[liberationtech] Intentional Big Tech Leftist Bias in Social and News Media Corrupts Elections and Defrauds Peoples

Doug Schuler douglas at publicsphereproject.org
Fri Jan 1 23:51:02 CET 2021 

Thanks Tom.

That seems to clear up some things.

— Doug



On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 5:17 PM Domestic Caverns <domestic.caverns at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Peter,
>
> I’m not sure if this is what you’re referring to regarding the white
> helmets, but here is some fact checking on them as a hoax:
>
>
> https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-this-proof-white-helmets-staged-chemical-attack/
>
> Best,
> Tom
>
> On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 2:45 PM Peter Jones | Redesign <
> peter at redesignnetwork.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Richard - Its interesting you'd suggest Bellingcat on this list
>> (Liberation Tech) as an exemplar for investigative techniques that purport
>> to identity motive and source. In my observation of their work, they have
>> the resources to conduct very  sophisticated study - because that are a
>> dedicated insider info ops (hybrid warfare) group of the NATO-sponsored
>> Atlantic Council - their DFRL organization
>> https://www.digitalsherlocks.org
>>
>>
>>
>> Bellingcat started up two days *before* the infamous MH17 airliner
>> shootdown in Ukraine 7.17.2014 (a problematic case that is still definitely
>> unresolved in the Dutch special court). They immediately entangled
>> themselves in evidence production from the "fog of war" among the various
>> actual investigators on the ground. Their notoriety and founding were
>> started up in sync with this event, which would give them interesting
>> context for their own motives.
>>
>>
>>
>> The  founders Higgins and Toler are senior fellows at the NATO DFRLab
>> https://www.digitalsherlocks.org/360-os-2018  which verifies not
>> necessarily a guarantee of income, but at least the level of establishment
>> of their primary client. I’d suspect they aren’t hurting for a job.
>>
>>
>>
>> The goals of the DRFL program are ostensibly to "counter disinformation."
>> But the explicit means of doing so are to construct preferred information
>> that is certified by their vast network of the military complex that
>> requires such "bottom up"  narratives to justify their own interventions
>> and weaponization of social media. After all Obama shelled out  $250M in
>> his last gift to the Mil Complex December 2016. Also for “countering
>> (primarily Russian) disinformation”  which is a neat way of saying
>> “creating disinformation for the public.” All US wars have been started and
>> justified by such information ops long before kinetic  actions, and this
>> was done with newspapers before electronic media.
>>
>>
>>
>> Put your McLuhanist hats on. Who has the most to gain from these
>> operations? Who has skin in the game and who is paying for these
>> investigations? Who is working at their OWN risk and conscience to develop
>> and expose (or whistleblow) truthful reporting?
>>
>>
>>
>> The anti-Bellingcats are actual citizen sleuths  such as Northern
>> Ireland’ Patrick Watson, who was disgusted by what he saw as obvious fake
>> videos with the White Helmets, used to promote the Syrian “chemical
>> weapons” videos.  He did hos own research and blew open quiet a bit of
>> trouble.
>>
>>
>>
>> His website https://hiddensyria.com/ covers a number of his
>> investigations – he’s clearly not a “Russian” anything, as I’ve followed
>> his work from  the very first tweet I think (I happened to see his easily
>> outbursts) AND he doesn’t’ have a lot of followers. A troll tries  to
>> sensationalize and get a lot of attention. Philip has also worked hard, and
>> at risk, to show the OPCW organization is at fault for covering up their
>> field evidence that exonerates the Syrian government, a very inconvenient
>> finding. There are whistle-blower memos and support from the founding OPCW
>> General  Director for their exposure. It’s a significant scandal, and on
>> this issue Bellingcat is arguing (and was caught fabricating) for the
>> establishment, again, and every time, for the wars.
>>
>>
>>
>> I would also confirm  regard for the small UK academic team, the  Working
>> Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media that has done open sources and deep
>> investigative reporting on the  Syrian hoaxes and White Helmets (along with
>> Vanessa Bealey's fieldwork).
>>
>>
>>
>> has also been heavily attacked by mainstream reporters, (Guardian types)
>> and 77th Brigade (the British military info ops soldiers)
>> https://syriapropagandamedia.org/  Because they have been on-0tagert,
>> the BBC and Guardian have smeared their work on front page stories to try
>> to recover their Syrian war “information superiority.” In the shadowy world
>> of information ops, this is a war on real people. And the establishment
>> will lose, over time, regardless of how many more millions they throw at 77
>> th Brigades and projects like the UK’s FCO-sponsored Integrity
>> Initiative https://syriapropagandamedia.org/the-integrity-initiative
>>
>>
>>
>> Humans with a conscience will always eventually win on social media, as
>> the war narrative is always a drumbeat of the same talking points and
>> arguments. Reality is complex, ambiguous, and subject to surprises – which
>> is what we see in the citizen reporter stories.
>>
>>
>>
>> As a professor I would at least present students with case studies from
>> “both sides.”
>>
>>
>>
>> To a more peaceful 2021,  Peter Jones
>>
>>
>>
>> *PETER JONES, PH.D.*
>> ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
>> FACULTY OF DESIGN
>>
>> *T  *416 799.8799 <416%20799%208799>      @redesign
>> *E*  pjones at ocadu.ca
>>
>> *Design Dialogues * <http://designdialogues.com/>
>> *Strategic Innovation Lab* <http://slab.ocadu.ca/>
>> *Systemic Design Association (RSD) * <https://systemic-design.net/>
>>
>>
>> *OCAD UNIVERSITY**Strategic Foresight & Innovation*
>> 205 Richmond St. West, Suite 410
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/205+Richmond+St.+West,+Suite+410+Toronto,+Canada++M5V+1V3?entry=gmail&source=g>
>> Toronto, Canada
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/205+Richmond+St.+West,+Suite+410+Toronto,+Canada++M5V+1V3?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>  M5V 1V3
>> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/205+Richmond+St.+West,+Suite+410+Toronto,+Canada++M5V+1V3?entry=gmail&source=g>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: LT <lt-bounces at lists.liberationtech.org> On Behalf Of Richard
>> Brooks
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2020 2:39 PM
>> To: Doug Schuler <douglas at publicsphereproject.org>; Richard Brooks <
>> rrb at g.clemson.edu>
>> Cc: LT <lt at lists.liberationtech.org>
>> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Intentional Big Tech Leftist Bias in Social
>> and News Media Corrupts Elections and Defrauds Peoples
>>
>>
>>
>> The idea of thoughts and ideas being similar to a biological ecosystem
>> has been around for a while. I think that Richard Dawkins, William S.
>> Burroughs, and Robert Anton Wilson all have legitimate claims to having
>> originated the idea. (It is likely to have roots in antiquity somewhere.)
>>
>>
>>
>> The US does have a certain anti-intellectualism deep in its subconscious
>> and at least one (nameless) political party has worked hard to delegitimize
>> science (evolution, economics, climate change, ...).
>>
>>
>>
>> That this would lead eventually to people being susceptible to having
>> their innate biases exploited by other actors, is not surprising.
>>
>>
>>
>> Social media has exacerbated the process.
>>
>>
>>
>> One idea that I have been playing with is trying to introduce somewhere
>> in curricula having students use tools/techniques like those used by
>> Bellingcat to determine the source and motivation of online campaigns.
>>
>>
>>
>> I really am impressed by Bellingcat.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/30/20 2:12 PM, Doug Schuler wrote:
>>
>> > An article in the recent Science magazine talked about a “syndemic”
>>
>> > which
>>
>> >
>>
>> > "is the intersection of two epidemics—two diseases ravaging a
>>
>> > population at the same time, exacerbating each other. HIV weakens the
>>
>> > immune system, for instance, which makes people more likely to develop
>>
>> > tuberculosis. The world witnessed some- thing similar this year. We
>>
>> > live in an eco-system that allows viruses to cross from wildlife to
>>
>> > humans more often and spread farther and faster than ever before—that
>>
>> > gave us SARS-CoV-2. But the virus emerged in an information ecosystem
>>
>> > that helps misinformation and lies spread faster than scientific
>>
>> > evidence, weakening our ability to respond to new threats. That made
>>
>> > the pandemic far worse."
>>
>> >
>>
>> > https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/370/6523/1395.full.pdf
>>
>> >
>>
>> > Without necessarily buying into the entire metaphor it seems pretty
>>
>> > useful, bringing up concepts susceptibility, vulnerable populations,
>>
>> > super spreaders, mode of transmission, and, of course, inoculation.
>>
>> >
>>
>> > It also fits well into my investigations into civic intelligence which
>>
>> > I believe is threatened like other natural resources. And if it gets
>>
>> > too low, our ability to address our problems cooperatively becomes
>>
>> > ever more helpless.
>>
>> >
>>
>> > I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!
>>
>> >
>>
>> > — Doug
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> > On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 8:49 AM Richard Brooks <rrb at g.clemson.edu
>>
>> > <mailto:rrb at g.clemson.edu <rrb at g.clemson.edu>>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>>
>> >     Interesting.
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> > https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21278601/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-tr
>>
>> > ump-posts-employee-call-fact-checking-voter-misinformation
>>
>> >
>>
>> >     https://faculty.lsu.edu/fakenews/elections/thethreatofqanon.php
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> > https://www.france24.com/en/20201006-qanon-conspiracies-go-global-in-p
>>
>> > andemic-perfect-storm
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> > https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1329334?jour
>>
>> > nalCode=rics20
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>> > https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radi
>>
>> > cal.html
>>
>> >
>>
>> >     On 12/23/20 4:31 AM, grarpamp wrote:
>>
>> >     > The Invisible Influence of Big Tech on Politics & Elections -
>> Allum
>>
>> >     > Bokhari #Deleted
>>
>> >     > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFJfGphZBmQ
>>
>> >     > #Deleted: Big Tech's battle to erase the trump movement and steal
>>
>> >     the election
>>
>> >     > https://deletedbook.com/
>>
>> >     >
>>
>> >
>>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
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>
>

-- 
Douglas Schuler
douglas at publicsphereproject.org
Twitter: @doug_schuler

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