One of the key questions in any disinformation assessment is whether or not the specific narrative is getting traction beyond those who are professionally or politically motivated to spread that disinfo. Because the industry and its puppets are always trying to spread their message, tracking what others pick up, or don't, is helpful for determining what sort of response may be necessary.
It can be difficult to tell how far a narrative is spreading in a community, if you're not already naturally enmeshed within the target audience. But we've found a new tool that, while not its intended purpose by any measure, can serve as a useful barometer for what conservative media is tweeting about today.
It's called TwitReport, and it is simply an aggregated feed of conservative news tweets from nearly 200 accounts, its sparse "about" page says, while the "suggest source" page also indicates they "are only accepting accounts with [a] minimum [of] 100.000 followers."
There's no clear indication of who's actually behind the website, though the links page only has AmericanThinker and IndependentSentinel. An AmericanThinker post indicates that a "Robert T" is the creator, and he intends the site to be one that "saves time for the average internet surfer" by putting "top conservative voices into one streamlined feed."
And that is about all there is to it, the site is simply a live feed from sources Robert T considers "reputable," like "The Washington Times, Judicial Watch, The Post Millenial[sic], and individuals like Elon Musk, Rand Paul, Dinesh D’Souza."
We found a press release with slightly more information, namely that TwitReport is a project of Rob Torn, but lacking the interesting details of its explicit conservatism, instead framing it explicitly as a way to counter "reading from a single perspective." Why did Rob Torn want everyone to think his conservative aggregator was providing more than "a single perspective," despite telling the American Thinker it'd be "top conservative voices"?
Probably for the same reason Real Clear and every other covert conservative propaganda effort pretends to be mainstream: to provide a veil of objectivity and to elevate rightwing disinfo outlets to the same prominence as credible, independent news media.
So despite the fact that we're not exactly the "average internet surfer," Torn is trying to reach, the site is still incredibly helpful, because it helps show that, for example, fossil fuel fanboy and not-canceled-for-racism Alex Epstien's book release isn't breaking through. He's tried his best to sell it, with wild hyperbole about genocide in the Daily Caller, but scroll after scroll through TwitReport is coming up empty.
We did see that apparently Trump approved of the "Hang Mike Pence" chants on Jan 6, along with plenty of election disinfo and COVID disinfo Twitter supposedly doesn't allow, and more negative reactions to Beto O'Rourke trolling Texas Gov Greg Abbott than there were negative reactions to the latest massacre of children by a young man with a machine gun.
Because that's where conservative media's priorities lie.
And boy do they lie.