Yonder (company)

Yonder
FormationApril 7, 2015 (2015-04-07)
Founded atAustin, Texas
CEO
Jonathon Morgan
Websitewww.yonder-ai.com
Formerly called
New Knowledge, Popily

Yonder, formerly named New Knowledge, formerly named Popily, was a company from Austin, Texas, that specialized in disinformation research.[1][2]

The company is most widely known for supporting the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.[3] The company was also involved in a disinformation operation during the 2017 US Senate special election in Alabama, though the company denied any political motivation behind its research.[4] More recently, Yonder's CEO and researchers have provided expert commentary to the New York Times, Fast Company, and Axios about 5G and COVID-19 misinformation.[5][6][7]

Yonder CEO, Jonathon Morgan, was profiled in HBO's 2020 documentary, After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News. The company's former Director of Research, Renée DiResta, was a featured expert in the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. DiResta was later the subject of multiple installments of the Twitter Files that criticized her involvement in multiple disinformation research projects, including Yonder, and her stint as a CIA fellow early in her career.[8] DiResta has denied accusations that she still works for the CIA.[8]

Background

The company was originally started as a research project inside of the crowdmapping and election monitoring non-profit Ushahidi and was eventually spun-out as a for-profit company in 2015.[9][10]

Lux Capital and GGV Capital provided $11 million in capital for the company in 2018.[11]

In January 2018, Kelly Perdew, a former army intelligence officer and the winner of the second season of The Apprentice, joined the board of directors and invested in the company through his firm Moonshot Capital. [12] Moonshot Capital was cofounded by former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence officer Craig Cummings.[13]

In January 2018, the company announced that Ryan Fox, a 15 year veteran of the National Security Agency, had joined the company as a cofounder and board member.[12]

In December 2018, the company published a report titled "The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet Research Agency" that was commissioned by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.[2]

Two days after this report was published, a New York Times article showcased the company's participation in an experiment in the 2017 Senate special election in Alabama. Renée DiResta, one of the principal authors of the Senate report on the Internet Research Agency, said that as she understood it the goal of the New Knowledge research was to investigate how Facebook's content curation algorithms rewarded "sensational news".[14] Facebook responded by suspending the personal accounts of Morgan and four others.[15]

Hamilton 68

Main article: Alliance for Securing Democracy

Launched August 2, 2017, Hamilton 68 Dashboard was a tool designed by German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) to track Russian influence operations on social media.[16]

Yonder CEO Jonathon Morgan was one of four outside researchers who collaborated on the Hamilton 68 dashboard, alongside Clint Watts, J.M. Berger, and Andrew Weisburd.[17] The dashboard monitored alleged Russian disinformation on Twitter.[18]

In January 2023, journalist Matt Taibbi tweeted about internal Twitter documents related to Hamilton 68 as the 15th installment of the Twitter Files. The documents show that Twitter's former Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, attempted to identify the accounts tracked in the dashboard. Roth found that only 36 of the 644 accounts he identified were registered in Russia and argued that the dashboard used "shoddy methodology" to incorrectly label authentic accounts as "Russian stooges without evidence". ASD responded to Taibbi's release a few days later, noting that ASD had always maintained that not all of the accounts on the dashboard were controlled by Russia, despite what it described as persistent misunderstandings in the media.[19][20]

Project Birmingham

Main article: Project Birmingham (disinformation campaign)

Through his political investment firm Investing In US, Democratic donor Reid Hoffman donated $750,000 to American Engagement Technologies (AET), a company founded by former Obama campaign advisor and administration appointee Mikey Dickerson. AET then provided funding for New Knowledge to engage in a disinformation campaign in Alabama known as Project Birmingham. Hoffman has disavowed the tactics used and denied any specific knowledge of the project.[21]

Morgan described his Alabama activities as "almost like a thought experiment," asking: "Is it as easy as it might seem?"[22] New Knowledge authored a Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian disinformation while these operations were ongoing.[22]

Project Maven

Main article: Project Maven

Project Maven is a project developed at the US Department of Defense to develop machine learning algorithms to analyze and fuse vast amounts of surveillance data from multiple sources and use integrated data from drones, satellites, other sensors, and social media to flag potential targets, present findings to human analysts, and relay their decisions to operational systems.[23][24]

In 2018, Booz Allen Hamilton, was awarded a large prime award as part of Project Maven totaling $751.5 Million.[25][26] One of the companies subcontracted for social media analytics as part of this award was Yonder under it's corporate registration name Popily, Inc.[25][26] Primer Technologies, the company that would later acquire Yonder in 2022, participated in Project Maven as part of a separate award in 2021 “examine data and develop algorithms.”[26]

Disinformation research

Russian disinformation

In December 2018, Yonder published a report titled "The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet Research Agency" that was commissioned by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.[2]

In 2018, the company launched Disinfo2018, a project launched in collaboration with the Daniel J. Jones's Democracy Integrity Project.[27] Jones, through The Democracy Integrity Project, through grant made by George Soros and other Silicon Valley billionaires, funded Fusion GPS.[28]

During course of the Disinfo2018 project the company reported that three of the top 15 URLs shared by the 800 social media accounts affiliated with known and suspected Russian propaganda operations were supporting then-Democratic primary candidate Tulsi Gabbard.[29] The company also reported Russian propaganda was also supporting Green candidate Jill Stein's 2016 campaign[30]

DARPA's Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED)

In 2018, Yonder collaborated with software companies Uncharted and Qntfy on Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED) to invent human-in-loop systems capable of influencing for large populations for the purposes of using enterprise-scale bots for defense against social engineering attacks. [31][32]

Covid-19 disinformation

In 2020, Yonder released a report alleging Anti Vaxxer factions and 4chan users involvement with narratives regarding Vitamin C as a hypothetical COVID-19 treatment which Morgan stated had debunked in a report by CNN.[33]

5G conspiracy theories

In 2020, Yonder released a report about a spike in social media posts claiming 5G technology is linked to COVID-19.[34]

Acquisition

In June 2022, it was announced that Yonder was acquired by technology company Primer.

References

  1. ^ "New Knowledge". New Knowledge. Archived from the original on 2019-10-02. Retrieved 2023-07-31.
  2. ^ a b c "New Reports Shed Light on Internet Research Agency's Social Media Tactics". US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. December 17, 2018.
  3. ^ Shane, Scott; Frenkel, Sheera (17 December 2018). "Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African-Americans on Social Media". New York Times.
  4. ^ Sebastian Herrera (February 15, 2019). "Who is Jonathon Morgan? Austin researcher makes a name -- and finds controversy -- in cybersecurity world". Austin American-Statesman.
  5. ^ Broad, William J. (12 May 2019). "Your 5G Phone Won't Hurt You. But Russia Wants You to Think Otherwise". New York Times.
  6. ^ Ruth Reader (2020-04-13). "Surprise, surprise: Anti-vaxxers are spreading false claims about cures for COVID-19". Fast Company. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  7. ^ "Coronavirus misinformation seeds ground for digital scams". 15 April 2020.
  8. ^ a b DiResta, Renée (2024-06-15). "My Encounter With the Fantasy-Industrial Complex". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2025-06-24.
  9. ^ "Evolutions and Transitions: Spinning out Dispatcher and promoting Angela Lungati as the next Executive Director". Ushahidi. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
  10. ^ "About Popily". popily.com. Archived from the original on 2016-04-12. Retrieved 2025-07-21.
  11. ^ Connie Loizos (August 28, 2018). "New Knowledge just raised $11 million more to flag and fight social media disinformation meant to bring down companies". Techcrunch.
  12. ^ a b "Venture Capital News: New Knowledge Grabs $1.9M Seed Round". www.vcnewsdaily.com. Retrieved 2025-02-14.
  13. ^ "Craig Cummings & Kelly Perdew - Family Office Insights". 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2025-02-14.
  14. ^ Scott Shane; Alan Blinder (December 19, 2018). "Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics". New York Times.
  15. ^ Hoffower, Hillary. "Facebook suspended five accounts for spreading misleading information during an Alabama election, including a lead social media researcher who helped the government discover fake news". Business Insider. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  16. ^ Bertrand, Natasha (August 2, 2017). "A new website named after a Founding Father is tracking Russian propaganda in real time". Business Insider.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ "A View from the Digital Trenches: Lessons from Year One of Hamilton 68". Alliance for Securing Democracy. Retrieved January 9, 2026.
  18. ^ Jim Rutenberg (January 13, 2019). "Fake News as 'Moral Imperative'? Democrats' Alabama Move Hints at Ugly 2020". New York Times.
  19. ^ Sinnenberg, Jackson (31 January 2023). "Twitter Files 15 furthers the misunderstanding of 'Hamilton 68'". The National Desk. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  20. ^ Covucci, David (30 January 2023). "Why there's an uproar over 'Russian' tracking board Hamilton 68". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 14 December 2024. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  21. ^ Tony Romm (December 26, 2018). "Internet billionaire Reid Hoffman apologizes for funding a group tied to disinformation in Alabama race". Washington Post.
  22. ^ a b Timberg, Craig; Romm, Tony; Davis, Aaron C. (December 18, 2018). "Researcher whose firm wrote report on Russian interference used questionable online tactics during Ala. Senate race". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 9, 2026.
  23. ^ Peterson, Becky (2019-12-11). "Palantir grabbed Project Maven defense contract after Google left the program: sources". Business Insider.
  24. ^ Manson, Katrina (February 28, 2024). "AI Warfare Is Already Here". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  25. ^ a b "USAspending.gov". www.usaspending.gov. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  26. ^ a b c Poulson, Jack (September 10, 2021). "Easy as PAI (Publicly Available Information)" (PDF). Tech Inquiry. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-09-10. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  27. ^ "Disinfo 2018 Midterms Disinformation Dashboard". Disinfo 2018. Archived from the original on 2019-02-04. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  28. ^ "Opinion | A GOP spin on the Russia probe reads like a noir thriller — but doesn't add up". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2018-09-25. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  29. ^ Windrem, Robert; Popken, Ben (February 2, 2019). "Russia's propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard". NBC News. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
  30. ^ "Russians launched pro-Jill Stein social media blitz to help Trump, reports say". NBC News. 2018-12-22. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  31. ^ "Active Social Engineering Defense". www.darpa.mil. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
  32. ^ Schroh, David (July 2020). "AFRL-RH-WP-TR-2020-0136 ACTIVE SOCIAL ENGINEERING DEFENSE (ASED)" (PDF). Air Force Research Laboratory. Final Report: 10, 11, 12, 52, 64, 67, 68, . {{cite journal}}: line feed character in |title= at position 58 (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  33. ^ Ruth Reader (2020-04-13). "Surprise, surprise: Anti-vaxxers are spreading false claims about cures for COVID-19". Fast Company. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
  34. ^ Taylor Hatmaker. "Coronavirus Conspiracies Like That Bogus 5G Claim Are racing Across The Internet". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-04-10.
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