Firestorm On Fascism

Libby Shaw, an SMIU Study, and Behind-the-Scenes Influence Operations

Update: This article was update on 10/26/2021 at 2:33 PT to improve image visibility, remove a few redundant points add photos for the people mentioned and update one of their names.

Summary

In July 2020, the Social Media Intelligence Unit (SMIU) published an analytical report called “Society Burning: Tactical Assessment. (Archived)” SMIU is European and appears to have an objective of stopping the far-right from taking a larger foothold on social media.

The paper “analyzes” social media activity of the far right, as well as what they consider Antifa. Some conclusions drawn in this analysis are dangerous. They indicate centralization of effort where none exists. They generalize and lead readers to draw false conclusions regarding antifascist activists.

Observations

The actions spelled out in this report appear to be a coordinated effort between SMIU’s newest “Source Intelligence Analyst,” Elisabeth “Libby” Shaw, and Dustin Ledford Woods “neuralculture.” Shaw also uses the names “StBridgetAthena” “KittenOfBastet” and “LibbyInPhilly,” while Woods uses “neuralculture”, “circusofanarchy” and “agencyofchaos.”

The SMIU study was a product of Alliance4Europe. The names of the contributors are James Patrick (LE / Intel community), Libby Shaw (LibbyInPhilly) & serial SWATter, FBI cooperator & spousal abuser Neal Rauhauser. (Top of Page 45 from Society Burning is below)

Shaw’s LinkedIn results:

Anti-Antifa Bias

For over three years, Shaw has demonstrated disdain for antifascists, been heavily engaged in psy-ops and propaganda, and has coordinated with extraordinarily dangerous propagandists on the far-right in the process.

“The far left ideologies are appealing because they can feign a position of strength. But even if put into power, they still have to find compromise with the GOP. I think many would be surprised to see how quickly that strength turns into practicality.”

“The far left and the far right are working together to create imaginary enemies. They want to look like they’ve been victimized. They haven’t. They do it to themselves. They learned it in the men’s rights movement and perfected it during gamergate.” ~Libby Shaw (StBridgetAthena) 2017-08-04

“That’s the problem. Exactly. The “antifa dorks” who are “fighting white supremacy” only see things in black & white (literally and figuratively). They aren’t listening to ppl who aren’t seeing things through the same lens.” ~Libby Shaw (StBridgetAthena) 2019-09-04 https://archive.vn/ZtzE1

 “That’s what accelerationism does. We only ever really hear about the NRx and white supremacist side of that, but Nick Land’s version came years after the original Italian futurist philosophy. Accelerationism is what ties far left and right groups.” ~Libby Shaw (StBridgetAthena) 2020-06-08 https://archive.vn/K0NiW

 “if you run both sides ops, you can have one side faildox a persona on the other side. the side who does the faildoxing gets to build engagement and group cohesion. the receiving end can hold up the “attack” from the other side as evidence of persecution by the opposition.” ~Libby Shaw (StBridgetAthena) 2020-07-23 https://archive.vn/V8bjQ

Two key people coordinating

Series of events related to Dustin Ledford Woods and Libby Shaw:

• During the May – July 2020 timeframe Libby Shaw and Dustin Woods coordinated on Twitter and Discord, separately from a group of researchers Libby works with regularly.
• Libby made statements about running Woods’ neuralculture and agencyofchaos accounts to the same group of researchers. (We do not believe she was running the accounts, but we are unable to conclusively prove it one way or the other.)
• At the same time, neuralculture started posting and spreading more deceptive, and especially accelerationist, propaganda.

• Neuralculture has not denied coordinating with Libby (nor are they likely to, as they’ve made private admission to doing so).
• Non-conclusive public connection: Twitter account relationship data, retrieved 2020-07-28, show neuralculture, stbridgetathena and libbyinphilly are “mutuals,” i.e., each follows and is followed by the others.

Findings by an employee at the group who published the study could create harm by demonizing Antifa, then amplifying that message with coordinated propaganda, produced in part by the very same employee

These are a few of the many inaccurate, harmful and dangerous findings in the report:

1. “Antifa have adopted a responsive strategy to grow their online audience, while implementing a control strategy to limit the impact of fake Antifa accounts and provocateurs.”
   • This “finding” indicates Antifascists are somehow organizing in some centralized fashion. This simply isn’t true.
2. “Antifa activists have been ‘taking a reactive approach to right wing media news cycles in an immediate and focused way allowed [sic] the group to successfully build on, manipulate, and grow trends in such a way as to dominate the algorithmically boosted conversation.’”
   • This broad statement is leading to the same effect as above, generalizing antifascists’ action as part of something bigger than individuals. This is misleading.
3. “Liberal voters for the democrats [sic] in ‘blue states’ including California have accepted that Black Lives Matter is an organisation with Marxist objectives and has left Democrat [sic] voters from the ages of 35 to 65 feeling they will have no choice but to vote Republican in order to prevent a ‘communist takeover’ of the United States. The legacy of the Cold War is an under-considered factor. Further, sources indicate the embattlement of the law enforcement community is having the effect of driving not only serving and retired law enforcement officers and their family networks to vote Republican but is also starting to push other emergency service workers and even victims of crime who have been treated well by the police the same way.”
   • The sample size for this observation, and direct tie to propaganda spread, along with the politicized term “Marxist” in relation to objectives, constitutes fearmongering and fits Libby’s previously stated goals

For over three years, (now) SMIU analyst Libby has espoused anti-Antifa rhetoric. Neuralculture, has a track-record of being somewhat of an edgelord and bombastic in gaining attention and perception-wise, “taking control” of different events via Twitter. They’ve changed handles to the following over the last three months (these handles are the primary ones driving the accelerationist messaging):

• Neuralculture
• agencyofchaos
• circusofanarchy

References:

• SMIU study: “Society Burning: Tactical Assessment,” retrieved from https://smiu.eu/society-burning-tactical-assessment/, and archived here
• Twitter Data:
  • StBridgetAthena, ID 882441083619344384
  • LibbyInPhilly, ID 1277377467041361920
  • Shotchaser, neuralculture, agencyofchaos & circusofanarchy, ID 302932701

• Archives (neuralculture & associated handles):
  • “emergency proposition for the greater assembly” https://archive.vn/mnoaB
  • “???????????? ???????????????????????? ???????? ???????????? ???????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????? ???????????????? ????????????????????????????” https://archive.vn/X7N14
  • “the thing about the ???????????????????????? ???????? ???????????????????? bit is, that if i do it right, the end result will be indistinguishable from an actual influence operation except for the “carried out by literal clowns” part and i’m not ???????????????????????????????? sure if the world is ready for that yet” https://archive.vn/PEHK0
  • “if i’ve done it right, the clown shit becomes just the form if you’ve been watching the feed long enough, not the joke, and the underlying meme the punchline, it’s a very specific niche but i’ve gotten really novel effects from it (clown commandos on Fox lolololol what a world)” https://archive.vn/BbVoV
  • “the ℂ????????????????????????????????, a podcast not particularly about clowns, is now available free on Youtube and Twitch. Audio only versions available on Patreon (see bio)” https://archive.vn/Nxkcj
• Archives: StBridgetAthena
  • “What do the far right and far left have in common? Complete detachment to reality and a willingness to sell out to the highest bidder.” https://archive.vn/PbrlI
  • “The far left ideologies are appealing because they can feign a position of strength. But even if put into power, they still have to find compromise with the GOP. I think many would be surprised to see how quickly that strength turns into practicality.” https://archive.vn/vWNB2

Correction (2020-08-18): Initial post indicated collaboration between neuralculture and Libby on Wire. This has been corrected to reflect Twitter and Discord.