Lee Fang ✓

@lhfang · San Francisco · joined 02 Aug 2007

Independent Journalist. Reporting primarily on Substack via https://t.co/6OY0EhDPV8 Contact email on my website.

329 608Followers

2 976Following

21 964Posts total

63.1MViews on collected posts

Against accounts of the same size

7 posts from the last 90 days, next to the 100K–1M follower range. ordinary reach for its size, stronger reaction than most.

Median views11 108this account12 273median for 100K–1M

Reach, %3.37%this account3.89%median for 100K–1M

Engagement, %1.88%this account1.25%median for 100K–1M

Metric	This account	Median for 100K–1M	Ratio
Median views per post	11 108	12 273	0.91×
Reach (views ÷ followers)	3.37%	3.89%	0.87×
Engagement rate	1.88%	1.25%	1.51×

Others in this range → Compare with another account → How these benchmarks are built →

Growth & engagement

How the posts we collected actually performed: views and reaction rate post by post, what the audience did with them, and where the follower count goes.

Views per post

827.5K20 Dec

603.9K

666.9K

872.2K

655.9K

1.4M

437.8K

34.7K12 Aug

25K

218.9K14 Aug

2.5K

1.7K

3.7K

11.1K23 Aug

Last 14 collected posts, oldest on the left. The scale is logarithmic: one post can outrun the rest a hundred times over.

Engagement rate per post

2.14%20 Dec

2.50%

2.67%

1.99%

2.46%

1.69%

2.31%

3.30%12 Aug

4.35%

0.86%14 Aug

1.88%

4.83%

1.58%

0.48%23 Aug

Reactions — likes, reposts, replies and quotes — divided by views. Median for 100K–1M accounts is 1.25%.

What the audience does

Likes76.4%418 666 in total

Reposts18.8%102 946 in total

Replies1.4%7 485 in total

Quotes1.7%9 356 in total

Bookmarks1.7%9 345 in total

Share of every reaction we collected for this account. Replies mean argument, reposts mean endorsement, bookmarks mean the post was worth keeping.

The follower curve appears once this account has two daily snapshots — we take one a day, and this one is on its first.

Latest posts

W @razibkhan https://t.co/ASRio56gzD 11.1K views · 47 likes · 1 reposts · 5 replies 23 Aug 2026 @lhfang We can't defund the police how else would they afford the rollout of the Flock or Axon surveillance state. 3.7K views · 58 likes · 0 reposts · 1 replies 14 Aug 2026 @lhfang He will do neither. 1.7K views · 80 likes · 0 reposts · 1 replies 14 Aug 2026 @lhfang This is only controversial online. Everywhere else, especially in normieville, this is just considered common sense. 2.5K views · 43 likes · 0 reposts · 4 replies 14 Aug 2026 Roy Cooper, the Democrat with the highest polling lead in the country in a swing state (+13) is flooding TV and online with ads explicitly about prosecuting criminals and opposing defund police lunatics. This is what voters everywhere want. It's not complicated. https://t.co/W5yn 218.9K views · 1.5K likes · 163 reposts · 156 replies 14 Aug 2026 I’ve met many socialist political streamers and influencers who talk endlessly about the need for government to own everything yet abolish police, who haven’t stepped foot in a housing project to interview people about their lives and daily concerns. 25K views · 961 likes · 82 reposts · 42 replies 12 Aug 2026 A disproportionate number of political influencers are elite prep school-educated weirdos who have never practiced actual journalism (gathering facts, challenging assumptions, talking to normal people) or complete shut ins who barely leave home, or a combo of both. Ignore them. 34.7K views · 1K likes · 96 reposts · 35 replies 12 Aug 2026 If you want details about how I go about my reporting, a little more about myself, and further documentation & discussion, I just started a Substack. Sign up here: https://t.co/OS0VJ0CYfz 437.8K views · 8.6K likes · 1.2K reposts · 297 replies 20 Dec 2022 21. Here is my reported piece w/more detail. I was given access to Twitter for a few days. I signed/agreed to nothing, Twitter had no input into anything I did or wrote. The searches were carried out by a Twitter attorney, so what I saw could be limited. https://t.co/AgcFy71fE3 1.4M views · 18.5K likes · 5.2K reposts · 495 replies 20 Dec 2022 20. The conduct with the U.S. military’s covert network stands in stark contrast with how Twitter has boasted about rapidly identifying and taking down covert accounts tied to state-backed influence operations, including Thailand, Russia, Venezuela, and others since 2016. 655.9K views · 13.4K likes · 2.6K reposts · 105 replies 20 Dec 2022 19. Twitter’s comms team was closely in touch with reporters, working to minimize Twitter’s role. When the WashPost reported on the scandal, Twitter officials congratulated each other because the story didn’t mention any Twitter employees & focused largely on the Pentagon. ht 872.2K views · 14K likes · 3.1K reposts · 114 replies 20 Dec 2022 18. The reality is much more murky. Twitter actively assisted CENTCOM’s network going back to 2017 and as late as 2020 knew these accounts were covert/designed to deceive to manipulate the discourse, a violation of Twitter’s policies & promises. They waited years to suspend. 666.9K views · 14.4K likes · 3.2K reposts · 128 replies 20 Dec 2022 17. In subsequent reporting, Twitter was cast as an unbiased hero for removing “a network of fake user accounts promoting pro-Western policy positions.” Media covering the story described Twitter as evenly applying its policies & proactive in suspending the DoD network. 603.9K views · 12.7K likes · 2.3K reposts · 91 replies 20 Dec 2022 16. The Stanford report did not identify all of the accounts in the network but one they did name was the exact same Twitter account CENTCOM asked for whitelist privileges in its 2017 email. I verified via Twitter’s internal tools. The account used an AI-created deep fake image. 827.5K views · 14.3K likes · 3K reposts · 159 replies 20 Dec 2022 15. The U.S. propaganda network relentlessly pushed narratives against Russia, China, and other foreign countries. They accused Iran of "threatening Iraq’s water security and flooding the country with crystal meth," and of harvesting the organs of Afghan refugees. 860.1K views · 14.9K likes · 3.2K reposts · 203 replies 20 Dec 2022 14. In August 2022, a Stanford Internet Observatory report exposed a U.S. military covert propaganda network on Facebook, Telegram, Twitter & other apps using fake news portals and deep fake images and memes against U.S. foreign adversaries. https://t.co/dNH175YZmo 889.4K views · 15.2K likes · 3.5K reposts · 117 replies 20 Dec 2022 13. Many of these secretive U.S. military propaganda accounts, despite detection by Twitter as late as 2020 (but potentially earlier) continued tweeting through this year, some not suspended until May 2022 or later, according to records I reviewed. 760.7K views · 14.2K likes · 2.7K reposts · 84 replies 20 Dec 2022 12. In a May 2020 email, Twitter’s Lisa Roman emailed the DoD w/two lists. One list was accounts “previously provided to us” & another list Twitter detected. The accounts tweeted in Russian & Arabic on US military issues in Syria/ISIS & many also did not disclose Pent 748.5K views · 13.5K likes · 2.6K reposts · 85 replies 20 Dec 2022 11. In several other 2020 emails, high-level Twitter executives/lawyers discussed the covert network and even recirculated the 2017 list from CENTCOM and shared another list of 157 undisclosed Pentagon accounts, again mostly focused on Middle East military issues. 716.5K views · 13.8K likes · 2.5K reposts · 72 replies 20 Dec 2022 10. Stacia Cardille, another Twitter attorney, replied that the Pentagon wanted a SCIF & may want to retroactively classify its social media activities “to obfuscate their activity in this space, and that this may represent an overclassification to avoid embarrassment.” https 1.1M views · 14.9K likes · 3.1K reposts · 163 replies 20 Dec 2022 9. For example, Twitter lawyer Jim Baker mused in a July 2020 email, about an upcoming DoD meeting, that the Pentagon used "poor tradecraft" in setting up its network, and were seeking strategies for not exposing the accounts that are “linked to each other or to DoD or the USG.” 923.3K views · 15.7K likes · 3.1K reposts · 124 replies 20 Dec 2022 8. One Twitter official who spoke to me said he feels deceived by the covert shift. Still, many emails from throughout 2020 show that high-level Twitter executives were well aware of DoD’s vast network of fake accounts & covert propaganda and did not suspend the accounts. 1M views · 17.8K likes · 3.9K reposts · 149 replies 20 Dec 2022 7. CENTCOM then shifted strategies & deleted disclosures of ties to the Twitter accounts. The bios of the accounts changed to seemingly organic profiles. One bio read: “Euphrates pulse.” Another used an apparent deep fake profile pic & claimed to be a source of Iraqi opin 934.6K views · 15.1K likes · 2.8K reposts · 101 replies 20 Dec 2022 6. The CENTCOM accounts on the list tweeted frequently about U.S. military priorities in the Middle East, including promoting anti-Iran messages, promotion of the Saudi Arabia-U.S. backed war in Yemen, and “accurate” U.S. drone strikes that claimed to only hit terrorists. https:/ 1.4M views · 17.4K likes · 3.7K reposts · 180 replies 20 Dec 2022 5. The same day CENTCOM sent the list, Twitter officials used a tool to grant a special “whitelist” tag that essentially provides verification status to the accounts w/o the blue check, meaning they are exempt from spam/abuse flags, more visible/likely to trend on hashtags. 1.1M views · 17.4K likes · 3.4K reposts · 106 replies 20 Dec 2022 4. In 2017, a U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) official sent Twitter a list of 52 Arab language accounts “we use to amplify certain messages.” The official asked for priority service for six accounts, verification for one & “whitelist” abilities for the others. https://t.co/LuM 1.9M views · 19.3K likes · 4.5K reposts · 241 replies 20 Dec 2022 3. But behind the scenes, Twitter gave approval & special protection to the U.S. military’s online psychological influence ops. Despite knowledge that Pentagon propaganda accounts used covert identities, Twitter did not suspend many for around 2 years or more. Some remain act 2M views · 21.3K likes · 4.9K reposts · 206 replies 20 Dec 2022 @lhfang Oh, the Pentagon was in on it too. Great. 228.4K views · 9.6K likes · 1.1K reposts · 176 replies 20 Dec 2022 2. Twitter has claimed for years that they make concerted efforts to detect & thwart gov-backed platform manipulation. Here is Twitter testifying to Congress about its pledge to rapidly identify and shut down all state-backed covert information operations & deceptive prop 1.7M views · 21.6K likes · 4.5K reposts · 293 replies 20 Dec 2022 1. TWITTER FILES PART 8 *How Twitter Quietly Aided the Pentagon’s Covert Online PsyOp Campaign* Despite promises to shut down covert state-run propaganda networks, Twitter docs show that the social media giant directly assisted the U.S. military’s influence operations. 41M views · 77.3K likes · 32.7K reposts · 3.6K replies 20 Dec 2022

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