“In the aftermath of the Great Recession, far-right extremists, aided and amplified by Russia’s Internet Research Agency and funded by Republican dark money, infiltrated fringe online spaces. They weaponized disaffected young men, and used sites like Reddit and 4chan to organize a flood of content that influenced the unthinking algorithms on larger platforms like Facebook and YouTube”
“I was actually, without knowing it, following Jeffrey Epstein around the world the whole time”
“Epstein, at the very least, believed that he was orchestrating the downfall of the global order in the 2010s”
“In June 2016, he emailed venture capitalist, early Facebook investor, and Palantir founder Peter Thiel, writing, “Brexit, just the beginning.” He then laid out the most succinct mission statement we currently have for what Epstein was trying to accomplish. “Return to tribalism,” he wrote. “Counter to globalization. Amazing new alliances. You and I both agreed zero interest rates were too high, and as I said in your office. Finding things on their way to collapse was much easier than finding the next bargain.””
“Epstein’s messages give us a glimpse, one we were never meant to see, of a shadowy world of international espionage, deregulated finance, far-right politics, eugenicist race science, information warfare, and unfathomably intricate human trafficking networks”
“Epstein wanted to break the internet and, eventually, democracy, to cover his tracks and cash in on the chaos”
“these were twin obsessions for Epstein: Manipulating what we see online and finding digital alternatives to traditional finance”
“During the last years of his life, these two ideas would dovetail into one project — building a far-right takeover of Europe with Steven Bannon”
“Bannon first enters the picture when Epstein took an interest in World of Warcraft”
“In-game currency, especially, was a fixation for him. He emailed former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick in May 2013 a long diatribe about using virtual items and in-game currency to “co-opt the existing video game industry””
“Journalist Michael Wolff, who advised Epstein on media strategy, would formally connect Bannon and Epstein in October 2017, two days after The New York Times published the investigation into director Harvey Weinstein, which jumpstarted the #MeToo movement”
“the two men brainstormed how to use cryptocurrency to fund a “populist/nationalist coalition” that could “stave off ‘Time’s Up’ for next decade plus.””
“One of the central internet mysteries of the last 15 years is why 4chan creator Christopher Poole reversed course in 2011 and brought back the site’s politics board, which is called /pol/, or “Politically Incorrect.” It would become the staging ground for Gamergate, the 2016 Trump campaign, and the far-right populism wave that swept the world in the back half of the 2010s”
“buried inside the newest batch of files related to the Epstein investigation is a possible hint as to what made Poole change his mind. He met with Epstein the day before /pol/ was created”
“Meanwhile in March 2012, Bannon, following the death of conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, was installed as the editor-in-chief of Breitbart News”
“In 2014, 4chan’s video game board, /v/, and /pol/ started lighting up about the Gamergate conspiracy theory. Milo Yiannopoulos, then a young tech writer for Breitbart, would transform Gamergate from fringe message board drama into the cornerstone of the global far-right movement by repackaging it in articles optimized for Facebook traffic”
“In 2012, Epstein asked British investor Ian Osborne to set up a meeting between him and Thiel and “zuckerberg.””
“the earliest actual emails between Epstein and Thiel released so far are from 2014. In an email in July 2015, Epstein connected Thiel with Sergey Belyakov, Russia’s the deputy minister of economic development, and alleged Russian intelligence operative”
“in 2016, Epstein offered to share the expenses for Thiel’s lawsuit against Gawker, which would eventually bankrupt the outlet.”
“During this time, Epstein was trying to worm his way into the world of science and technology by using his connections to then-Director of MIT Media Lab Joi Ito, former Harvard president Larry Summers, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman”
“Epstein’s dreams of statecraft were supercharged when he finally officially met Bannon in 2017”
“Thanks to Russia’s notorious troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, the success of huge social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, and the frenzy of the Trump campaign in the US and Brexit in the UK, Epstein’s interest in overt statecraft went into overdrive”
“populist politics, online disinformation, cyber warfare, and cryptocurrency were all just scaffolding for his work as a financier and sex trafficker”
“A way to destabilize the global order, make connections with the world’s elites, and continue enriching himself and preying on vulnerable young girls”
“Were Epstein and Bannon really building a crypto-funded far-right coalition of pro-Russian dictators across Europe? Or were they just LARPing as kingmakers with each other over email? And does the distinction even matter if other powerful figures seemed to believe in their project?”
“Epstein, possibly the most prolific sex trafficker in human history, spent the last decade of his life investing in technology that would help Russia, as he wrote in a 2013 email, “leapfrog the global community by reinventing the financial system of the 21st century.” He was fascinated by websites like 4chan and technology like Bitcoin and was personally invested in the success of far-right politicians in the US and Europe. He believed he was months away from ushering in a new world order that would allow him to continue with his monstrous passion projects, like creating a super-race of children with his own DNA and building fascist nation states to manage overpopulation and climate collapse. And he wined and dined the world’s most powerful men (none of whom seemed to have an issue with these ideas), inviting them to his island and his ranch, and made sure they were surrounded by an endless supply of young girls”