Renée DiResta's Surveillance Games

A commoner reports from the Capitol.

When Renée DiResta dropped in on three dozen of her superfans at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club Monday in a sparkling blue pleated dress, it seemed more worthy of a Hunger Games kickoff than a small public forum. But it was indeed apt, given that she had a message for the little people who might be listening to the recording later on their favorite local NPC radio channel: May the odds be ever in your favor.

DiResta’s key takeaway from her new book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, was clear: Whether you are distinguished scientist or a prize-winning journalist, if your conclusions or communications differ from the “consensus reality,” that set of positions and Facts-™ created by the favored political party, you should be curated out of existence. For the safety of the citizenry. 

She talked about “Substackers” who have criticized her, with the emphasis on the “Sub.” Michael Shellenberger doesn’t run a publication or platform free speech on the world stage. He has a “newsletter.” Matt Taibbi isn’t a prize-winning journalist who speaks eloquently in front of Congress. He is one of the “Twitter Files boys.” 

Stanford scientist Jay Bhattacharya? DiResta admitted he turned up on a Twitter “blacklist,” but implied he was deserving of such treatment, as he had unapproved thoughts. He was, after all, a co-author of The Great Barrington Declaration, which she did not describe as the common sense proposal to protect the most vulnerable and limit economic devastation from the unprecedented lockdowns. She left it to the audience’s imagination about what such a “declaration (!)” might hold.

To review, DiResta directed the Stanford Internet Observatory, which worked with very specific government agencies to make very stern content “recommendations” about very specific accounts engaging in Covid policy and election skepticism on nearly a dozen social media platforms during pivotal periods of our recent history. Exposing those activities through Freedom of Information Act requests as reporters have done, was, according to DiResta, “doxxing.” And suing for the damage a mass surveillance and censorship operation like this might cause? DiResta deemed that “lawfare.” 

“The lawfare runs up costs,” DiResta opined in SF when answering a question about the, er, downsizing of SIO and her recent dismissal. Or as Platformer put it June 13:

After five years of pioneering research into the abuse of social platforms, the Stanford Internet Observatory is winding down. Its founding director, Alex Stamos, left his position in November. Renee DiResta, its research director, left last week after her contract was not renewed. One other staff member's contract expired this month, while others have been told to look for jobs elsewhere, sources say. 

Not letting the crisis go to waste, DiResta is using it to key in on a strained theme during her book tour: She is David. The one who goes against Goliath. But who is the Goliath here? It’s of course the “Invisible Rulers” of the Internet. And who are the Invisible Rulers of the Internet? Not any people of wealth or power or state-backed influence. Not deep state actors, not bureaucrats. No. The Invisible Rulers are: ….. Us! You the People, when you don’t do what Renée’s friends tell you to do. When you don’t defer to a very particular class of experts and when you assert your right to state facts as you see them. When you don’t bend the knee.

When a member of that class fights back — in court?

“We’re sued by an activist we’ve never heard of!” DiResta asserted smugly to the crowd. 

How dare you. 

Asked her thoughts on Stanford’s institutional withdrawal from her operations, she replied (head down, eyes to the floor), “Disappointed.”

The evening moved back and forth from her present day disinformation campaign to her origin story as just one of a small set of activist “moms” fighting to get more California children vaccinated. The campaign for compulsory shots was an uphill battle, she asserted, seemingly unaware of its perfect alignment with the deep-pocketed pharmaceutical industry and California Democratic majority’s goals.

She was fighting for SB277, the 2015 bill that chose a very select category of children and families to be removed from California schools. She said she found the most “energy” in support of the cause was in the “anti-anti vaxxers” and their mean memes — while also reporting that she was taken off guard when a backlash of mean memes came back her way. Only one side of the debate can have righteous outrage. The other side: a basket of deplorables.

She told the crowd she suffered the insult of someone who didn’t like a picture of a rib roast she posted on social media, calling her an animal abuser at some point during lockdowns. See: The Internet has gone too far! With regard to Covid, she said, the “rifts” in her “DMs” became “insurmountable” — seemingly bemoaning that the elite consensus around policies like global economic shutdown (good), child home imprisonment (great) and coerced medication (must have!) could not be quickly and eagerly accepted by all.

“It’s hard to build a community around Normality,” the moderator offered at one point to the audience of people drinking in every DiResta word, some of them sporting polypropylene fiber masks that revealed their own bespoke realities.

At another point, the moderator chimed in on DiResta’s behalf as she complained that people may believe these “rumors” the alternative media has started about her association with a certain alphabet agency of government. He said wanted to ask them: “Is it so hard to change your mind?”

Kudos to that moderator, though, as he did proceed to earnestly ask the tough questions a few members of the audience sent her way via seat-cards. DiResta of course laughed off any claims she engaged in “censorship” or pharma propaganda.

It appeared her method is to brook no opposition at all. To claim she is operating from some agreed-upon middle while enforcing a radically unfree agenda, wrapping it in the swaddling clothes of scholarly innocence (Walter Lippmann, Edward Bernays, John Dewey), associating her opponents with the most extreme narratives, and projecting words that would rightly describe her career endeavors onto those exposing them. 

Bemoaning Jim Jordan claiming a win for free speech in Stanford’s shutdown of its mass surveillance operation, DiResta added a little spice for the NPC censors to work with later. “That’s fucking Orwellian.”

The audience, not aware of any irony in that statement, issued a collective chuckle.

For more on the SIO et. al, and the reporters who broke the story, take a look:

(And please do visit Yuri Bezmenov for more on “How To Skewer Invisible Rulers”!)