I just found some truly top kek: The Washington Independent, Feb. 1, 2022 - "The Idea Behind GreatAwakening.Win"
(washingtonindependent.org)
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Huh. Interesting. A WhoIs lookup says the domain was registered in 2024, yet this article says it's from 2022.
The domain was registered in Israel.
A wayback of the article only has something from 2024 https://web.archive.org/web/20240915000000*/https://washingtonindependent.org/greatawakening-win/
https://www.whois.com/whois/washingtonindependent.org
Looks like we may have ourselves a bonafied Israeli op. Totally fake and gay, probably AI generated articles (at least some portions of the article read like AI to me), and potential phishing website. I'll ask mods what should be done in this case. Thx for the heads up
The Domain Registrar is called Spaceship, inc
Good work.
Here's some anecdotal evidence that might be interpreted as indicating a fake disinfo (or other) operation.
TLDR: Conclusion: Fake website, using fake profiles, and probably AI generated stories. See "The real kicker" below to cut to the chase.
Articles in the archive (https://washingtonindependent.org/archive/page-2/) are dated back to July 31, 2020. There are 854 "pages' in the archive section.
All articles in the archives are dated July 31, 2020. (Sampled pages: page 2, page 5, page 10, page 50, page 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 800, 854.
Articles cover stories, incidents events going back at least 2008.
I found 4 authors in the archive section:
Paolo Reyna
Camilo Wood
Dexter Cooke
Hajra Shannon
Their profile pictures appear to have no other web presence (tineye, google lens).
A web search of these individuals' details shows zero presence on the web
This, despite details in their profile blurbs which would indicate SOME web presence (university graduated, professions, years of 'experience', interests/topics, etc).
Example: Dexter Cooke. (This guy is a genius, apparently.)
But for some reason, he is no where on the web (linked-in? alumni?) despite being both an orthopedic surgeon, economist AND journalist. Jeepers.
Their archived articles have been very, very widely read (for a small independent mag) (sarcasm): Some of the archive articles have "millions" of views and lots of shares. This one,
https://washingtonindependent.org/97325/todays-primaries-a-final-test-for-tea-party-candidates/
has 901.2K Shares and 12.5M Views
(impressive!)
*Text string samples from articles that I tested via websearch did not show up anywhere (zero results). (Method: take a text strong of a suitable number of words and search with " " marks to isolate and see if the same strong is present anywhere in the search field.)
Authors / Reviewers of more recent articles yield a different result:
https://washingtonindependent.org/tsmcs-commitment-to-community-spurs-local-progress/
Author: Karan Emery Reviewer: Frazer Pugh
https://washingtonindependent.org/wp-content/uploads/authors/b5d596d710ca5c6a/karan-emery-360x360.webp
Indexed by Tineye on April 6, 2023
https://tineye.com/search/595ee12393003154c01940720d1430a34b428a51?sort=score&order=desc&page=1
Curiously, Tineye registers a link in relation to Emery: https://washingtonindependent.com/usui-reiki-ryoho-gakkai/
But this link forwards to this page: https://www.lucidpuzzle.com/usui-reiki-ryoho-gakkai/?utm_gclid=XAiFykAvBG79xnK6OFqTg22cXefCfY-O2p-aAcZZNCiTyu04gwb-elN8SJ8jifxts-9NsFmU-XN3M57mvYir3Q
(Cannot access page without guff following the ?)
Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai is the name of the link in both urls, but "usui" "reiki" is not present on the lucid puzzle page.
Question: why create that link a TWI? Who did it? TWI, or someone taking advantage of their web design?
Reviewer: Frazer Pugh
Tineye says first indexed October 20, 2014 BUT shows no other instances, and delivers a slew of "generated photos" that are similar.
Here is the real Kicker
Apparently (if I take Spencer Ackerman at face value) the Washington Independent did actually exist.
This Spencer Ackerman apparently wrote for it in its former life, and talks about how it is now a zombie.
https://www.forever-wars.com/my-robotic-doppelganger-is-the-grim-face-of-journalisms-future/
An interesting read, it's basically where the trail leads, imo.
note: links to actual TWI stories that apparently once existed now appear to all redirect to the Lucid Puzzle page, where it should be noted, it looks like NONE of the articles or stories are even credited.
Kinda looks like skynet is making a move.
Awesome baton pass! The mods deleted this post (I reported it to see what they wanted to do) but perhaps another post can be made combining our replies while giving adequite warning about going to that website
Yes, I think so. Have the idea to at least post something about the approaches used (digging) because I think they are instructive. But new work has come in, so it may take a while, if even.
fwiw, the domain name and who is searches, etc, are a great departure point for putting together the data. Very often one of my go-to techniques. It was easy to follow on given the starting point you provided!
Taken down, just in case
Just in case of ..... what, exactly?
Just asking for a fren.
Because the OP and a couple of others have doubts about the site.
PS. Thank you mod. Always.
.....
What doubts? winn expressed some concern that perhaps the OP had stumbled onto a deep state mossad psyop. I wondered if this was the reason you hid the post.
Did you read my dig on it, under winn?
It's a fake dodgy site, for sure, and the article is dodgy stuff, BUT because it relates directly to GAW, it's a relevant post, i think.
Also, the GAW post isn't asserting anything except anti-Q nonsense, so I don't think that disinfo is an issue.
The digs that are under it are high effort and a good example for frogs of GAW to read. (We do NOT see enough of high effort digs on ANY topic here. So much just blathering reactions and copy/pasting 'news'.)
The post and comments aren't exactly advocating the website either, so it's much more of a solid debunking than promotion of fake websites or disinfo stuff.
I would have thought the the comments under the post are highly instructive for all GAW frogs, especially those that don't really have any concept of digging.
My two cents.
Several mods looked at this. We see your point, the content is intriguing. But is it potentially harmful as well? We can't be sure. It could be a way to log IPs or something. That's not in my wheelhouse but I can see the potential for malice. And given that there's nothing new here - we all know GAW is monitored - mods think it best not to send users to this very sus "news" site.
Well, it's great to get the mods (several) perspective and input. Not difficult to accept the conclusion.
Appreciate ya Frac
I was in a hurry and playing it safe.
I'll get another opinion from the mod team.
Thank you mod. Your service is of great value! Let no one tell you otherwise!
It's amazing that you get around to doing so much.
/ no sarc
You're welcome of course, I've mentioned this post in the mod staffroom, they may think it's fine to re-instate this post.
Thanks Props. Really happy to have a bunch of moddies take a considered look.
Just jumping in on the conversation...
I totally agree that this post has some excellent discussion going on. However, I have major concerns about links being included to the site in question. Had they not been included, I would not have had any objections to the post staying up. As a mod, though, it is our job to think of the best interests of the group, as a whole. Having seen anons do and try just about everything under the sun, it is inevitable that a few anons will attempt to visit this site. It's a tough call, but in light of the links being freely available, I think it is best not to repost this.
Thank you Wulf. Having the multiple input really helps to make the decision based, (imo) and it also makes it both easier to embrace (by me) but also getting the mod perspectives helps me to expand my frame of reference.
One idea that popped into my head is to do a post that takes the techniques and strategies employed in the discussion, and write that up as a generic "how to...." in terms of verifying, identifying, approaching questionable websites (i.e. fake, not what they appear). A sort of debunking case study. This could be done without any specific reference to this or any other website, using unidentified examples.
That said, wow, this website is extremely dasting from a research perspective. After going through an examination from various angles, it was a little mind blowing to arrive at the dude who did a whole write up on it.
I'm not too saavy in the ways of web design or data theft, code manipulation, but I can understand that potential might exist here. So happy to defer to the modclusion. (That's "mods' conclusion". Coined, April 2025.)
Global Rank: #25,145=17
Paolo Has all the answers (sarc)