Alex Goldenberg

Founder of Silent Index | Rutgers Fellow. Researching Emerging Threats. Words in @WSJ, @thehill, @quillette and more.

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

Every information operation playbook already in use, from coordinated inauthentic networks to narrative laundering to targeting journalists, now has a financial payout attached when prediction markets are in the mix.

Today in @WSJopinion on what to do about it. 🔗in comments.

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

Top AI executives are joining security experts in calling for Congress to protect against biological threats posed by the technology https://t.co/DS6ixKygL4

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

It just got easier to place rapid-fire trades in stocks and options, as “pattern day trader” restrictions start going off the books at brokers like Robinhood Markets and Webull https://t.co/qguS5yz0Tl

[Mark Dubowitz @mdubowitz]

Qatar’s campaign to buy influence is one of the biggest foreign influence operations in U.S. history.

@TheFP @FrannieBlock reports on @FDD @NatalieEcanow’s new report, which finds Qatar has spent more than $400 billion in nearly every place in the U.S. https://t.co/5JO49Qxpfn

[Jonathan Schanzer @JSchanzer]

Qatar’s Influence-Buying in America Is Even Worse Than We Thought.

This is a must read. And a great summary by @FrannieBlock from @TheFP of @FDD’s new report by @NatalieEcanow
https://t.co/Ql8I2QMGmO

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

As I told @isareport at the @nypost for this story:

“The Soviets had a term for Western sympathizers like Candace Owens. It translates roughly to useful idiot,”

[New York Post @nypost]

Candace Owens is speaking in Russia, but sources say Putin is only manipulating her to spread his propaganda https://t.co/j2p0BBKXRg

[CSIS @CSIS]

The rise in anti-Jewish violence is not just a challenge for the Jewish community but a warning about terrorism in the West: Radically different movements increasingly share enemies, grievances, and a willingness to use violence.

Read @dbyman's analysis: https://t.co/Xi7jHzFOzA

[New York Magazine @NYMag]

One of the premises that prediction markets insist we take seriously is that they exist, if not primarily then substantially, to help people hedge risk. It is undeniably true that they *can* be used this way, but anyone who spent any time looking at them or talking to their users could tell you that the people using them were doing something much closer to risk *seeking* than hedging. Maintaining the argument that any “event contract” can function as a hedge is crucial to the pitch that companies like Kalshi can be more than betting-app alternatives. Which is perhaps why the company is drawing attention to this hedge on tonight’s Knicks game:

“For Game 1 of the NBA Finals, The Jeffrey, a beloved Upper East Side bar, is giving its customers a deal that sounds almost too good to be true,” reads a post on Kalshi News. “If the New York Knicks win, everyone’s tab is on the house. To protect itself from the potential financial hit, The Jeffrey will place a $5,000 hedge on Kalshi, the world’s largest prediction market, turning a risky promotion into a fully insured one.”

“First off: Go, Knicks!” writes tech columnist John Herrman. “Second: Huh?”

Read Herrman on why this could be the hedge-on-everything future prediction markets want: https://t.co/Z6eWos6tOH

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

@RealCandaceO Read this to see where your "ideas" actually come from:

https://t.co/w2YuZZEjQM

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

Months ago, when @PamelaParesky and I wrote that the antisemitic conspiracy theories Owens pushes trace back to Moscow, we named Dugin specifically.

She’s in St. Petersburg this week, on the same forum stage as him.

Made in Moscow, in @Quillette:

https://t.co/w2YuZZEjQM

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

Not sure it’s humanly possible to shill harder for the Kremlin. The next tweet is just a photo with Putin, isn’t it.

[Candace Owens @RealCandaceO]

Kremlin grounds.
Revisiting what Satanists did to the Romanov family. The Christian world needs to awaken.

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

Telling that oil markets are barely reacting to a deadly strike on a Gulf airport.

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

The damage at Kuwait International Airport following the Iranian drone and missile attack overnight.

[Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar]

NEWS

The DOJ is investigating former congressman George Santos for insider trading on Kalshi.

Kalshi detected that Santos was trading, froze his accounts and referred the case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Department of Justice.

@BobbyAllyn scoops

Full Story: https://t.co/sbGtW8Aw7a

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

I wrote about this last year, and @kinsellawarren just published an interesting book on this topic.

https://t.co/RWjXCvUfkK

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

Russia has long used antisemitism as a geopolitical tool. They courted Richard Spencer years ago, and the American founder of the accelerationist white supremacist group The Base lives in Russia. Them courting Candace Owens and the Tates shouldn't surprise anyone.

[Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

New dear guest in Russia:

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

Especially at the margins. Buy a candidate at 1%, coordinate inauthentic activity to push it to 3%, and that’s a 300% return.

[Justin Slaughter @JBSDC]

Prediction markets allow for new forms of ordinary people influencing politics via driving narratives.

If Ossoff surges on Kalshi, that’s a story that begets stories about him strengthening as a political force even if he doesn’t/hasn’t yet announced.

[Sean Fitzgerald (Actual Justice Warrior) @IamSean90]

It's funny how when you start espousing 1 set of beliefs, how everything that comes after is entirely predictable

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

A man paid by Qatar — where being gay is a death-penalty offense — wants you to believe that celebrating Israel’s right to exist is the moral equivalent of marching beside Assad or Putin.

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

Can you imagine the reaction if Mamdani marched in a Syria Day parade with Bashar al Assad? Or in a Russia Day parade with Vladimir Putin? But he’s getting flak for avoiding marching in an Israel Day parade with Bezalel fricking Smotrich. Oh the double standards and hypocrisy!

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

@davereaboi @PamelaParesky @Quillette I look forward to reading it

[Alex Goldenberg @AlexWGoldenberg]

Months ago, when @PamelaParesky and I wrote that the antisemitic conspiracy theories Owens pushes trace back to Moscow, we named Dugin specifically.

She’s in St. Petersburg this week, on the same forum stage as him.

Made in Moscow, in @Quillette:

https://t.co/w2YuZZEjQM

[Pamela Paresky 🟦 (Habits of a Free Mind) @PamelaParesky]

Well what do you know…