Twitter war games included Soros-backed organization, documents reveal

An organization funded by billionaire George Soros was involved in the Hunter Biden “simulations” conducted by the FBI and Twitter, according to the latest release of Elon Musk's Twitter Files. 

Internal documents published by author Michael Shellenberger Monday revealed that Twitter and Meta executives, along with mainstream media journalists, participated in a tabletop exercise which “simulated” a scenario in which disinformation would be spread about Hunter Biden prior to the 2020 election. In the hypothetical scenario, titled “The Burisma Leak,” hacked documents would reveal that Hunter Biden was being paid by Ukrainian company Burisma “far more than had been publicly reported.” Another document would allege that Hunter Biden asked his father to arrange the termination of former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma. 

The simulation was conducted by The Aspen Institute in September 2020, a month before the New York Post published a bombshell story eerily similar to the scenario presented. 

The purpose of the exercise was to “shape how the media covered it — and how social media carried it.” In attendance were journalists and former executives from the Washington Post, New York Times and NBC News. It was organized by Vivian Schiller, then-head of news and journalism partnerships at Twitter and former CEO of NPR. 

Also in attendance was Claire Wardle, former executive director and co-founder of First Draft News, a think tank founded in 2016 which focused on “misinformation”. As pointed out by the Daily Caller News Foundation, one of First Draft News’ donors was the Open Society Foundations, chaired by George Soros.  

Wardle’s email address was included in an email sent to the other attendees of the exercise. 

Weeks later, just prior to the New York Post’s story, First Draft News announced the launch of “US election tools to help tackle misinformation.” The “toolkit” included a “misinformation Twitter feed”, an “SMS course,” a weekly newsletter, a “2020 dashboard” with “live insights on disinformation,” and a “Spotify toolkit” to “help podcasters avoid disinformation.” 

The organization shut down in June. 

“Today we are announcing that First Draft is closing its doors to make way for the next chapter — its mission will continue at the newly launched Information Futures Lab, an initiative from Brown’s School of Public Health,” read an announcement from Wardle. 

The dean of Brown’s School of Public Health was Dr. Ashish Jha, who now serves as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. Jha is considered the “Founding Father of Lockdowns,” being the first influential voice to call for a two-week national quarantine and mask mandates for children.