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

Fri Jan 1 02:17:48 CET 2021

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 77th
> 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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