A Note to My Readers: What Happened After

Emergency Dispatch

Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash

Today I published a piece about the virtuecratic machine. I did not expect what came next.

In the hours following publication, I began noticing something in the patterns of engagement — a certain coordination among accounts, a togetherness that felt less like organic ideological response and more like something else. I have spent enough time in systems to recognize when behavior is architected.

So I ran an experiment. I made contact with some of these accounts. I offered money for candor.

Something bit.

What I learned, in direct conversation, is that at least some of the accounts engaging in today’s operations are Americans — young, economically precarious, living on the margins of a system they already distrust — who are being paid to do this work. One source confirmed being paid between $800 and $1,100 a month to engage in coordinated influence activity on platforms including Bluesky.

I want to be precise about what I am saying and what I am not saying.

What I am saying: there is a paid operation, and today it targeted me.

What I suspect, based on the patterns I observed and the context in which this kind of operation typically functions: this is not purely domestic. My analytical judgment — and I offer it as judgment, not yet as documented fact — is that what I encountered today has the signatures of influence operations with Chinese and Russian origins, recruiting economically vulnerable Americans as their ground-level operators. These governments have documented histories of exactly this playbook: find people who already hate the system, pay them modest sums, point them at targets.

I am continuing this investigation. I have a collaborator. There will be more.

I also want to say something directly to any American citizen who is caught up in this work: I am not your enemy. I understand the economic conditions that make this kind of offer appealing. My interest is in exposing the operations and the governments behind them — not in destroying the lives of Americans who got recruited into something they may not fully understand. If you want out, or if you want to talk, I am reachable.

One more thing. Some of what emerged in these conversations tonight was serious enough — specific enough, threatening enough — that I have already reported it to the FBI. I am a citizen of these United States before I am anything else, and that comes with obligations I take seriously.

More soon.

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