Foreign Bots Undermine MAGA's Online "Grassroots" Power
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Resources & Recommendations
Books
- "Book and Dagger" by Alice Graham - This book details how scholars, librarians, artists, and academics became spies during World War II, arguing that their contributions were crucial to the war effort.
- "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America" by Amanda Jones - Written by a school librarian who faced harassment and a defamation lawsuit for speaking out against book banning, this book shares her experiences and insights.
Videos & Documentaries
- "The Librarians" - This documentary follows the tribulations of librarians across the country who have been targeted and harassed by activist groups seeking to remove books from library shelves.
Organizations & Institutions
- Human Rights Coalition - This organization conducted a study finding that nine out of ten children feel safest in their school library.
- American Library Association - This organization puts out a "State of Libraries" report annually, which last year reported that 72% of book challenges come from political focus groups.
People Mentioned
- Zoran Mamdani - A person mentioned in the context of an Islamophobic account on X calling for his deportation.
- Craig Silverman (BuzzFeed) - A former colleague of Charlie Warzel who unveiled a network of Macedonian teens creating hyperpartisan Facebook pages before the 2016 election.
- Bill Ackman - A billionaire hedge fund manager who questioned the authenticity of accounts quoted by mainstream news organizations.
- Hank Green - A popular YouTuber whose X account was incorrectly labeled as being based in Japan due to a new feature.
- Jonathan Evison - Author of the book "Lawn Boy," which was mentioned in the context of book banning efforts.
- Peter Parnell - An author who has been fighting back against book bans and winning in court.
- Justin Richardson - An author who has been fighting back against book bans and winning in court.
- George M. Johnson - An author who has been fighting back against book bans and winning in court.
- J.K. Rowling - Author of the Harry Potter series, whose books inspired Amanda Jones to pursue a career in library science.
- Rosie O'Donnell - Talk show host who featured J.K. Rowling on her show, sparking Amanda Jones's interest in library science.
- Henry DeWolf Smyth - The individual who wrote a book about the development of the atomic bomb, published shortly after its use, which served as a successful misinformation campaign.
- Joseph Curtis - A professor of early modern literature recruited by the OSS to collect books for Yale Library while secretly tracking German spies in Istanbul.
- Sherman Kent - A Yale history professor who worked in intelligence analysis for the OSS, advocating for the use of public sources for strategic intelligence.
- Adele Kaiber - A woman with a PhD in classics who became the most productive document acquisitions agent for the allies, working undercover in Sweden.
Websites & Online Resources
- X (formerly Twitter) - The social media platform where a new "about this account" feature revealed that many prominent accounts were likely click farms based in other countries.
- InfoWars - Alex Jones's platform, mentioned in the context of epstein files.
- The Atlantic - The publication where Charlie Warzel is a staff writer.
- Cracker Barrel - The restaurant chain mentioned in the context of a culture war narrative surrounding its logo change.
- Wall Street Journal - A source for a report from October stating that 32-37% of posts about the Cracker Barrel logo change were from supposedly fake accounts.
- Time - The publication where Amanda Jones wrote an article about the presidency determining the fate of libraries.
- The Globe and Mail - The publication where Elise Graham wrote an article arguing that authoritarianism is a catastrophic military disadvantage.
Other Resources
- Operation Mincemeat - A British intelligence deception operation during WWII where a corpse was dressed as a Royal Marine to mislead Germans about an invasion.