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VOICE ARCHIVE

Craig Silverman

@craigsilverman
146 posts
2025-05-27
Scoop: The top contributor to X's Community Notes is a security startup that set up an automated process to flag crypto scam tweets. It's posted 52,000 times! Read the remarkable details at Indicator, my new publication w/@Mantzarlis: https://indicator.media/...
2025-05-27 View on X
Indicator

The top contributor to X's Community Notes is Web3 Antivirus, a startup that uses an automated process to flag crypto scam posts and has posted 52,000 times

I thought someone was gaming X's crowdsourced moderation; instead, they appear to be helping clean up the platform's mess for free. Bluesky: @mantzarlis.com . X: @craigsilverman Se...

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2024-10-31
Meta earns millions from deceptive political ads. We found over 100,000 deceptive US political & social issues ads across +200 FB pages. Some pages falsely claimed to be run by the gov, and the ads were rife with deepfakes and false claims. Story and 🧵: https://www.propublica.org/...
2024-10-31 View on X
ProPublica

An investigation finds eight deceptive operations on Meta's platforms that collectively controlled 340+ Pages and placed 160K+ ads to collect users' information

Co-published with Tow Center for Digital Journalism  — Deceptive Political Ads: Eight deceptive advertising networks …

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2023-03-30
Here's the thread from Twitter announcing the new API's details. https://twitter.com/...
2023-03-30 View on X
Engadget

Twitter details new API access tiers: Free with 1.5K tweets/month at app level, Basic for $100/month, and Enterprise; old APIs will stop working within 30 days

Twitter has finally confirmed some of the details and pricing for the new version of its API.

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2023-03-27
NEW: OBN, a mysterious fraudster, exploited Instagram's security gaps to ban influencers w/ millions of followers. Instascammers like him shut down profiles and demand $$ to reactivate them. OBN eluded Meta & police, but we followed his trail to Vegas: https://www.propublica.org/...
2023-03-27 View on X
ProPublica

A look at OBNBrandon, a prolific scammer in a booming community focused on banning influencers' accounts, mainly on Instagram, and extorting for “reactivation”

https://www.propublica.org/... … @craigsilverman@mastodon.social : OBN, a mysterious fraudster, says he made hundreds of thousands of dollars by exploiting Instagram's security gap...

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Kay Jenkins, a Miami realtor/model, was losing income because her Insta kept getting banned. She paid someone she thought was a Meta employee $8,000 for reactivation. But like so many other influencers, she got conned by the notorious Instascammer, OBN: https://www.propublica.org/... https://twitter.com/...
2023-03-27 View on X
ProPublica

A look at OBNBrandon, a prolific scammer in a booming community focused on banning influencers' accounts, mainly on Instagram, and extorting for “reactivation”

https://www.propublica.org/... … @craigsilverman@mastodon.social : OBN, a mysterious fraudster, says he made hundreds of thousands of dollars by exploiting Instagram's security gap...

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We spoke to people with over 45 million total Insta followers who were targeted by OBN. They say Meta failed to help, or to take OBN seriously. At least one person is suing. Others hired lawyers. But OBN continued to run wild, mocking Meta and police as he banned and scammed.
2023-03-27 View on X
ProPublica

A look at OBNBrandon, a prolific scammer in a booming community focused on banning influencers' accounts, mainly on Instagram, and extorting for “reactivation”

https://www.propublica.org/... … @craigsilverman@mastodon.social : OBN, a mysterious fraudster, says he made hundreds of thousands of dollars by exploiting Instagram's security gap...

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He denied knowing anything about OBN. After being told his bank account received more than $10,000 in payments intended for OBN, he changed his story. He said someone asked him to funnel money through his bank account to unknown recipients. He said he didn't know their full name. https://twitter.com/...
2023-03-27 View on X
ProPublica

A look at OBNBrandon, a prolific scammer in a booming community focused on banning influencers' accounts, mainly on Instagram, and extorting for “reactivation”

https://www.propublica.org/... … @craigsilverman@mastodon.social : OBN, a mysterious fraudster, says he made hundreds of thousands of dollars by exploiting Instagram's security gap...

View original
Meta sent Reyes-Martinez a cease-and-desist letter on March 17, about two weeks after we contacted the company for comment and shared the connections between OBN and Reyes-Martinez.
2023-03-27 View on X
ProPublica

A look at OBNBrandon, a prolific scammer in a booming community focused on banning influencers' accounts, mainly on Instagram, and extorting for “reactivation”

https://www.propublica.org/... … @craigsilverman@mastodon.social : OBN, a mysterious fraudster, says he made hundreds of thousands of dollars by exploiting Instagram's security gap...

View original
People who've been targeted by OBN include @Adam22, host of @nojumper who has 1.6m Insta followers and @daniibanks_, an OnlyFans model with 7.9m Insta followers. OBN also claimed responsibility for banning @AsianDaBrattt, who has 4.2m Insta followers. https://twitter.com/...
2023-03-27 View on X
ProPublica

A look at OBNBrandon, a prolific scammer in a booming community focused on banning influencers' accounts, mainly on Instagram, and extorting for “reactivation”

https://www.propublica.org/... … @craigsilverman@mastodon.social : OBN, a mysterious fraudster, says he made hundreds of thousands of dollars by exploiting Instagram's security gap...

View original
2023-02-03
End of an era, truly. Really hope the new paid tier is reasonably priced. https://twitter.com/...
2023-02-03 View on X
TechCrunch

Twitter plans to discontinue free access to its API starting on February 9, ending support for both v1.1 and v2, and launch a “paid basic tier” instead

This week I spent too many minutes watching Nothing, Forever, which is a Twitch stream that runs 24/7. Mastodon: Kate Starbird / @katestarbird@mstdn.social : Looks like Twitter is ...

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End of an era, truly. Really hope the new paid tier is reasonably priced. https://twitter.com/...
2023-02-03 View on X
BuzzFeed News

Twitter ending free API access could have the unfortunate side effect of effectively killing off many useful bots like @MakeItAQuote, @BigTechAlert, and more

“I'm not paying a dime to Elon lol.”  —  Pranav Dixit  —  One of the most popular bots on Twitter is @MakeItAQuote, which has more than 565,000 followers.

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2023-02-02
End of an era, truly. Really hope the new paid tier is reasonably priced. https://twitter.com/...
2023-02-02 View on X
TechCrunch

Twitter plans to end free access to its API starting February 9, shuttering support for both v1.1 and v2, and will launch a “paid basic tier” instead

Twitter will discontinue offering free access to the Twitter API starting February 9 and will launch a paid version …

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2022-12-22
We wrote code and scanned millions of sites to uncover Google's partners and matched 70% of Google IDs to specific domains/apps. We uncovered a large and bafflingly complex system that thwarts attempts to know everyone Google works with and where it's sending advertisers' money.
2022-12-22 View on X
ProPublica

Google's Display Network, which places ads on 2M+ websites, lets site owners stay anonymous while putting ads beside pirated content, porn, and disinformation

In late 2021, the right-wing site Conservative Beaver published a story falsely claiming the FBI had arrested Pfizer's CEO for fraud. Tweets: @craigsilverman , @craigsilverman , @t...

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In response, Google told us publisher confidentiality does not correlate with bad behavior and it uses a variety of measures to protect ad buyers. Google also said the vast majority of ad revenue from its system goes to publishers who do not keep their information confidential. https://twitter.com/...
2022-12-22 View on X
ProPublica

Google's Display Network, which places ads on 2M+ websites, lets site owners stay anonymous while putting ads beside pirated content, porn, and disinformation

In late 2021, the right-wing site Conservative Beaver published a story falsely claiming the FBI had arrested Pfizer's CEO for fraud. Tweets: @craigsilverman , @craigsilverman , @t...

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NEW investigation & 🧵: Google runs the world's biggest ad network, but it conceals most of the publishers it works with and where it places billions of ad $$$. We cracked open one of the world's most lucrative black boxes and found piracy, porn, & fraud: https://www.propublica.org/...
2022-12-22 View on X
ProPublica

Google's Display Network, which places ads on 2M+ websites, lets site owners stay anonymous while putting ads beside pirated content, porn, and disinformation

In late 2021, the right-wing site Conservative Beaver published a story falsely claiming the FBI had arrested Pfizer's CEO for fraud. Tweets: @craigsilverman , @craigsilverman , @t...

View original
What else lurks in Google's black box? It's too large and opaque to fully know. What's clear is it funnels ad money to sites that break Google's rules and can put lives and livelihoods at risk from dangerous disinformation, fraud and scams. Read more: https://www.propublica.org/...
2022-12-22 View on X
ProPublica

Google's Display Network, which places ads on 2M+ websites, lets site owners stay anonymous while putting ads beside pirated content, porn, and disinformation

In late 2021, the right-wing site Conservative Beaver published a story falsely claiming the FBI had arrested Pfizer's CEO for fraud. Tweets: @craigsilverman , @craigsilverman , @t...

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Google stands alone in its embrace of confidentiality. Data from Jounce Media shows how Google stacks up against competitors. Over 75% of its partners are “confidential,” opening the door to abuses and schemes that steal potentially billions a year from fraud, scams, disinfo. https://twitter.com/...
2022-12-22 View on X
ProPublica

Google's Display Network, which places ads on 2M+ websites, lets site owners stay anonymous while putting ads beside pirated content, porn, and disinformation

In late 2021, the right-wing site Conservative Beaver published a story falsely claiming the FBI had arrested Pfizer's CEO for fraud. Tweets: @craigsilverman , @craigsilverman , @t...

View original
2022-09-29
WOW: this Reuters investigation reveals incredibly sloppy and incompetent work by the CIA in creating a web comms infrastructure for informants in Iran. Opsec failures like using similar domain names, not obscuring the code, sequential IP addresses 😱🙈 https://www.reuters.com/... https://twitter.com/...
2022-09-29 View on X
Reuters

An investigation shows the CIA failed to secure its messaging system used by Iranian spies, often hidden within websites, leading to capture, torture, and death

The spy was minutes from leaving Iran when he was nabbed.  —  Gholamreza Hosseini was at Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran in late 2010, preparing for a flight to Bangkok.

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2022-08-06
I would like to thank Elon Musk and his team of bot detecting geniuses for providing a wonderful example of how *not* to use tools in a digital investigation. Adding this to my workshop and course materials. https://twitter.com/...
2022-08-06 View on X
Axios

Filing: Twitter says Elon Musk's counterclaims “are factually inaccurate, legally insufficient, and commercially irrelevant” and don't justify ending the deal

Dan Primack / Axios :

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2022-07-02
NEW: Google was sharing user data with a sanctioned state-owned Russian ad company until we alerted Google last wk. The shared data may have included sensitive location info and mobile IDs of people in Ukraine. Based on research by @kfranasz. Story & 🧵 https://www.propublica.org/...
2022-07-02 View on X
ProPublica

Google gave user data to Russian ad company RuTarget, including potentially sensitive info about users in Ukraine, four months after the US sanctioned RuTarget

Craig Silverman / ProPublica :

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