Building a Civilian Defense for Psyops

What I’ve done, what I’ve learned, and what I intend to do next. Need your help.

TL;DR: I’m building a movement to defend our citizens from psychological operations, weaponized trolling, and malign influence campaigns. If you can afford it, please support my work by signing up as a paid subscriber to Substack or donate at either link below.

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My Resume

For my background and qualifications feel free to read my About page or my LinkedIn. In brief, I’ve been innovating in technology and entertainment for nearly 30 years. I’ve got a Primetime Emmy (interactive fiction), two Grand Prix CyberLions (marketing), a GDC Innovation Award (games), and 8 technology patents. I’ve also started 5 companies, worked at Google/Niantic on Pokemon Go and built the first 3D game on the web in 1996. I’m an expert in AI, AR, VR and ARGs.

I’ve spent 849 straight days fighting an undeclared psychological war on American democracy, and exposing the people waging it.

On August 2nd, 2020, I was alerted to the fact that QAnon is using alternate reality game techniques (ARGs) to entice, indoctrinate and brainwash people. Since I helped invent ARGs, I looked into it. And I was horrified.

I recognized QAnon immediately for what it was, an anti-democratic death cult, and set out to use my free speech rights to expose it and shut it down. I switched my handle on Twitter to “QAnon Eliminator” and got to work. While I didn’t succeed in eliminating it entirely, I have sure as hell made it more difficult for them to operate freely. 🏴‍☠️

28 months later, I figured out that I have spent conservatively 10,000 hours fighting this war:

849 x 12 hours/day = 10,188 hours 😳

For the record, I sleep 3-4 hours night and usually put in more like 16-18 hours/day.

How did you spend 10,000 hours?

Good question. Here are some things I’ve done.

I built an influential Twitter presence generating 30 million impressions/month. I had 60,000 followers and punched way above my weight. I wrote 45,000 tweets (about a million words) in well organized threads before being banned by the Twitter regime and their enforcement trolls in January 2022.

I broke dozens of stories that made it to the mainstream press, including Flynn saying he wanted to “shoot someone in DC” and discovering he read an occult prayer to a Christian church.

I also used Twitter to warn people about January 6th and helped prevent Trump from invoking the Insurrection Act by warning the left not to go to the Capitol.

I identified Mike Flynn as Q and created a functional map of the network responsible — over two years ago.

I created a fracture in Flynn’s coalition through “#SatanGate” and forced him to shut down his Telegram comments, which has cost him 30% of his followers.

I wrote 5 articles in 2020 that got nearly a million reads because I was explaining QAnon in a way that people could understand and exposing the people responsible for it.

• Jim Watkins is Q and the Russians are helping him - 8/16/20 (Earliest article where I correctly identified Jim Watkins as technically controlling “Q” through his server but misunderstood where the content was coming from. For the record, Mike Flynn is Q.)

• QAnon is an enormous alternate reality game run by malevolent puppetmasters - 8/18/20

• QAnon is coming for you and your family - 8/28/20

• Where the fuck is Q? — 11/10/20

• QAnon is an attack on democracy and must be eliminated — 12/17/20

I did a documentary for the Financial Times about QAnon in October 2020.

I did a TedX about QAnon with Dave Troy and Dr. Steven Hassan in October 2020.

In November 2020, after “Q” effectively retired, I identified the dangerous QAnon account “E” — associated with Jason Sullivan and Ezra Cohen — on Twitter as the new “Q” and got it permanently banned. “Q” briefly revived to whine about this specifically.

TTP

Almost exactly two years ago I had an idea called “The Thinkin Project” (TTP) which I’ve written about a lot. The idea was to share the knowledge of experts in cults and brainwashing with friends and family of QAnon+ cult members. I had a thriving community of 500 on Discord ready to help.

It was the right idea at the right time which is why it got professionally destroyed by chaos agents, trolls and dirty journalists within a few months. It was a deeply painful and powerful lesson about what to do and not to do on this battlefield — I have learned to be much more careful in the meantime.

I helped initiate and source a 60 Minutes piece on the harm being caused by QAnon. The story used a member of the Thinkin Project as the primary interview and several other members as sources. It aired 2/22/21. (I also shot a great interview with Lesley Stahl that didn’t get aired for reasons that I will save for another day.)

I shot a documentary called “American Mindf*ck” in February 2021 that accurately captured QAnon and identified the causes and people responsible. The efforts to suppress its distribution have been absolutely breathtaking. Here it is.

In November 2021, I started a podcast with some dear friends to cover the war on democracy and the efforts to combat it called Radicalized: Truth Survives. Despite an onslaught of attacks and trolling against the show and my co-hosts, including me getting banned from Twitter, we have persisted and interviewed some of the most important anti-fascist voices in the world. I am extremely proud of it and my partners.

We’re up to 51 episodes and over 40 livestreams. Here are a few of our recent guests: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Jason Stanley, Alex Winter, Brianna Wu

After being banned from Twitter in January 2022 for not breaking any rules, I started this Substack. In less than a year, despite constant efforts to silence and harass me here, I have built it to 2,700 subscribers and created a community which I’m extremely proud of. I’ve posted well over a thousand times and written at least a half million words here, as well as recorded more than 25 separate podcast episodes.

Three weeks ago, I started a Mastodon account. I crossed 2,000 followers yesterday and am already getting the kind of engagement I got on Twitter, minus the psychopathic trolls — so far. I’m convinced we can build something there. The wave of Twitter refugees is going to be massive. The time to get established is now.

Join me on Mastodon! @jimstewartson@toad.social

Judge me by my enemies

Along the way, I have collected an astonishing array of enemies — including Mike Flynn’s brother Joe who emails me insults all the time, dirty journalists including Vice News, the entirety of the leftist controlled opposition, and hundreds of paid trolls — some of whom have been dedicated to destroying me personally for two years now. Some of whom I have identified and defanged despite their efforts at staying deceptive and anonymous.

These people have put me through a lot. I’ve collected literally hundreds of thousands of negative tweets about me personally. They have been actively trying to get me to kill myself for two years. I am going to keep disappointing them.

My life feels like a bizarre, increasingly unbelievable film script except the consequences are real. I have PTSD from trolling and gangstalking, lost 35 pounds from physical inactivity, spent all of my personal resources, and have generally gotten my ass kicked. So be it.

More importantly, I’ve met thousands of people affected by this war who are willing to spend their own time, skills and resources to fight it. Honored to be with them.

What’s Next

For nearly thirty years I have been working on the boundary of technology and entertainment as a producer, executive and technologist for interactive experiences. I’ve got lots of awards, patents and whatnot. I’ve founded five companies and been CEO several times.

But frankly, I don’t want to do that anymore. Not while our national sanity and our way of life is being burned to the ground. Not while the future of my children and grandchildren is at risk. I simply don’t know how to run away from this emergency.

Our government is not willing or able, for partially understandable reasons, to combat psychological operations being run by American citizens on other Americans.

However, you and I are not under those restrictions. We are perfectly within our rights to take action to prevent radicalization and defend people against psyops and influence campaigns.

Civilian Defense for Psyops

The central idea is to create a civilian defense to combat psyops — since no one else is doing it. I want to build a movement of people unwilling to be led to into oblivion by fascists and anarchists who want to burn the world down by destabilizing democracy through inflicting psychological harm on human beings.

A civilian defense force should have these components:

• Education for the public about how online psyops work, how to identify and avoid them, and how to help casualties of war who have already been affected

• Media that addresses the psychological war being waged for what it really is and doesn’t ignore the real trauma, pain and death it is causing every day

• Counter-psyops and training to disrupt the distribution of propaganda and harmful influence operations with hard truths and exposure

I have specific plans for executing each of these categories and many friends who want to help. We just need some organization, some time and some resources. This is not something I can do alone, but I know how to build teams and architect organizations.

In December 2022, I will:

• Expand my existing efforts on Substack, including getting more writers to contribute here, and adding new features

• Continue to build a presence on Mastodon

  • Goal 5k followers by EOY, back to 60k in 2023

• Launch a new podcast (not replacing RadPod!) that I’m incredibly excited about — more on this very soon 🤓

• Set up a new environment to organize and plan a civilian defense

  • Anyone interested in being part of this group, feel free to let me know but I’m going to keep it very small to start

Here are some goals for 2023:

• Write a book about the undeclared psychological war that led to 30% of the country actively participating in an anti-democratic death cult, and how we can fight back

• Develop and distribute a simple curriculum to educate people about online psyops — how they work, how to identify them, and how to defend yourself

  • Other parts of a curriculum should include how to talk to loved ones who have been affected by psyops like QAnon

• Build a media cooperative for delivering truthful, empathetic, hard-hitting coverage of the psychological war being ignored by the press

  • Emphasis on Substack, Mastodon and YouTube channels

• Develop training programs for self-defense and counter-psyops

• Create a well-organized “coalition of digital defenders” to protect against Mike Flynn’s “army of digital soldiers” which will identify malicious actors, expose them with truthful coordinated messaging, and disrupt their operations when necessary

  • Counter-psyops

  • Counter-influence campaigns

Need Your Help

Bluntly, I’m pretty financially depleted after all this. I’ve put almost everything else to the side and it’s come at a great cost. I’ve donated 10,000 hours to this fight but unfortunately it’s not sustainable at this pace without some financial support. There is nothing in the world I hate more than asking for money, but I’m at a place where I have no other choice.

If you are already a paid subscriber, thank you so much!

If you are on a limited budget and can’t afford to support me financially, I completely understand — no guilt zone. I only ask that you share my work. Otherwise, please review my record over the last 28 months, what my plans are for the future, and consider either signing up as a paid subscriber or donating below.

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If you want to help in other ways, feel free to reply to any of my emails. It will go right to my inbox. Let’s talk! Just be patient with me. 🙏

Thank you so much. Honored to be in the fight with you. 💙🏴‍☠️🇺🇸

#ArrestMikeFlynn