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The British government appears to be more and more aping a Monty Python-type farce with each passing day. Soon the absurd ensemble will be complete if either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt becomes the next prime minister.

This week the mandarins at the Ministry of Funny Walks ruled that two internationally respected Russian news media channels were banned from attending a global conference on “press freedom”.

RT and another Russia-based news outlet Sputnik were refused permission by the British government to participate in the Global Conference for Media Freedom, held in London.

A British Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We have not accredited RT or Sputnik because of their earlier role in spreading disinformation.”

The irony of it. The British government is peddling unsubstantiated accusations (more accurately, ridiculous slander) against Russian media which is then invoked as “justification” for censorship at a much-vaunted international conference supposedly dedicated to freedom of the press. You could hardly make the farce up. It’s a kind of cross between George Orwell and Monty Python.

What the British government is doing is blatantly ramping up the media war against Russia. London is giving a license for further outrageous repression of Russian news media, as well as piling on demonization of Russia as a state.

In the same week it was reported that fellow NATO member Lithuania has blocked the news website of Sputnik in the Baltic country.

Previously, France had banned RT and Sputnik journalists from attending public press conferences held by President Emmanuel Macron. In the US, Sputnik radio stations have been curbed from reaching their American audiences.

Russia’s foreign ministry slammed the British and Lithuanian moves this week as putting unreasonable obstacles on the professional work of Russian news media.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Disinfo Maginot Line: Protecting EU from ‘Russian Influence’ – by Manufacturing History

March 31, 2019

Disinfo Maginot Line: Protecting EU from ‘Russian Influence’ – by Manufacturing History

It is now apparent with the release of the Mueller investigation findings, that the great storm that has embattled the US government and establishment since 2016 over supposed Russia-Trump collusion during the US elections, originates not from a genuine tangible source, but a constant stream of rhetoric driven by partisan corporate media. One certainty though is the Western narrative of Russia as a ‘malign influence’ will not go away. While America’s liberal establishment continues to rage at Trump, Europe allies, under the influence of Washington, maintain their aggressive stance towards Russia following the catastrophic US meddling in Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent reunification of Crimea with Russia. The question is how can the narrative of ‘malign Russian influence’ be kept going? Mainstream media will continue its role in this, but Western governments are also pouring resources into promulgating certain narratives while containing others. This week, hackers released more documents from the UK government-funded project known as the Integrity Initiative, revealing British government plans to build an umbrella network of organisations across Europe to counter ‘Russian disinformation’. The following is a look at one of the EU projects already operating to ensure European populations do not stray from this constructed narrative that at times crosses over into real xenophobic racism, or Russophobia. While researching this phenomenon, it was impossible not to find some of the EU’s counter-propaganda material quite funny.

If we want to know the meaning of disinformation, the American think tank known as the National Endowment for Democracy which funds regime change in the service of US corporate interests, has its own definition, but it’s not important – so long as we believe Russia or the Nazis invented the problem.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NBC News Exposed ‘Reporting’ Pure Propaganda On Gabbard’s Russia Links From Disinfo-Democrat

February 3, 2019

NBC News Exposed ‘Reporting’ Pure Propaganda On Gabbard’s Russia Links From Disinfo-Democrat

Collusion, right under your nose…

In December, a Democratic operative who hatched a Russian “false flag” scheme against Republican Roy Moore in last year’s Alabama special election promoted his own propaganda on the dubious “Hamilton 68” website – which purports to track Russian “bot” activity, yet refuses to disclose how they do it.

In January, an online disinformation campaign conducted by a former Obama administration official leading up to the 2018 midterm elections was bankrolled by left-wing tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, according to the Daily Caller‘s Peter Hasson. Hoffman, who co-founded LinkedIn, admitted in December to funding American Engagement Technologies (AET) – which is currently embroiled in a “false flag” scandal stemming from the 2017 Alabama special election. Now, AET and its founder Mickey Dickerson have come under fire for meddling in the 2018 midterm elections.

And now, as the Democratic establishment faces an onslaught of potential presidential candidates that are not toeing-the-line of radicalism,The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald exposes the pure propaganda that the liberal media will resort to, in order to please their Democratic, deep state overlords and keep to “The Plan.”

NBC News published a predictably viral story Friday, claiming that “experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard.”

But the whole story was a sham: the only “experts” cited by NBC in support of its key claim was the firm, New Knowledge, that just got caught by the New York Times fabricating Russian troll accounts on behalf of the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to manufacture false accusations that the Kremlin was interfering in that election.

To justify its claim that Tulsi Gabbard is the Kremlin’s candidate, NBC stated:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Technology: Distracting, Disturbing, Deceiving & Deluding Ourselves to Death

January 28, 2019

TECHNOLOGY: DISTRACTING, DISTURBING, DECEIVING & DELUDING OURSELVES TO DEATH

“What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth.

When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Image result for huxley amusing ourselves to death

Something as mundane as using the restroom at work sometimes ends up triggering deeper thoughts about technology – its benefits, deficiencies and danger to our culture. I’ve been using the same restroom at work for the last twelve years. They remodeled the restroom a few years ago with the latest technology – automatic flushers, automatic soap dispensers, automatic spigots, and automatic towel dispenser. This technology is supposed to make things better, but from my perspective the technology just added complexity, glitches and unnecessary complications.

First off, these technological “improvements” did not eliminate any humans from the equation. The housekeepers responsible for the restrooms continued to be employed. Prior to the remodel they would fill a metal bin with individual paper towels and fill the soap dispenser with liquid soap. Now they have to insert a roll of paper towels in the electronic dispenser and a cartridge of soap in the electronic soap dispenser.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Advocates Underestimate Power of Fossil Fueled Misinformation Campaigns, Say Top Researchers

January 20, 2019

Climate Advocates Underestimate Power of Fossil Fueled Misinformation Campaigns, Say Top Researchers

Myron Ebell at a Heartland Institute conference

Climate action advocates have underestimated the strength and sophistication of decades-long fossil fuel-funded misinformation campaigns and need a coordinated set of strategies to fight back, say leading academics.

Among those strategies, say the three researchers from Yale and Brown University, are promoting financial transparency, suing misinformers and their funders, and researching the vast networks of think tanks and front groups.

Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Yale University’s Professor Justin Farrell and Kathryn McConnell, together with Brown University’s Professor Robert Brulle, say people working on responses to climate change “cannot afford to underestimate the economic influence, institutional complexity, strategic sophistication, financial motivation, and societal impact of the networks” behind climate misinformation campaigns.

Brulle, who is also an academic at Drexel University, told DeSmog that after conversations with leaders of environment groups and foundations, he had concluded “there is virtually no understanding of the nature or extent of misinformation efforts and organized efforts to stop climate action.”

Misinformation Ignored

He said: “So in my opinion, the efforts to promote climate action are failing to take into account opposition efforts in their strategies. I can assure you that this is not the situation for the organized efforts to stop climate action — which I call the climate countermovement.”

Brulle and Farrell have each produced several major studies in leading academic journals on the funding and influence of the “climate countermovement” and its fossil fuel interests. In 2018, Brulle joined several academics in criticizing the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for ignoring in a major report swaths of research and evidence on the impact of organized climate science denial.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Dances of Disinformation: the Partisan Politics of the Integrity Initiative

January 15, 2019

Dances of Disinformation: the Partisan Politics of the Integrity Initiative

Is there such a plane of blissful, balanced information, deliberated and debated upon? No. Governments mangle; corporations distort. Interest groups tinker. Wars must be sold; deception must be perpetrated. Inconsistencies must be removed. There will be success, measured in small doses; failure, dispatched in grand servings. The nature of news, hollow as it is, is to fill the next segment for the next release, a promiscuous delivery, an amoral ejaculate. The notion a complicated world can somehow be compressed into a press release, a brief, an observation, is sinister and defeating.

The believers in an objective, balanced news platform are there. Grants are forked out for such romantic notions as news with integrity, directed to increase “trust in news”, which is tantamount to putting your trust in an institution which has been placed on the mortician’s table. The Trump era has seen a spike in such funding, but it belies a fundamental misconception about what news is.

Funny, then, that the environment should now be so neatly split: the Russians (always) seen to distort from a central programme, while no one else does. The Kremlin manipulates feeble minds; virtuous powers do not. The most powerful nation on the planet claims to be free of this, the same country that boasts cable news networks and demagoguery on the airwaves that have a distinct allergy against anything resembling balanced reporting, many backed by vast funding mechanisms for political projects overseas. Britain, faded yet still nostalgically imperial, remains pure with the BBC, known as the Beeb, a sort of immaculate conception of news that purportedly survives manipulation. Other deliverers of news through state channels also worship the idol of balance – Australia’s ABC, for one, asserts that role.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Dances of Disinformation: The Partisan Politics of the “Integrity Initiative”

January 14, 2019

Dances of Disinformation: The Partisan Politics of the “Integrity Initiative”

The nature of news, hollow as it is, is to fill the next segment for the next release, a promiscuous delivery, an amoral ejaculate. The notion a complicated world can somehow be compressed into a press release, a brief, an observation, is sinister and defeating.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Western media, publishing fake news about Russia is a good career move… with no consequences

January 13, 2019

In Western media, publishing fake news about Russia is a good career move… with no consequences

Fighting “Russian disinformation” in the West has become a lucrative business. But, in reality, you’re far more likely to encounter deceitful agitprop directed at Russia.

MOSCOW – CP Scott remains a towering figure in the annals of British journalism. Editor of the then “Manchester Guardian” for an astonishing 57 years, he celebrated his paper’s centenary by laying down a set of legendary principles.

“Comment is free, but facts are sacred,” Scott intoned in the missive. Sadly, almost a hundred years later, facts are free and the right to spread disinformation is becoming sacred, as far as his successors are concerned. Particularly when it comes to coverage of Russia.

Yet another example came over the New Year break. Following a few weeks out of the spotlight after peddling an obviously fake story about Julian Assange/Paul Manafort meetings in London, Luke Harding reappeared. And he came armed with his particular brand of bulls*** and sloppiness.

A sensationalist interview with former Soviet spy ‘Viktor Suvorov‘ was full of fragile fact-checking and downright stupidity. For instance, presenting a pensioner, who defected from a different country almost 40 years ago, as an authority on how Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin operates today stretched credulity. And the piece was also riddled with factual errors, to boot.

For instance, Harding claimed Suvorov’s 1980’s book “Icebreaker” now “has broad acceptance among historians;” a tome which insists “Stalin had been secretly plotting an offensive against Hitler’s Germany” but first he “wanted Hitler to destroy democracy in Europe, in the manner of an icebreaker, thereby clearing the way for world communism.” In other words, not the version you learned at school.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Selected Articles: Media Disinformation and The Protest Movement

January 11, 2019

Selected Articles: Media Disinformation and The Protest Movement

In Pictures: The Largest Strike in History Is Happening in India Right Now

By Ben Cowles, January 09, 2019

Around 150 million people began a two-day general strike in India today against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anti-Labour and anti-trade union policies in India.

A Majority of Americans Do Not Believe the Official 9/11 Story

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, January 09, 2019

The media has NEVER EXAMINED the evidence or explained the analysis provided by scientists, architects, engineers, pilots, and the first responders who experienced the explosions of the World Trade Center twin towers.

Everything the Western Mainstream Media Outlets Get Wrong When Covering Poor Countries

By Tamara Pearson, January 09, 2019

From de-prioritizing the lives of locals in poor countries, to downplaying global inequality, racism, and condescension, the way Western news agencies do international news is deeply harmful.

GM Crops, Pesticides, Corporate Duplicity: Bayer Has Never Been Transparent in Its Life!

By Colin Todhunter, January 09, 2019

Mason is scathing in her response and begins her letter by saying, “Bayer CropScience has never been transparent in its life.” She makes it clear to Baumann from the outset that she considers Bayer CropScience and Monsanto “criminal corporations.”

The War on Syria: Are the White Helmets preparing another Chemical Weapons False Flag?

By Mark Taliano, January 09, 2019

It should also be clear that the war is not a War on Terror, since the Western-supported terrorist forces that existed in Syria, dubbed “the largest terrorist army on earth”, is estimated to have numbered almost 500,000 terrorists at its peak.

War Criminals at Large

By Dr. Daniele Ganser, January 09, 2019

The historical facts for the period from 1945 to today show a completely different reality: time and again, democratic states in Europe and North America have participated in wars of aggression and terrorist attacks in the past 70 years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics

January 10, 2019

New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics

The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive “political smear unit” is infiltrating the US.

A bombshell domestic spy scandal has been unfolding in Britain, after hacked internal communications exposed a covert UK state military-intelligence psychological warfare operation targeting its own citizens and political figures in allied NATO countries under the cover of fighting “Russian disinformation.”

The leaked documents revealed a secret network of spies, prominent journalists and think-tanks colluding under the umbrella of a group called “Integrity Initiative” to shape domestic opinion—and to smear political opponents of the right-wing Tory government, including the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

Until now, this Integrity Initiative domestic spy scandal has been ignored in the American media, perhaps because it has mostly involved British names. But it is clear that the influence operation has already been activated in the US. Hacked documents reveal that the Integrity Initiative is cultivating powerful allies inside the State Department, top DC think tanks, the FBI and the DHS, where it has gained access to Katharine Gorka and her husband, the fascist-linked cable news pundit Sebastian Gorka.

The Integrity Initiative has spelled out plans to expand its network across the US, meddling in American politics and recruiting “a new generation of Russia watchers” behind the false guise of a non-partisan charity. Moreover, the group has hired one of the most notorious American “perception management” specialists, John Rendon, to train its clusters of pundits and cultivate relationships with the media.

Back in the UK, Member of Parliament Chris Williamson has clamored for an investigation into the Integrity Initiative’s abuse of public money.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Globalist Disinformation Spotlight On – Mohamed El-Erian

January 10, 2019

Globalist Disinformation Spotlight On – Mohamed El-Erian

In this new series of “Spotlight” articles which I will be publishing intermittently I plan to highlight specific individuals who work within globalist institutions or who often express pro-globalist sentiments. More to the point, I will be dismantling propaganda coming directly from the pontifications of globalists. I often hear people make the argument that alternative analysts should be “naming the enemy” more often in our work. Of course, if we chased that goal every time we published something each article would be longer than a book.

I often suggest to those wanting to know who the globalists are that they simply identify people who explicitly promote globalism. It’s not as if the elitists are invisible. They are generally narcissists, and narcissists have big mouths. They are always looking for attention – it’s one of their greatest weaknesses and it makes them easily identifiable.

But what is “globalism”? Well, it is a combination of ideological elements. First and foremost, they believe in total centralization of power. This means the eventual erasure of all national borders, all economic divisions, all cultural distinctions. They want a one world system, with a single economic authority, a single currency and a single global government.

This system is sometimes presented as a kind of future “Utopia”, in which war would be a thing of the past and poverty will be eradicated. The cost of such trade is never mentioned, though. The complete extermination of individuality, personal choice, free thought, and self sufficiency is the price of the globalist contract with the devil.

Globalists also tend to support programs which openly or indirectly favor population control. This includes programs posing as environmentally conscious. The climate change and carbon taxation schemes in particular are designed to reduce access to energy, making production expansion impossible thereby shrinking the means to support the current population.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Leaked Memo Touts UK-Funded Firm’s Ability To Create “Untraceable” News Sites For “Infowar Campaign”

December 15, 2018

Leaked Memo Touts UK-Funded Firm’s Ability To Create “Untraceable” News Sites For “Infowar Campaign”

The hacking collective known as “Anonymous” has published more explosive documents detailing a UK-based psyop to create a “large-scale information secret service” in Europe in order to combat “Russian propaganda” — which has been blamed for everything from Brexit to Trump winning the 2016 US election to this month’s anti-Macron “Yellow Vest” protests.

We previously detailed the first trove of documents which were dumped online November 5th to the site Cyberguerilla, revealing the private UK organization with deep government ties, the Integrity Initiative, to be engaged in an aggressive campaign to organize “clusters” of journalists across the West engaged in “counter-propaganda” efforts on social media networks and in media. And now a new trove of leaked Integrity Initiative documents has been dumped online Friday.

*“Combatting Russian Disinformation” – Screenshot from a bombshell newly leaked document published Friday and hosted on the Cyberguerilla site.*

This week the Integrity Initiative and its founding parent organization, the Institute for Statecraft — which is known for its close relationship with the UK military and defense officials — is at the center of debate in the House of Commons over its anti-Corbyn and anti-Labour smears involving labeling party leader Jeremy Corbyn a “useful idiot” for Moscow, even while the company is a recipient of official Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) funding.

The early November online leaks of confidential Integrity Initiative documents were the first to reveal the UK government’s relationship to the private project devoted to “fighting Russian disinformation”. According to The Guardian:

FCO funding of the Integrity Initiative was revealed by a set of stolen documents posted online last month by hackers under the banner of the Anonymous hacktivist collective.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

COP24: Climate Science Denial, Disinformation and Fake News at the UN Climate Talks

December 5, 2018

COP24: Climate Science Denial, Disinformation and Fake News at the UN Climate Talks

James Taylor of the Heartland Institute at COP24

And in Katowice, Poland, where the UN climate talks — known as COP24 — are underway, it was no different. A small group of climate science deniers tried to grab attention by hosting an event on the fringe of the conference, claiming to “present the science that debunks UN alarmism”.

But this year, very few were paying attention.

Year after year, climate science deniers have attempted to use the climate talks as a platform to undermine the global climate negotiation process.

The election of Donald Trump in the US and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, two populist politicians who denounced climate change as a political plot to stifle economic growth and want to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, may have given these fringe groups some semblance of credibility.

Jesse Bragg, spokesman for the NGO Corporate Accountability, told DeSmog UK that although climate science deniers’ tactics haven’t changed over the years, “what has changed is the hubris with which these deniers trot their junk science out but just because Trump makes these deniers feel confident”.

“But that doesn’t mean they actually have cause or that support for them is growing,” he added.

Inside the UN conference, climate science denial voices have traditionally been ignored. Both Trump and Bolsonaro’s election were a blow to the UN’s climate negotiations process but those denying the scientific consensus of climate change have not — at least yet — managed to crush the momentum behind the Paris Agreement.

Isolated Deniers

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Et Tu, RT? Amplifying Western Disinformation on Rwanda

November 17, 2018

Et Tu, RT? Amplifying Western Disinformation on Rwanda

The great lie about the Rwandan bloodbath opened the door to a far larger genocide in Congo and helped justify U.S. military interventions in Libya and Syria, argues Ann Garrison.

During a recent campaign event, Florida Senator Bill Nelson said, “That story of Rwanda is very instructive to us because when a place gets so tribal that the two tribes won’t have anything to do with each other, and that jealousy turns into hate—we saw what happened to the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda, it turned into a genocide. A million people hacked to death within a few months. And we have got to watch what’s happening here.”

That got a lot of headlines even though U.S. ethnicity is binary only if seen as white vs. everybody else. Whatever Sen. Nelson meant, those who do see it that way have certainly gained prominence since Trump took the White House.

That was a newly minted reference to the Rwandan genocide in U.S. discourse, however. Rwanda is most often remembered in urgent calls for “humanitarian intervention,” a.k.a. war, to stop another genocide. We’re told that the U.S. failed to stop Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, so we’re now obliged to “intervene” anytime and anywhere another genocide is underway. That’s why, we’re falsely told, the U.S. and its NATO allies had to bomb Libya into ongoing chaos in 2011. That’s why Lockheed Martin had to step up production of cruise missiles to drop on Syria. That’s why Sens. Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren, both 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, became initial co-sponsors of an Orwellian bill to “enhance” our government’s ability to “prevent genocide and mass atrocities” with military force: Senate Bill 1158, the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018.

Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda. (Chatham House / CC BY 2.0)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fake News and Weaponized Bots: How Algorithms Inflate Profiles, Spread Disinfo and Disrupt Democracy

October 8, 2018

Fake News and Weaponized Bots: How Algorithms Inflate Profiles, Spread Disinfo and Disrupt Democracy

Photo Source Mike Corbett | CC BY 2.0

Algorithms are getting so sophisticated that it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell which online comments are real and which are generated by “bots”; which sites are genuinely popular and which are generating fake hits. In my new book Real Fake News (Red Pill Press), I argue that fake news can be traced back to ancient Babylon (at least) and that today’s hi-tech fakery is merely a continuation of policies designed to reinforce elite domination, be the given elite “right-wing” or “left-wing.”

DO BOTS AFFECT PERCEPTIONS?

Online fake news has become a phenomenon. By the time President Trump came to power, few Americans had heard of the “alt-right,” the ideological grouping partly responsible for Trump’s electoral success. Trump lost the popular vote by 2.6 million, but he won the Electoral College vote. In other words, “alt-right” voters were numerous enough to give Trump a plurality in the overall vote and thus the Electoral College. How do we explain this discrepancy, that online fake news is a phenomenon, yet its main champions remain obscure to most Americans?

It turns out that bots are pushing fake news s to make stories go “viral” by sharing them among fake bot accounts (“sock puppets”) on social media. In 2011, a team at Texas A&M University created gibberish-spewing Twitter accounts. Their nonsense could not have possibly interested anyone, yet soon they had thousands of followers. They found that their Twitter “followers” were, in fact, bots.

In 2017 under a Pentagon grant, Shao et al. analysed 14 million Tweets spreading 4,000 political messages during the 2016 US Presidential campaign. They found that “[a]ccounts that actively spread misinformation are significantly more likely to be bots.” Fake news, they say, includes “hoaxes, rumors, conspiracy theories, fabricated reports, click-bait headlines, and even satire.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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