fact subsequently suspended for a while [Twitter bans gay journalist Andy Ngo for stating objective facts that transgender activists don’t like, by Brad Polumbo, Washington Examiner, November 26, 2019].
Gorcenski has used his Twitter platform to dox and stalk his political opponents with impunity. For instance, he doxed a military veteran and falsely accused him of being a neo-nazi; he also invited his followers to dox attendees at a pro-Trump boat parade.
Analysis by researchers Eoin Lenihan and Nick Monroe found that, besides Dorsey himself, Gorcenski had connections to no less than 14 additional Twitter staff members.
Dan (@dbentley) Bentley, Software Engineer
Ed Marshall (@esm) Software Engineer
Ian Brown (@igb), Sr. Engineering Manager
James Broadhead (@jamesbroadhead), Team Lead and Staff Software Engineer
Pascal Hartig (@passy) Backend Engineer and Tech Lead
Steve Kalifowitz (@skalifowitz), Director of Brand Strategy
Ben Sangster (@sangster), Senior Software Engineer
Tobias Weingartner (@NuttySwiss) Site Reliability Engineer
With many of these accounts something seems to have changed around November of this year. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
But whatever it is it had a lot of them running for the hills, joining Mastodon (a technically inferior alternative site), locking down their accounts and posting endlessly about a wealthy African American.
If you think there’s a possibility these Twitter employees don’t know Gorcenski and just stumbled on his content organically, why is it that almost all of them are fellow engineers?
Besides Gorcenski a source with knowledge of the situation told me that recently banned doxer Chad Loder would also brag privately about having back channels at Twitter where he could send requests for censorship and suspensions.
We know that some Twitter employees did not confine themselves just to rigging social media against nationalists and conservatives but stepped out into meatspace with Antifa during the 2020 Floyd riots. For instance, Twitter site reliability engineering manager Eric Shamow participated in armed insurrection against the Portland police [Revealed: Laid-off Twitter employee attended Antifa Portland riots, lied about police, by Joshua Young, The Post Millenial, November 4, 2022].
Journalist Andy Ngo pointed out how Shamow advanced fake conspiracy theories peddled by left-wing extremists about how police were actually to blame for the rioting and violence.
During the riots Shamow tweeted, “We carry shields because you brutalize civilians and commit war crimes on our streets.@tedwheeler: resign, and take your PPB trash out with you.”
Shamow was recently fired, but how many other violent extremists were at Twitter, with the self-control not to post about their activities, manipulating the code to censor and control their political opposition in secret? How many that we don’t know about were creating a safe space for Antifa to organize violent riots and dox their enemies with impunity?
Researchers at the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) at Rutgers University used machine learning to analyze how Antifa were using social media to organize violent real world activity. In their September 2020 report, they found that “the online structure supporting militant anti-fascist and anarcho-socialist groups has grown rapidly.” During the 2020 George Floyd Riots, NCRI identified “significant spikes in anarcho-socialist code words and anti-police language” on Twitter [Just an ‘Idea’? Extremism Experts Explain the Online Organizing Behind Leftist Riots, by Ryan Mills, National Review, October 16, 2020].
According to analysis in the New York Times (of all places), the 2020 riots were being “strategically planned, facilitated and advertised on social media by anarchists who believed that their actions advanced the cause of racial justice” (The Truth About Today’s Anarchists, by Farah Stockman, New York Times, September 30, 2020).
Here is a selection of the Antifa propaganda and coordination posted to Twitter during the 2020 Floyd Riots:
Archive: http://archive.is/UD9dA
Archive: http://archive.is/ypLrz
A thread from the recently banned Crimethinc account detailing riot tactics and gear:
For more information on the Floyd Riots, visit my article List of known Antifa-BLM Terrorists Participating in George Floyd Riots.
Despite attempts by Elon Musk to rein in Antifa doxes, many still exist on the platform to this day, such as this video of the attack on the outside of Tucker Carlson’s family home.
The attached video depicts Antifa outside the house chanting, “Tucker Carlson we will fight! We know where you sleep at night!”
I found this by looking through “Emily” Gorcenski’s “Like” tweets. (During the writing of this article I noticed he removed the ”like” in an attempt to cover his tracks).
When I reported the dox to Twitter, I was given a reply that the tweets hadn’t broken any rules and would remain on the platform.
Twitter has been a critical coordination tool for facilitating attacks on political opponents and media who might expose their activities at riots. According to Seattle journalist Jason Rantz:
(Antifa) monitor Twitter to see if anyone is in or around the Antifa marches, then relay intel to the mob via hashtags. The communication is not sophisticated. Nevertheless, it puts media members in danger and Twitter does virtually nothing to intervene.
[Here’s how Antifa uses Twitter to threaten me and the media, by Jason Rantz, Fox News, February 5, 2021]
Lastly, let’s not forget that Antifa doxes, disseminated on Twitter, have a body count. The psychological harm of doxing is known full well by its proponents.
For example, this dox of VDARE.com’s and American Renaissance writer “Chris Roberts.” The thread identifying Roberts by his real name, location and other identifying details put a target on his back. By the following year “Roberts” (real name Martin Rojas) was dead, thought by some of his friends to be a suicide.
See Townsman of a Stiller Town—In Memoriam Martin Rojas, by Jared Taylor, June 25, 2022.
The doxes are still hosted on Twitter to this day.
Another example: Nonviolent Charlottesville protester Andrew Dodson certainly committed suicide in March 2018 after being doxed by Arkansas Times JournoFa Jacob Rosenberg and Antifa Twitter account @YesYoureRacist, run by Logan Smith of Raleigh, NC.
Please watch this heart-rending video about the martyred activist Andrew Dodson, who was filled with nothing but love, even for the armed thugs who attacked him.
Once again, Twitter’s content moderation team sanctioned this behavior by allowing massive dox threads like the one calling for the identities of Dodson and others. And they still exist on the platform at the date of this publication.
Just before this article was posted, the vicious Antifa doxing account @anoncommiestan was alleged by Justice Report [Prolific Antifa doxing account ‘Anonymous Comrade Collective’ revealed: ex-journo Hilary Elizabeth Sargent of Roslindale, MA, December 15, 2022] to be run by disgraced former Boston Globe journalist Hillary Sargent ['Boston Globe' Sues Former Employee Who Accused Top Editor Of Sexual Harassment, by Adam Reilly, NPR, May 25, 2018]. When confronted with the death of one of her doxing victims, she had remarked, “One down.”
Sargent is friend and friend collaborator of SPLC spokesman Michael Edison Hayden, who has featured her doxes in his “reporting.” (More on this in Part 3…)
Antifa are continuing to operate accounts whose primary existence is for doxing and harassment. For instance, @unmaskUTR, @antifashgordon, @socialistdogmom, @goadgatsby and @AnonCommieStan.
Breaking news: Elon Musk has been forced to update stronger anti-doxing policies on the site after a doxing account put his own family at risk. The account @elonjet was used by a masked Antifa extremist to stalk a vehicle containing Musk’s young son as it left the airport [Elon Musk threatens legal action, suspends Twitter account that tracks his jet, by Rob Wile, Kevin Collier and Phil Helsel, NBC News, December 14, 2022].
Anyone recognize this person or car? pic.twitter.com/2U0Eyx7iwl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022
Allegedly the perp even blocked the vehicle from moving and jumped on the hood, believing Elon was inside.
For the suicide victims of Antifa doxing and harassment, for the murder of Aaron Danielson, for the dead victims of the 2020 Floyd riots, for all the lives broken and families destroyed by Antifa’s exploitation of Twitter, we need new “Twitter Files.”
I call on Elon Musk to expose internal moderation decisions by Twitter staff that allowed calls for violence and doxing by “antifascist” zealots—up to and including Yoel Roth and Jack Dorsey himself.
Jason Kessler (email him) is a journalist and civil rights activist. He was the permit holder for the 2017 Unite The Right Charlottesville rally, which was notoriously mugged by elected, uniformed, judicial, paramilitary and media Democrats. He has had bylines in VDARE.com, Daily Caller (which has deleted his archive in a fit of cowardice), and the now-defunct GotNews as well as on his own site JasonKessler.us. Follow him on Telegram, Gab, and Twitter. Subscribe to his news and opinion show ‘Happenings’ on Odysee and Bitchute.
