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MacMillan's presence in a government psyops unit was not a secret; until Middle East Eye began raising questions on the matter, it was right there on his LinkedIn profile. This is not something that anyone considering him for promotion was likely to have been unaware of. According to his(now-edited) LinkedIn page, MacMillan has been in his current position as head of editorial EMEA since July 2016. According to Middle East Eye, MacMillan was already a captain in the 77th Brigade by the end of 2016. His current rank there is being hidden behind a wall of government secrecy.Twitter's Hilarious Response
When questioned by Middle East Eye about MacMillan's work in the British Army's online propaganda program, Twitter hilariously responded, "Twitter is an open, neutral and rigorously independent platform. We actively encourage all our employees to pursue external interests in line with our commitment to healthy corporate social responsibility, and we will continue to do so."
That's very nice of Twitter, isn't it? They encourage their employees to pursue wholesome external interests, whether that be tennis, volunteering at a soup kitchen or moonlighting at a military program explicitly devoted to online psychological warfare. You know, just everyday socially responsible pastime stuff.
The fact that Twitter not only employs known propagandists but actively promotes them to executive positions is a very large and inconvenient plot hole in their "open, neutral and rigorously independent platform" story. Especially since, as I documented recently, the mass purges of foreign Twitter accounts we've been seeing more and more of lately always exclusively target governments and groups which are not in alignment with the interests of the U.S.-centralized power alliance of which the U.K. is a part. We've seen mass suspensions of accounts from Cuba, China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and the Catalan independence movement on allegations of "coordinated influence operations" and "covert, manipulative behaviors." And yet, Twitter currently employs a high-level executive for whom coordinated influence operations and covert, manipulative behaviors on behalf of the British government are a known vocation.
"On September 20 Twitter deleted a large number of accounts, including in MacMillan's area of responsibility. How many of those were designated by the British state?" asks Moon of Alabama of this new report.
How many indeed?
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