Hamilton 68: The Dashboard That Destroyed Lives in the Name of Fighting “Russian Bots”

How a Disinformation Tool Fueled a Modern Witch Hunt, Branding Innocent Americans and UK Citizens as Enemies of the State

May 10, 2025

The Hamilton 68 dashboard was sold to the world as a digital shield against Russian disinformation. In reality, it became a weapon of mass reputational destruction, targeting hundreds of innocent people in the US, UK, and beyond, all under the guise of national security.

The Birth of a Digital Inquisition

Launched in 2017 by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, Hamilton 68 claimed to track “Russian influence” on Twitter by monitoring over 600 supposed “Russian bots” or “pro-Kremlin” accounts. Major media outlets-NBC, CNN, The New York Times, and more-ran with its findings, churning out hundreds of stories that painted ordinary online conversations as Kremlin plots.

But behind the dashboard’s slick graphics and patriotic branding was a dark secret: the vast majority of these “Russian agents” were nothing of the sort. They were regular people-mostly Americans, British, and Canadians-who had no connection to Russia at all. Their only “crime” was expressing opinions that the creators of Hamilton 68 found inconvenient or controversial.

The Human Cost: Lives Upended by False Accusation

The suffering caused by Hamilton 68 was not abstract. Real people, military veterans, activists, and everyday citizens, were swept up in a digital dragnet and branded as foreign operatives. Their names and tweets appeared in news stories, their reputations smeared, their livelihoods threatened. Some faced harassment, suspicion from friends and employers, and the mental anguish that comes with being falsely accused of betraying their country.

Twitter’s own internal analysis revealed the truth: out of 644 accounts flagged by Hamilton 68, just 36 were even registered in Russia, and many of those were linked to public news outlets like RT.

The rest?

Overwhelmingly English-speaking, overwhelmingly legitimate, overwhelmingly innocent.

As Twitter’s former Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth warned, these account holders “need to know they’ve been unilaterally labelled Russian stooges without evidence or recourse”. But the media didn’t care. The stories kept coming, fuelling a climate of fear and suspicion that stifled free speech and destroyed trust in public discourse.

A Scam Exposed-But the Damage Was Done

Journalist Matt Taibbi, given access to Twitter’s internal archives, called Hamilton 68 “the new king of media fraud”. The dashboard’s creators refused to reveal their list of tracked accounts, hiding behind claims of operational secrecy while knowing full well that their data was bogus.

The result was a modern-day witch hunt, where dissenting voices were tarred as traitors and public debate was poisoned by paranoia. Even after Twitter quietly tried to warn journalists that the dashboard was a sham, most outlets ignored the truth and kept spreading the lie.

A New Tool, Same Old Dangers

Hamilton 68 was finally taken offline in 2018, but its legacy of fear and false accusation lives on. Its successor, Hamilton 2.0, now claims to focus only on official state actors and media. But the lesson remains: when powerful interests wield secret lists and opaque algorithms, innocent people always pay the price.

The Real Victims

The Hamilton 68 scandal is a chilling reminder of what happens when the machinery of “national security” is turned against the very citizens it claims to protect. Wrongful accusation and public shaming can devastate lives, inflict lasting psychological harm, and corrode the foundations of democracy itself.

In the end, the real threat to our societies didn’t come from Russian bots. It came from those who weaponized fear and suspicion-destroying reputations, silencing dissent, and sacrificing truth in the name of fighting disinformation.

This one is for you Gina.

The sentiment inspector is watching.