A widely cited list of Twitter users who were described as "Russian bots" included "a bunch of legitimate right-leaning accounts," according to an internal 2018 email from Yoel Roth, then the social media platform's "trust & safety" chief. Roth thought the list, compiled by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), was "bullshit" but never said so publicly, apparently because of pushback from other Twitter employees.
That episode, which journalist Matt Taibbi revealed last week, exemplifies the hysteria about Russian propagandists disguised as Americans. Contrary to the overheated warnings about foreign election "interference" we have been hearing since 2016, even genuinely phony social media accounts pose a threat less worrisome than the panic they have provoked.
