Breitbart's #TwitterHoax - How It Went Down (Weiner Smear) Daily Kos

Original Thread at Daily Kos has all screen shots.
SUN MAY 29, 2011 AT 02:30 PM PDT
Breitbart's #TwitterHoax - How It Went Down (updated w/ smoking gun)
bystef
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/29/980400/-Breitbarts-


I've traced a sort-of timeline of Breitbart's latest faux-scandal targetting Rep. Anthony Weiner.

UPDATE - Had to copy this Smoking Gun to the top of the diary, tweeted TWO WEEKS ago by the amazingly prescient @patriotusa76, who, incredibly, seems to have been the only witness on the scene when the underpants photo was (allegedly) tweeted.


Background: A college girl has been tweeting about her crush on Rep. Weiner. (I have done this myself - and I am a grown-ass woman - when I had a mad, unrequited crush on US Atty Patrick Fitzgerald. Oddly, nobody actually believed I was his secret GF. Why, world, why?)

Friday night, an underwear photo is (allegedly) mysteriously tweeted from Rep. Weiner's Twitter account to the college girl, and (supposedly) visible on his public page.

Also Friday night, a strange character named @patriotusa76 begins tweeting about it.

Strangely, this character seemed to have foreknowledge that something was about to go down. His May 12 tweets: SEE LINK

In the wee hours, Anthony Weiner tweets that not only is his Tivo broken, causing him to miss the hockey game, but his FB has been hacked.

Meanwhile, Dana Loesch of Breitbart's Big Govt curiously starts asking if it's possible to fake a yfrog account: SEE LINK

We can surmise that she has received the photoshopped screenshot, purporting to show that the underwear photo originated from Rep Weiner's yfrog account, and wants to know if it is legit.

Eileen B's analysis of the screenshot below: SEE LINK

It's pretty darn accurate. I was skeptical of it at first, so I ran my own tests. You're all welcome to post it anywhere you like. (And yes, I have an actual college degree in Digital Multimedia and Graphic Design. I've been using PhotoShop professionally nearly every day since 1993.)

Notice how the little birdie logo on the right (under the word Upload) shows a square of fuzz around it? That's because it's an image embedded in the screen grab. It's been saved multiple times before rendering itself on that page - then "grabbed" by Breitbart. Same goes for the logos on top, and the picture itself.

Now, look at the words on the top right -- Popular and Upload. They're generated by HTML when the page is loaded, just like the text "RepWeiner" is. So, they were created at at exactly the same time -- because they're fonts being rendered.

In an unaltered screen grab, they're equals.

However, under analysis, "RepWeiner" is rendering much brighter and with fewer color artifacts. It has clearly been saved more times than "Popular" and "Upload."

Meanwhile, Breitbart is taunting Rep. Weiner on his Twitter: SEE LINK

And at 12:24 a.m. Saturday, Breitbart posts the story, along with the doctored yfrog screenshot as "evidence" it was actually posted by Rep. Weiner.

A poster at Gawker watched the whole thing unfold live, and reports the college girl seemed bewildered by it all: SEE LINK

The Twitter user he is referencing is good old @patriotusa76. Thanks to kklausser who was kind enough to screencap these, one of which I've posted above:

Care to make a comment, @patriotusa76? We promise no sharia:



So I think we can see what happened here.

1) Rep. Weiner's Facebook was hacked, giving the hackers access to post on his Twitter if the accounts were linked.

2) A link, supposedly to The underwear photo was then tweeted out by the hackers, tagging the college girl but visible to all of Twitterville.

3) Meanwhile, the hackers have taken a screencap of another yfrog account with the photo posted to it, and then photo-shopped Rep. Weiner's name in at the top of the page.

4) They send this photo-shopped screencap to Dana Loesch as "proof" that Rep. Weiner indeed posted the photo.

4) Crazy old @patriotusa76 is meanwhile tweeting madly about the whole thing.

6) Breitbart wastes no time in publishing the story.

Two questions remain:

Who is @patriotusa76 and did he participate in the hoax?

and

Was Breitbart in on it, or did he fall for it?

UPDATE: Colby Hall at Mediaite beat me to it, and has much more on the hapless @patriotusa76.

Who who is this Twitter user that appeared to luck out and sent the only unique RT of Weiner’s image? The Twitter profile claims that he is an individual named Dan Wolfe, and his bio reads: “Conservative Reagan Republican. No Obamacare, socialism, sharia. Proud of the USA & Proud to be an American with NO apologies. No elitists need apply.”
Its not an exaggeration to say that Wolfe is somewhat obsessed with Weiner; a simple search reveals that, since April, he has mentioned Rep. Weiner 287 times via twitter. Also, skeptics might see that Wolfe and his Twitter clique have been building a narrative about Rep. Weiner’s followers for months, perhaps best evidenced by this tweet to an underage high school girl, who requested a follow from Weiner and got it:

So the alt version of my scenario above is that Rep. Weiner's Twitter was not even hacked, and the link to the photo did not ever go out from his account, but was also faked. Rep. Weiner seems to think he was hacked, but that's an obvious immediate conclusion.

UPDATE: I grabbed some screenshots of what @patriotusa76 tweeted as the thing unfolded. He seems to think Dana Loesch witnessed the alleged tweet live as well. I'm not clear from her tweet whether she means she grabbed screenshots, or just that she HAS (alleged) screenshots.

Dana Loesch, is it true that you screencapped this alleged underpants tweet, live?

UPDATE: The college girl gives an interview to the New York Daily News. She says she has been harrassed for weeks on Twitter by (we can only guess who.) h/t BlueFranco:

said she was harassed for weeks online after she started following Weiner on Twitter and the congressman added her to the list of about 200 people he follows.
Her harrasser "started posting about me, saying, 'Oh, the congressman is following school girls,' tweeting it over and over. It was very annoying," told the Daily News.

When the crotch shot appeared online, she said the same Twitter user was the first to comment on it.

"Since I had dealt with this person and his cohorts before, I assumed that the tweet and the picture were their latest attempts at defaming the congressman and harassing his supporters," she said.

"Annoyed, I responded with something along the lines of 'are you f***ing kidding me?' and 'I've never seen this. You people are sick,'" she said.

UPDATE: In an amazing coincidence, @patriotusa76 aka Dan Wolfe, was anticipating JUST such a scandal more than two weeks ago. Isn't it crazy how he just happened to be the sole witness when it actually happened?



What do you call that? Dumb luck?

UPDATE: Let's be clear. The underpants photo did not appear on @RepWeiner's Twitter. What was alleged by @patriotusa76 to have been tweeted by Rep. Weiner was the LINK to a photo, supposedly the underpants photo. Yes, the link does go to Rep. Weiner's yfrog photo page, but somehow only @patriotusa76 was able to click through and screencap the photo. But anyone can post a LINK to someone else's yfrog photo page. For instance, here is @patriotusa76's yfrog photo page. Sadly, no photos there:

http://yfrog.com/...

But I could certainly paste the link anywhere. I don't have to own the account to do so.

UPDATE: @patriotusa76 has hidden his Twitter! Wassamatter Dan Wolfe? Not enjoying all the questions? Thinking twice about all your old tweets?

QUESTION: I have to ask, did anyone on Twitter actually see this tweet go out live from AW's account? AW has 45,000 followers. It was supposedly around 8:30 Pacific/11:30 on Friday night. I know people saw Dan Wolfe's retweet. I hear there is a cached version at TweetCongress. But is Dan Wolfe/@patriotusa76 the only person on Twitter who actually saw th

Steve D. gave me the link.

Amazing.

Thanks -- it deserves/rates its own thread.

Very good.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

And all of our "very concerned" friends, too.

not one of them would understand how it was accomplished. The lies are easier than understanding how it all works.

..............NOT!

...just kidding.

Fuck Breitbart and the rest of his gang of losers and scammers.

This is a 100% bullshit attack on Rep. Weiner.

That DUers fall for these ridiculous allegations from the trolls here is very disappointing.

Come on, folks, you know better than to be duped by this obvious BS.

This is not John Edwards, and please stop that lie.

Geezus, my granny could do a better job then they do and she's been dead for 25 years.

:kick:

BRAIN BLEACH NOW! :cry:

DKos worked on this all weekend... glad you posted it here..

They had a number of trolls on those diaries ..

I still say that Rep. Weiner calling for an investigation by the proper authorities would be quite helpful to that end.

She's a freaking bitch.

exceptions, some of the people at MSNBC.
Breitbart is a well known parasite, this sort of thing is typical for him and his followers.

He did not hesitate to send it to Huffington Post which as far as I know they had the good sense not to bite.
Can not say the same with CNN, they have lowered themselves to a new level.

Republicons obviously have shitcanned the Ten Commandments in favor of their own depraved Republicon Family Cesspool Values.

Disgustipating.

Of course if this is how it happened, there will be no media correction on this.

1 word. breitbart. the daily show did give teh blogosphere prop for, you know, like REPORTING. unlike cee an n

and anybody else who can get the info out there.

Identity theft is illegal. Weiner should have this investigated and prosecuted.

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2011/06/weiner-affair-close-to-solution-but-i.html

Joe Cannon has figured out a way to post a pic to someone's yfrog account and have a link to it it appear in their Twitter stream as if they'd tweeted it - all without knowing someone's password. You'd still need to figure out the yfrog email address somehow. (He goes on to draw the firm conclusion that Dan Wolfe himself was responsible for doing this, which may be a jump too far at this stage.)

(Yes, I have no life.) I didn't see the photo or the link. I saw him repeatedly complaining about his TIVO losing the hockey game he wanted to watch, and then the remark that his Twitter had been hacked.

I see no reason to think any of this is anything but Breitbart and his associates trying to take down a known Lib.

or says is OK with MSM and public now...Breitbart is just latest and one of the most low of the operatives that started with fake bugging of own office (Rove, allegedly), handing out fliers suggesting Bush's gov opponent was lesbian (Rove, allegedly), the anti-Dukakis commercials, the swiftboating, fake press conferences, fake Bush AWOL letters (planted by Rove and which fooled Rather, allegedly), fake war justification, forged uranium letters, fake science reports, Sherrod and Acorn and Landrieux smears, and dozens of more deceits by the RW, for whom the ends always justify the means.

Dan Rather isn't trustworthy enough to report the news but Breitbart gets on CNN and Rove is a fixture on FOX??

I don't do Twitter (and I don't do FaceBook)...

But interesting to read the above...and in my simply little mind, something is rotten.

The response seems odd though. It would seem that the Twitter company and that yfrog company, should be able to trace back some stuff...what are they doing about this?

And why does CNN give BrightFart all that air time. What the hell CNN!

If the account was successfully hacked and the tweet sent out why was a photoshopped picture needed? The photoshop claim is something I have been skeptical about from the moment it was made. It is not because I am unable to understand the logic behind the argument as I am a software engineer and the analysis of the picture is not difficult for me to grasp. I just don't see where it fits. The congressman admitted right away that the photo was sent from his account. I never thought that was the issue and so I haven't been able to understand the focus on the validity of the screen capture.

This is the first time I have seen the argument that the account was both hacked and the screen grab was photoshopped. It seems to me the two things are mutually exclusive. With the account hacked you don't need a photoshopped picture. With a picture you don't need the account hacked. If someone can explain to me how the two things work together I would appreciate it.

Finally, when this whole thing first hit I was immediately adamant that Rep. Weiner was being targeted with a hoax. When he stated his account was hacked I immediately accepted that story. He is my favorite member of congress after all. As this has gone on I have begun to find myself getting more and more skeptical. I don't feel that he is handling this well. I think he should have immediately called for an investigation. He is refusing to do that. In his interview today he said he could not deny with certainty that the picture is not him. If I saw a picture of my crotch I would know instantly if it were me or not. So would my wife. I also do not take pictures of my crotch and I would remember the incident and the picture if I did. This tells me that Rep. Weiner is possibly covering himself for the eventual admission that this picture is indeed of him.

I feel like this is moving more and more towards looking like a terrible mistake that occurred. Sometimes people hit the wrong button online and immediately regret it. Their immediate reaction is to deny it because they are embarrassed. If that is what happened here it is a real shame because the denial and insinuation that a crime occurred is what will get him in trouble. I hope that this isn't the case.

Rep. Weiner needs to get a hold on this thing. Call for an investigation and deny categorically that the picture is the Rep. I hope that he can do that. As I said, he is my favorite member and it would be greatly disappointing. I was also a big fan of John Edwards and I turned out to be totally wrong on him. I don't want to be played for a fool again. I'm not a sucker.

Now let the negative responses fly. But after that response in that interview I don't see how anyone could not be thinking the same thing I am.

Seems one scenario or the other, but not both. There may be an explanation - Maybe the photo could have been e-mailed to his account, but then the perp did a screen capture and did some additional detail enhancements?

I can't understand Weiner's response and he's either hiding something or he's preparing a case to go on the offensive. I'm still not sure about this yet. Given the extraneous details in the OP, I think this Dan Wolfe guy is a participant on this smear, though.

Does it mean that the photo of the nicely endowed underwear is actually that of Anthony Weiner and existed on his yfrog account and that someone posted a link to the yfrog account via twitter?

or was his account hacked and the photo link sent from his twitter account but the nicely endowed photo is not him? ...

either way the bottom line is that he should have it investigated, all of our politicians are using social networking and many of them it is a primary way to do their jobs, hacking should be dealt with punished to the fullest extent of the law.

.

...and anybody can post to your yfrog, resulting in a tweet in your name.

No hacking needed.

Also, a good reason to avoid yfrog.

and make sure that we do KNOW that there are no pics of our private parts

floating around the internet -- !!

Othewise, I'm pretty sure -- and hope that Anthony Wiener will be more definite about

it!!

quickly see it was a typical Reich Wing "DIRTY TRICK" ..I lurk at the Koch Brothers Funded Propaganda sites. need to keep up with these Hate sites, unpleasant but necessary. and i check out the daily talking points for the days TV Media. nothing but people always trying to out do each other with dirty tricks, lies, spinn, distortions, all really ignorant hate mongering High5'n White Guys. my brother is one, i finally told him to quit sending me that crap. he said he will never talk to me again, :cry: :rofl: