# Yonder Yonder, formerly **New Knowledge**, is an Austin, Texas company that began as a disinformation-research and information-operations firm and later rebranded toward corporate reputation and "online narrative" monitoring for businesses. It sits in the RWKB at the intersection of two threads: the post-2016 disinformation-research industry and the contested claims about foreign amplification of [[Tulsi Gabbard]]. ## New Knowledge and the Alabama experiment New Knowledge gained notoriety for "Project Birmingham," a 2017 experiment during the Alabama U.S. Senate special election in which operatives mimicked Russian-style tactics — including creating fake social-media activity designed to associate Republican candidate Roy Moore with Russian bot support. The project, exposed by *The New York Times* in December 2018, drew criticism precisely because a firm that researched disinformation had itself deployed deceptive tactics; the company said the effort was a limited research experiment. The episode made New Knowledge a cautionary example in debates over the disinformation-research field's own credibility. ## Renée DiResta link [[Renée DiResta]], later a prominent researcher on influence operations and a principal author of a Senate report on Russia's Internet Research Agency, served as research director at New Knowledge — one of the connections placing the firm at the center of the late-2010s disinformation-research world. ## Connection to Tulsi Gabbard New Knowledge's reporting on social-media manipulation flagged that accounts affiliated with known or suspected Russian propaganda operations amplified content supporting [[Tulsi Gabbard]] during her presidential run — a finding Gabbard and her defenders dispute and characterize as a smear. The firm is logged among her network connections through this analytic relationship rather than any partnership; it is a node in the broader "is Gabbard a Russian asset" controversy, not evidence of coordination. ## KB significance Yonder/New Knowledge is a useful case in two RWKB stories at once: the rise (and self-inflicted credibility problems) of the private disinformation-research industry, and the recurring, contested allegation that foreign influence operations boosted Gabbard — a claim that became a live issue again at her 2025 DNI confirmation. ## Related - [[Renée DiResta]] — former research director - [[Tulsi Gabbard]] — subject of the firm's amplification findings