On 10 October I called out a viral video as fake. It featured pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Sydney, Australia, with a soundtrack of people appearing to chant “Gas the Jews”. The video not only went viral online, it was featured worldwide by mainstream media.
The New South Wales Prime Minister attacked a parliamentarian for daring to say that the incident was dubious
Antoinette Lattouf, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio journalist who investigated the incident and found that it did not happen, received enormous abuse. She was later sacked when she shared online a report on Israeli atrocities in Gaza by Human Rights Watch.
Finally, 100 days later, an exhaustive investigation by New South Wales police, which involved forensic investigation of many different videos of the incident (including professional video from inter alia Consortium News), has definitively concluded that it did not happen. It was a fake.
Now here is the important point. I saw it was a fake after about twenty seconds, not 100 days. It was an extremely clear and obvious fake. There was not a shadow of a doubt that it was a fake. No serious observer could believe it was genuine. I posted the simple empirical observation immediately on Twitter.
A lesson in Israeli propaganda. The video is a jump of many cuts but the soundtrack simply continues over the cuts.
Not a single person shown has lips moving in any kind of chant.
A large number of educated people, who must see and understand this, are deliberately tweeting out… https://t.co/OuRw1Pl8y1
— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) October 10, 2023
It is stark. The soundtrack simply runs continuously over several big cuts in the video. It is obviously an overlain soundtrack. Plus many people are shown very clearly in the video, and not a single one is moving their lips as if they are making a chant like that in the soundtrack. It is not just a matter of being out of sync. Nobody seems to be doing this sort of rhythmic chanting at all.
It is not just propaganda. It is a fake of the lowest quality, which any amateur can see the problem with, instantly. So why did hundreds of mainstream media journalists all over the globe report it as genuine and even retail it on MSM platforms. Why did politicians refer to it? Why were those who queried it attacked and ridiculed?
Here is a key point I have not seen anywhere else, shared with me by Consortium News who shared their footage of the same event with the police. The representatives of the Australian Jewish Association, who produced the fake footage, refused to hand over the original footage to the police investigation. Yet it does not appear they face any criminal charges, and they have the massive front to still be pushing their lies in the state and billionaire owned media.
The point is that Israeli propaganda can be of extremely low quality and obviously fake. It does not matter. The politicians will buy it and retail it because they are in the pocket of the zionist lobby. The mainstream media will promulgate it, because they work either for billionaires who share the zionist creed of the ruling classes, or, like those in the BBC, for states controlled by politicians in the pockets of the zionist lobby. All Israel has to do is chuck the propaganda out there. It will be massively amplified no matter how poor it is.
Let me give another example. You may recall seeing, on all broadcast media, the entrance to the “Hamas tunnel network” at Sheikh Hamad hospital, as evidence of why Israel has to target hospitals because they are essential nodes in Hamas “eight hundred mile” tunnel network. I believe it was also among the images Israel flashed up at the ICJ, though these were displayed so briefly it is difficult to be certain.
Well, now the IDF have totally destroyed the hospital and rendered it inoperable, they have moved on. We can now see it is a water tank. I cannot find a single example of any mainstream media issuing a correction or even saying it is a water tank.
Yeah remember when israel showed footage pointing to this “tunnel” next to Sheikh Hamad hospital and ran with this propaganda for weeks? While we’ve been saying that this is a water tank, here are reporters finally entering. pic.twitter.com/9QItVTM1Oc
— Hebh Jamal (@hebh_jamal) February 3, 2024
The point is that the propaganda does not have to be good. It can be rubbish. You show a picture of a hatch, say it is an entrance to a secret tunnel network, and the poodle media and massive hasbara online operation will amplify it massively. While the truth not only does not make mainstream media, it has to force its way through massive suppression of social media. My posts on X/twitter currently have less reach per repost than zionist accounts by a factor averaging around 50.
The extreme suppression manifests in strange ways. When I tried to find my tweet calling out the fake soundtrack, I could not find it at all. It had disappeared from my timeline completely. I appreciate this is too small to read properly, but this is my timeline from 10 October to show what I mean.
Nor could any search I tried bring it up. Yet the tweet was still extant, and someone kindly sent me a link to it. It had just been cloaked from me, and possibly some others, but not from the person who sent it on to me.
And as for Antoinette:
Well, being the only reporter in the whole of mainstream media to have told the truth does not get your job back if you have committed the greatest sin and contradicted the zionist narrative. I fear she will wait a very long time for any apologies from the Establishment.
The thing you have to recall is that every single one of them – the Israeli propagandists, the politicians, the mainstream media journalists and the hasbara operatives on social media – know that they are lying. They just believe that the lies are not important in pursuit of the greater good – or rather in pursuit of Greater Israel.
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A cursory examination of the ‘hospital assassination’ the other day shows that it is also ‘fake’ or more accurately ‘staged’.
What does that even mean?
There was an assassination of an Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank, on the 30th. The CCTV photos show only the alleged Israeli special forces but no patients or hospital staff. A nice propaganda puff piece, in my opinion. That is, if you were replying to my first comment.
That shooting of a teenage quadriplegic in his hospital bed has been celebrated hard by Israel and by racists everywhere. In the UK the editor of the Jewish Chronicle praised its “skill and bravery”.
The sole owner of the Jewish Chronicle btw, Sir Robbie Gibb, is on the board of the BBC, controlling the content and output of Britain’s public service national broadcaster.
I think if you were a patient or a member of staff in a hospital and several heavily armed people in civilian dress strode in you’d want to make yourself scarce too.
Especially if you’re in a coma, as one of the victims was.
Perhaps I’ve written this twice, apologies if so.
Pears, they were disguised as medical staff acc.to the media
Laguerre
“Especially if you’re in a coma, as one of the victims was.”
sry, but that´s funny…
Please do explain. We’ll wait.
Quite possibly it was staged, but that raises another important question, why would the Israelis stage an atrocity carried out by themselves?
It’s hardly an atrocity compared to the standards they have already set.
The irony is that in carrying it out (and praising it afterwards) they openly acknowledge that they *can* prosecute this war differently from their genocidal acts so far…
I was listening this morning to a BBC World Service programme about disinformation and the Gaza war, said disinformation was everywhere according to it. But the disinformation was proved by an interview with Eliot Higgins about some video falsely accusing Israel, not at all about the type of fake you are talking about. I couldn’t bring myself to listen to all of it. Maybe it’s on replay.
What had you been expecting to hear? The BBC has been second to none in supporting Israel’s genocide and hiding Britain’s participation. It has suppressed key stories, omitted key facts from every story, foregrounded every lie of the world’s most laughable liars. What would you expect them to say on the subject of misinformation and the Gaza “war”?
Laguerre, I cut my teeth on the BBC. At five or six, I looked forward to the Home Service News at 6 pm – often preceded (as we were in Scotland) by a stimulating dose of Jimmy Shand and his band. As soon as we could afford a TV set, I often listened to the news and current affairs programmes. As a teenager I found that the newspapers were better sources of information, but still tuned in occasionally – although when my parents were posted abroad (British Council) we did rely on the BBC Foreign Service, and found it good.
Until perhaps the Second Gulf War (aka the lynching of Saddam Hussein). That was when I noticed that the daily Russian Ministry of Defence reports were far more reliable than the BBC or any Western source. Since then, things have gone steadily and rapidly downhill. I haven’t listened to BBC news or current affairs for, perhaps, 20 years. I’d as soon drink sewage.
I think it was when they started “embedding” journalists into whatever activities they thought supported the narrative; everything since then on mainstream media looks like it has been bleached and rinsed carefully.
Then they ramped up the reverse, embedding checkers and vetters into the newsrooms.
Any other country can do what they want as far as I’m concerned, in the hope that their good citizens will flush them out.
But I’m particularly disgusted with my own countries: more than 9 out of 10 swallow all propaganda hook, line and sinker.
One more way, simpler. Someone advertises that they are looking for influencers (people who maintain an account on a social network, YouTube channel etc. with a threshold number of subscribers). Such people are invited to cooperate for a reward.
A modern type of marketing channel, in Russian we call it “sarafan radio” *sarafan is Russian traditional women’s dress, the term describes women sharing this or that news quickly with their friends.
This method of spreading info pays off very well, because it creates the effect of a personal recommendation from a someone whose content you already consume, which means you give them a certain credit of trust. And last but not least, it allows you to cheaply create a mass effect, with the same information coming from different sources.
yep.
And this has been true for classic media for a very long time: Dozens of news reports often rely on the same single source material. (e.g. the alleged HAMAS rapes)
The dissemination process via online channels is much faster. But the principle is still the same.
“But the disinformation was provided by an interview with Eliot Higgins…”
FTFH.
That was my point. An interview with Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat was necessarily going to come up with something fake.
I think we are in agreement, Laguerre. That’s why I wrote “FTFH” (the BBC guy) rather than “FTFY” (you).
“They just believe that the lies are not important in pursuit of the greater good – or rather in pursuit of Greater Israel”.
I think that Mr Murray’s wording is unduly kind to the Zionists. “Greater good”, or good of any kind, does not come into it – except the good of the Jews. Whether “religious” or “secular”, Zionists seem to share the ingrained belief that all Gentiles, without exception, are a far lower order of being than Jews. (Of course, they take considerable pains to prevent the Gentiles from realising this, as that might make them less pliable and easy to exploit).
Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, and all the other “Western” politicians (and media people) who curry favour with the Zionists are exactly as important to the Zionists as any other Gentiles. About like a pig or a donkey – perhaps.
– ““Greater good”, or good of any kind, does not come into it – except the good of the Jews.”
This is misleading in at least two ways.
Zionism began as a Christian ideology, based on some ‘prophetic’ phrase from the bible that the land that was Israel thousands of years ago had to be again ruled by Jews before ‘God’ would establish ‘His’ Kingdom. Fundamentalist Christian Zionists remain the most numerous and among the most powerful of groups promoting Zionism.
And many Zionists, of whatever ethnicity, of whatever religious background or none, are eager to criticise and attack non-Zionist Jews.
Zionism is not “for the good of the Jews”. It is for the advancement, expansion and increasing the power of the apartheid nation state called Israel.
Sadly, the NSW police have decided to split the difference by claiming that the video wasn’t fake; it’s just the phrase was misheard (shoulda been “where’s the Jews?”, apparently). This allows them to avoid the embarrassment of having to find anyone to arrest for what in NSW would be illegal racial vilification or incitement, while also not having to collar someone at AJA for possible breach of peace offenses for releasing the fake video. Everybody’s happy!, except of course that they aren’t, and both sides regard the police as liars. (So no change there.)
Shades of “Let’s go Brandon!”
“where’s the Jews?” A strange chant?! What does it mean?
Good post Craig. Who created the fake-video and disseminated it? Israel itself I bet.
Funny how the russian-disinformation-is-everywhere-crowd!1!!!! that have been oh so vocal past decade.. are totally oblivious to the fact that almost everything that is coming out of Israel is disinformation, lies, propaganda. Israel playing the western audience like a fiddle!
This example below is also a typical example of the constant fakery being transmitted as facts:
BBC comes under fire for mistranslating ex-Palestinian prisoner as praising Hamas
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231127-bbc-comes-under-fire-for-mistranslating-ex-palestinian-prisoner-as-praising-hamas/
Reminds me also of that time during the “The Gaza Freedom Flotilla” in 2010 when civilian boats/ships from europe tried to deliver aid to Gaza, then, Israel relesed this obvious fake radio transmission:
Flotilla Ship to Israeli Navy: “We’re Helping Arabs Go Against the US, Don’t Forget 9/11 Guys” “Go back to Auschwitz”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxY7Q7CvQPQ
It says alot when oh-so-threatened innocent Israel has to manufacture threatening acts against them. This is the oldest trick in the book still so many westerners fall for it causing westerners to either to tone down their criticism against Israel or become outright israeli-apologetics.
VIDEO — Former Israeli Government Minister Shulamit Aloni confesses that “it’s a trick” for Israel to use false anti-Semitism accusations in accordance with its interests
https://twitter.com/DailySabah/status/1478077074233561107
In a normal world western intelligence services would call out the blatant disinformation being projected against the western world by the israeli state and their agent proxies in the west.
I don’t think so – I’d take your bet.
Israel certainly produces fake news, but the Israeli state has highly competent people at its disposal, and would produce a better-quality fake that would be very difficult to detect.
….. If you honestly think that, I don’t think you have been paying much attention.
What people ‘think’ about the IDF and the Israeli Government’s competence and abilities, and what people ‘should think’ about them based on their actions, are two ever more differing things.
Those supposedly “highly competent’ people were in place ‘keeping Israelis safe’ when Al Quassam attacked on Oct 7th.
And the woeful attempts at fake media to date just throw more shade on their efforts.
Highly competent? I think not.
So these “highly competent” people are just fine with IDF soldiers live posting their war crimes and genocidal actions on TikTok etc. ?
Or do you believe that’s just the production of LLMs?
And if we’re going to go down the LLM route, what’s your opinion of Habsora (“The Gospel”) ?
… Absolutely!
I see very little competence, just massive over compensation for the lack of it through carpet bombing…
Townsman
I have to disagree with that, this war have proved that the israelis are not smart in anyway and are horribly bad at producing propaganda. Bush league type of productions.
“because they work either for billionaires who share the zionist creed of the ruling classes, or, like those in the BBC, for states controlled by politicians in the pockets of the zionist lobby. ” Sorry if I’ve missed it, but how is the BBC implicated in these specific examples?
There are many examples at the BBC but the most blatant and the most individually influential is probably Sir Robbie Gibb. He is the sole owner of the arch zionist Jewish Chronicle and is on the BBC board. According to fellow arch zionist Emily Maitliss, Gibb controls the news output and content of Britain’s public service national broadcaster.
paradoxically the more we know about video as a medium, the less we care about its political consequences. Increasingly the medium´s clumsy instrumentalization goes by unnoticed.
One scandal over fake footage is followed by the next. Which means the complete insignificance of the medium´s content.
The medium itself is a projection surface for the only thing that does matter and that´s the hostility and hatred and the agenda of power.
It doesn´t matter what the video shows. The framing forestalls its reception and the verdict over it.
Even if the crowd were shown with their faces (godness is this sloppy work) to the camera and the fake were to obvious – I am pretty sure – even then it would still not be dismissed.
Just the argument of justification would differ. Then it would be something like: “They might not say it on screen but they could have said it. Because regardless of the video. They ARE Jew-haters.”
Film is no tool of verification / falsification. It´s a transporter of political message and will.
That´s why in all honest y they don´t care.
As the Israelis don´t care about the ICJ.
“Why do you kill Arabs? – Because we can.”
It´s as simple as that.
We have seen this with RU in UKR: Whatever RU does its always wrong. Why? Because we want RU destroyed. The question of justice and due process is not being raised any more. We are long beyond that.
Same goes for Palestine.
This reminds me of what Bertrand Russell had to say about getting people to believe that snow is black:
“The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship … The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray.”
Starmer [or more correctly starvem] believes snow is black, because he believes Israel is a non racist state and that it does not operate a system of Apartheid in occupied Palestine as described by Human Rights Groups such as B’Tsalem,Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and a special investigation from a UN group. It is this delusional support from Western leaders that will ensure the failure of the supremacist,racist and Genocidal state of Israel.
Ironic that Starmer, by his own admission “a Zionist without qualification”, should believe that Israel is *not* operating a system of Apartheid – while also believing that the Labour Party was “institutionally antisemitic” throughout the time its leadership supported Palestine…
Very apposite, Johnny! I had forgotten that quotation – if I ever saw it before.
It’s impressive how much of today people like Russell and Aldous Huxley foresaw a century ago.
Also Orwell have some good quotes, for example this text below which could have been written today on Gaza:
““Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.” “
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9424448-early-in-life-i-have-noticed-that-no-event-is
Especially the last sentence is very on point, the “intellectualls” of the west are still on the sage where Hamas killed 1400 israelis, mutilated their body parts and gang raped the dead israeli bodies. Sigh.
“40 Babies Beheaded!!!” will go down in history as the greatest military-intelligence-media propaganda stunt (blatant intentional lie) ever to near-immediately become found out and debunked, crash, burn, and fall flat on its face… Perhaps the originator(s) who envisaged the PR failure (and media groups which participated in the dangerous propaganda operation) of the global “40 Babies Beheaded!!!” covert deception will now come forward and issue an apology (in other words, do the right thing), but that just wouldn’t be honest, now would it?
Certainly up there with the Kuwait “baby incubator” Big Lie.
http://en.people.cn/n3/2021/1112/c90000-9918958.html
““40 Babies Beheaded!!!” will go down in history as the greatest military-intelligence-media propaganda stunt (blatant intentional lie) ever to near-immediately become found out and debunked,”
Whereas 80 years ago, it would have gone down in history as fact. You just have to wonder how much of our history is made up of stories like these, especially when there was only one side providing the narrative.
Indeed Bayard. The writing of history is controlled very tightly, which is why there are whole families with war heroes awarded medals and great wealth who never got anywhere near a battle. Our cities are littered with statues and commemorations of people who were undeserving fakes.
Consider Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale – a mixed race nurse and a white nurse
Despite being immensely popular in her day due to her nursing activities in Balaclava, operating as she did near the fighting, as opposed to Nightingale operating many hundreds of miles away, upon her death she was forgotten for a 100 years or more whilst Nightingale’s reputation grew. The story of these two women highlights the racism inherent in the British Empire, especially in it’s later stages – indeed I would argue that this racism was one of the most important fuels the Imperial machine ran on.
Her story is told here
https://www.maryseacoletrust.org.uk/learn-about-mary/
Interestingly the above website is good on her story but insists she was an “entrepreneur” as well as a humanitarian because she paid her own way to the Crimea. One can see the influence of our oligarchic politics of our current era at play with such sophism. She was forgotten because she had the wrong skin colour and when she is remembered, she is tagged as an entrepreneur. Funnily enough, at that time most British entrepreneurs were engaged in wholesale rapine, butchery and robbery as the “Scramble for Africa” etc makes clear yet this powerful, kind woman is compared to the slavers, robbers, pirates etc the western countries vomited out all over the globe
There’s nothing new under the sun, Jerry:
“ In September 1914, a lady in Cologne learned that in a hospital in Aachen there was a whole room full of wounded soldiers whose eyes had been gouged out. In response to an inquiry about this, a leading doctor in Aachen replied that there was no such room and that not a single such case had been observed. But the story traveled from Aachen to Bonn, where the chief physician had to deny it again. Then she traveled to Sigmaringen. The Weser newspaper in Bremen picked it up and told something similar about a hospital in Berlin. This was refuted by the residence commander. The legend reached its climax when it was said that a little ten-year-old boy saw “a whole bucket full of soldiers’ eyes.” “
– Arthur Ponsonby, “Lugen in Kriegseiten” 1928
nice one.
People forget too easily that this is as old as the news media.
The Hasbarists are in desparation mode, they know well their lies will receive sympathy from willing dupes, but ‘you can fool some of the people, all of the time etc [Abraham Lincoln]
“Lawsuits accusing top US universities of harboring antisemitism all originate from one source: a corporate law firm that fielded the pro-settler ex-US ambassador to Israel, and which was registered as a foreign agent of an Israeli principal as recently as 2021.
The firm now represents professional Israel lobby activists posing as victimized “Jewish students” and seeking to crush the free speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists”.
“The demands of the pro-Israel activists include “terminating deans, administrators, professors and other employees” who they say are “responsible for the antisemitic abuse permeating the school, whether because they engaged in it or permitted it; suspending or expelling students who engage in such conduct… the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” and “compensatory, consequential, and punitive [financial] damages.”
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/12/17/registered-israeli-foreign-agent-campus-antisemitism/
This particular form of false propaganda is calumny. Rossini describes this well in his Aria in Barber of Seville.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLB-MLeI-Hc
The Calumny
The calumny is a little wind,
a very gentle little breeze
which numbly, softly,
lightly, kindly,
begins to whisper.
Little by little, mildly,
in a low voice, hissing,
it goes flowing, it goes buzzing;
in people’s ears
it enters deftly
and makes heads and brains
stun and blow.
Getting out from the mouth
the clamour grows:
it slowly strengthens,
it already flies from one place to another.
It seems like the thunder, like the storm
that in the depth of the forest
go whistling, grumbling,
and makes your blood run cold.
In the end it spills over and blow up,
it spreads, it doubles
and provokes an explosion
like a cannon shot,
an earthquake, a rain storm,
a general tumult
which makes the air peal.
And the miserable one who is defamed,
degraded, trampled,
scourged by the public opinion
fortunately dies.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/la-calunnia-calumny.html
Thank you for sharing this, SA.
I appreciate the connection,
Alan
Mustaribeen: The Israeli Undercover Agents with a History of Dressing Like Palestinians
The operatives, who carried out the deadly raid
Just lifted this title from Global Research.
There is even a Wikipedia page and articles in ME eye and others. It is Must’aribeen with the Arabic glottal catch with no equivalent English sound or letter and means ‘Arabised’.
There have been few, if any, proper investigative journalists since the 1960s. On reflection it is doubtful there were any then, merely axe-grinders seeking information to support their particular cause.
Of course, it is rather more obvious now to those who are interested, or care.
“axe-grinders”
Got anyone in mind?
So those exposing the lies spread by the American Military, Government and client journalists about “how well” the war in Viet Nam was going, they weren’t good journalists?
Those exposing similar attempts about wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Palestine…?
“merely axe-grinders seeking information to support their particular cause.”
Well yes, it just so happened that their “particular cause” was the finding and dissemination of the truth. Everyone engaged in investigative journalism has an axe to grind, it is just that some axes are more noble than others.
Nonsense. They were always a minority, but they were there, throughout the Vietnam war, for example.
I would date the death of investigative journalism in the MSM to about 2014. The Deep State was shocked that we found out (thanks to Ed Snowden) that it was spying on us all, more thoroughly than the Stasi ever spied on East Germans.
In 2017, Wikileaks started publishing a huge leak of documents from the CIA under the codename “Vault 7”. These reveal CIA spying on everybody that is much larger in scale than the Snowden revelations about the NSA. But unlike the Snowden revelations, these have not been publicised in the MSM. The only mention in the MSM I found is a report that a scapegoat for the leak has been found (Joshua Schulte) and sentenced to 40 years in prison. The difference between MSM journalism in 2014 (when the Guardian, NY Times, and Der Spiegel told readers a lot about the Snowden revelations) and 2017 (when no mainstream media said anything about Vault 7) is stark. 2014 is when the Deep State took the MSM in an iron grip.
In 2014, even the BBC reported that the referendum in Crimea appeared to be fair, and that the official results were consistent with informal exit polls (they had reporters on the ground in Crimea). Now, they’d toe the official NATO line that the referendum was “fake”.
Honest mainstream journalism died in most of the West at some point in 2014.
Craig wrote:
– ” While the truth not only does not make mainstream media, it has to force its way through massive suppression of social media. My posts on X/twitter currently have less reach per repost than zionist accounts by a factor averaging around 50.
– The extreme suppression manifests in strange ways. When I tried to find my tweet calling out the fake soundtrack, I could not find it at all. It had disappeared from my timeline completely.”
I have always argued against joining and using corporate social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc., especially for political activism. I did not foresee this specific danger, but it’s as clear as day now.
Use free (as in freedom rather than price), community-run platforms such as Mastodon and Diaspora. These run on free (as in freedom rather than price), open source software. They are written and supported by the software freedom and pro-privacy activist community.
https://www.fsf.org/
https://www.eff.org/
Good alternatives – I do not use social media as such, it is like a sewer but I have this anonymously-named twitter account which I use to call out israeli apologists, shaming them for their support they give to Israel.
Couldn’t agree more! The Internet was supposed to be distributed/decentralised/federated etc. rather than captured by corporatists.
Peertube’s another one
Lightning Network
Matrix
etc.
Oh and Podcasting 2.0
IPFS
I have to agree: joining a corporate social media platform and then complaining that it is acting like a corporate social media platform is naive to say the least. The purpose of corporate entities is to make money, nothing else. You really can’t expect them to do anything that hinders this end.
If you must use them, it is well to remember that he who sups with the devil must sup with a long spoon.
Don’t give up the internet. It’s the future battleground that will destroy newspapers.
Excellent article Craig thank you.
Some pushback: CNN staff accuse the network of journalistic malpractice.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/04/cnn-staff-pro-israel-bias
“CNN staff accuse the network of journalistic malpractice”.
Well, that’s a sign they are on the right track.
Unsurprisingly, this is where the bad penny (“Sir” Mark Thompson) turned up just before the events of October 7th. The man who scotched the 2009 DEC Gaza appeal (so well practised in denying Palestinians aid). This confirms his status as a major gate-keeper/curator of the West’s central propaganda narrative.
Jm
thx
It might be only superficial criticism compared to what is exchanged here but the length of the Guardian piece is remarkable.
In Germany such criticism in a major daily is simply unthinkable.
Horrible. And the really bad thing about it – this propaganda kills. Every day anew.
“BREAKING| Haaretz reports that Israel’s military admitted that it is behind the “72 virgins- no censorship” telegram channel, which has been publishing misinformation and scenes of gruesome killing of Palestinians in Gaza.
The Israeli newspaper said an IOF unit for psychological warfare operations covered up the channel’s identity.”
https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1754086403061829725?s=20
“Those were some captions of videos and pictures posted on the channel:
– “Burning their mother … You won’t believe the video we got! You can hear the crunch of their bones. We’ll upload it right away, get ready.”
– Images of Palestinian captives were captioned “Exterminating the roaches … exterminating the Hamas rats … Share this beauty.”
– A video of an Israeli soldier allegedly dipping machine gun bullets in pork fat had the caption: “What a man!!!!! Lubricates bullets with lard. You won’t get your virgins.”
– “Garbage juice!!!! Another dead terrorist!! You have to watch it with the sound, you’ll die laughing.”
If anyone doesn’t believe that Israel has crossed the line into full-scale fascism akin to the most notorious in history, what else do you need? It defies belief that all the Western media are lockstep in cahoots with the propaganda machine they have constructed, and in time it will be to their eternal shame. Say it like it is and you get sacked, the information eliminated and the person vilified – what possible avenue is there for honest, factual reporting and information?
Regrettably it is unsurprising that the Partners in Genocide (forgive the acronym) and their amanuenses in the media would disseminate so uncritically the copy given to them. The precedent displayed by the Partners in Genocide, and their collaboration to distract from the landmark judgement of the ICJ (26 Jan 2024) by impugning UNRWA and then cutting its funding, so clearly illustrates their lawlessness and genocidal intent that finding any common ground to engage in dialogue feels increasingly remote. I hope I am wrong.
Well, I have thought for many a year that Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Emperor’s Clothes” is as insightful as any psychology text in both showing how people fall to lies and propaganda despite the truth staring them in the face and what is required to make them realise the truth through the eyes of a child and how far they have been deceived.
I agree.
Politicians and media in cahoots – whatever the truth – reminds me of the monstering of Corbyn.
It’s very comparable. All the same actors from the antisemitism scam. You hated Corbyn as much as any of them, Ian. Well you’ve got the people you wanted in charge of the ‘opposition’ now, so quit complaining.
Haha, what presumptuous twaddle, You have no idea what I think of Corbyn or anything else. Do try harder.
What a shameless liar you are. You posted on here endlessly dissing him. Are you trying to gaslight me?
Really? do show me where, and then we can judge who the liar is. What weird behaviour.
Anyone doubting it, just consult any article Craig wrote on Corbyn throughout his leadership. You will see what Ian thought underneath all of them.
Exactly this. I was thinking the same thing as I read Craig’s piece.
Behind the scenes the Zionists have been busy bees using their wealth and power to set the narrative, of course this wouldn’t have had such an impact if Washington wasn’t on board. I recall a previous POTUS saying that lobbying groups with a foreign countries interests at heart such as the AIPAC, should’ve been registered in Washington as foreign agents, this didn’t happen and now these lobbying groups hold sway in Washington, and they have money to spread around to keep it that way
As long as Washington backs the Zionists then the western media and its entire media machine will continue to repeat the Zionist lies day after day.
Here in the UK something similar is going on, the two major political parties at Westminster are very close to their Israel friendly groups the CFI and LFI, both refuse to reveal, or make it very difficult to find out who funds them. This scenario isn’t restricted to the USA and the UK, no these lobby groups pop up all across Europe and beyond, and they have the cash to back their agenda and to push the Zionist narrative, part of which we can see played out in Gaza right now.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/who-funds-labour-friends-of-israel-and-why-wont-it-say/
https://www.declassifieduk.org/nine-tory-mps-accept-israel-lobby-money-amid-gaza-genocide/
This type of propaganda is what we should expect in future. It’s a grand experiment that will be used from now on. The world is dividing into two: those who support USA, and those who do not. This is a battleground for complete control of the world economy.
Israel is the nominated USA puppet in the middle east.
Israel and the USA are usually in step, yes. But it’s not always clear which is the puppet and which the puppet-master.
By the way, did you know that – even after the horror in Gaza, and the clear attempt at genocide – 80% of Tory MPs remain members of “Conservative Friends of Israel”? Reported in declassifieduk.org , which I would recommend in general.
Russia, China and Iran could target UK via Irish ‘backdoor’, thinktank warns
Policy Exchange [who else] report highlights security threat and accuses Dublin of ‘freeloading’ on European defence
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/04/russia-china-iran-could-target-uk-irish-backdoor-thinktank-warns
Ireland’s president [Michael D Higgins] has rebuked the government for launching a debate about the country’s longstanding military neutrality and the possibility of joining Nato, saying ministers were “playing with fire”.
The report tried to sound an alarm bell about the consequences of Sinn Féin winning Irish elections in 2025.
and more moronic witterings
Strangely, I had made a post about that exact piece on the “Ukraine” thread in the discussion forums but it got lost in the aether on submitting it. I couldn’t find the actual report from “Policy Exchange” itself. They see themselves as the premier think tank in the UK.
The sentiment in Ireland would be very much for continuing Ireland’s neutral (ish) stance. Greater that 75% would not want to see a change iirc from most recent poll. Also, the Irish supreme court has already ruled a referendum would be required for Ireland to join NATO.
The Policy Exchange report Closing the Back Door has just appeared:
https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/closing-the-back-door/
Wikipedia says: Policy Exchange is a British conservative think tank based in London. In 2007 it was described in The Daily Telegraph as “the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the right”.
…
Think tank Transparify, which is funded by the Open Society Foundations, ranked Policy Exchange as one of the three least transparent think tanks in the UK in relation to funding.
The report says:
The UK and Ireland are at risk from an “acute maritime menace” posed by a Russian doctrine of targeting undersea networks and pipelines and the presence of Russian warships, they say in a foreword to the paper.
Clearly the danger is of a US false flag operation.
Ah yes, let’s all just ignore the Tories being funded by the money Russian Oligarchs stole from the Russian Public…
Entertaining unaccompanied foreign ministers with bunga bunga parties at a KGB officer’s Italian retreat, straight after that minister had attended a NATO meeting on Ukraine. Oh and then that minister becomes PM and puts that KGB officer’s son in the HoL, expressly against the advice of the appointments vetting committee…
Failing to publish unredacted the Russia Report…
Pursuing Russian State-funded and encouraged Brexit directly against the UK’s national interest…
Oh and let’s ignore Cameron’s cosy relationship with the Chinese Government and the extrajudicial “Police” stations set up abroad (including in the UK) by China for the purposes of threatening Chinese nationals and carrying out extraordinary rendition…
There’s no need to “back door” the UK when the Tory Party has already invited Russia and China to walk their tinkerers, tailors, soldiers and spies right through the front door…in much the same way the UK’s security services does to compromise countries outside their jurisdiction.
Anyone would think that the Policy Exchange would quite like an independent, reunited Ireland!
“Extra judicial police stations”
Sorry I must of missed this one – can you suggest a reliable source for this?
Do they override British law? If I go on social media and slag off the Party or the Leader will I be arrested by Chinese police? It sounds fantastical but nowadays who knows? After watching the moral vacuum revealed by attitudes to the Israeli destruction of Gaza and the murder of many tens of thousands of civilians, the idea of British leaders acquiescing to the iniquitous demands of a foreign power does not suprise me.
I knew the political class do whatever they are told to do by America and Israel but to add China and Russia to that list seems contradictory, even if true. America touts a war with China and is at war with Russia in Ukraine. Maybe be Brit pols are just making a bit of cash on the side?
After watching Al-Jazeera’s “The Lobby”, it was very clear which country has the greatest influence on British policy – Israel. I don’t think Russia and China come close. Mossad scum are crawling all over our bought and blackmailed pols
Mossad and the CIA use the front door not the Chinese or the Russians, surely?
will moon, to begin with: Vice has a decent explanatory article, giving the source of the report that exposed them and detailing their own – limited – attempts to establish what was going at one of them in England. There’s also reference to them in Hansard [ 1 – 2 – 3 ] and in multiple other publications (Reuters, Guardian, Independent, Bloomberg, local prints like Glasgow World and Montreal Gazette etc.). Curiously a more recent BBC article reports on the MET concluding that “no illegal activity had taken place” after spending roughly a year investigating – I take that as convincing a verdict as “SARS-COV-2 was definitely natural and couldn’t have originated in a lab”, given the amount of time between report publication and MET investigation the Chinese authorities would have had to remove pertinent evidence… These of course are realistically not very different from US and UK extraordinary rendition and other extrajudicial, diplomatic activities around the World over previous decades…the Chinese Government were just smart enough to have just enough cover for theirs – by claiming it was simply for providing driver’s licence services and catching Chinese fraudsters who had evaded the Chinese Police by moving abroad. Now consider how similarly we treat Assange.
It’s been abundantly clear that Mossad etc. has undue influence on the UK political system, from Al Jazeera’s “The Labour File’s” investigation to Johnson meeting with a senior Israeli diplomat to discuss a cooked up media campaign against Corbyn and now the appalling responses from Sunak and the – in this context in particular – *sophisticated individual* that is Starmer…
But if you don’t think Russian and Chinese government influences have been allowed in through the front door by the Tories in a not-dissimilar fashion, how do you explain the influences I described above (especially the Russian one) ? Don’t forget that the financial laundromat of Londongrad is so named for a reason.
“ Now consider how similarly we treat Assange.”
How similarly to what exactly? It is not clear what you are comparing Assange’s treatment to.
Britain has been, de facto, at war with Russia since at least the start of the conflict in Ukraine Whatever influence Russia once had, is greatly reduced.
The Chinese story seems irrelevant- if true it could be reciprocal and if untrue, a scare story with a strong element of connotative racism. Whatever it seems unimportant just now with the events taking place in Gaza
I am sorry but I can’t see any similarity to the intimate relationship that the British state has with Israel and of course America – “Five Eyes” these days is called “Five Eyes+1”.
Another interesting report in the Guardian, by Chris McGreal, with enough background detail to support the CNN staff complaints.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/04/cnn-staff-pro-israel-bias
CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’
Insiders say pressure from the top results in credulous reporting of Israeli claims and silencing of Palestinian perspectives
There has never been a problem between arabs and jews in Australia, we all muddle along quite well – the media and a hard core of utter racists will believe anything jews say though and nothing arabs say. Antoinette is Lebanese and brown, the racist in the rancid jewish group is white.
Like a lot of Israeli ‘ evidence ‘ it is not evidence it’s he said she said hearsay.
If they actually had any real evidence they would have exhibited it at the IJC.
Israel didn’t have any, therefore none was presented.
I’m sure it’s blatently obvious to most people on here and elsewhere that this
‘ War ‘ ( not my words – the MSM’s words) is not war at all – it is a revenge attack
at best and terrorism at worst.
The MSM keep trotting out the victims on the News just to show that they are concerned but
their main concern is not to offend Israel ( not Jewish people, Israel).
The why’s and wherefores of doing that are mystery to me as they are all going out of their ways not to
do anything other than to tacitly justify Israel’s attack on Palestinians.
The obvious propaganda and downright lies are just that – obvious but the greatest propaganda is to
prevent the watchers from knowing any context – historical – political -e economic etc.
So the offerings are emotional not educational.
Plays nicely into all Mainstream narratives and requires tears – not thought.
All the big media companies get their latest stories from AFP – Reuters – what’s trending on X – Facebook-
Twitter – Instagram and so on.
It is rare that they will unearth a genuinely new story themselves.
If the current crop of alleged journalists have had any journalism training then it must have been delivered
to them by ignorant ahistorical and not very wordly wise teachers.
The same people who populate the BBC’s Executive Offices so don’t be surprised that the BBC comes our with
a load of guff these day.
There are reporters like Jeremy Bowen who have been around a bit and every so often he will offer an opinion
but even he knows what to say and where to say it.
If he didn’t his pension pot and salary would disappear.
He is not alone in his fear as this is the nature of the MSM of the last 40 years.
‘Embedding ‘ started after the US took a beating in Vietnam and the US governments still believe to
this day that if not for the proper journalists they could have beaten The Vietnamese.
Extremely unlikely, but they vowed never to let journalists roam free in a War Zone ever again so the
way to control the narrative as they say is to control those reporting your narrative unquestioningly.
The Falklands War was Thatcher’s conversion to embedding in 1982 and on.
What we see with Israel’s controlling of the narrative by proxy – the News outlets do not have many
people on who are against Israel’ s assault on innocent people and if they do they only have them on to
get them to condemn Hamas.
If the anchors were asked whether they condemn Israel for their revenge attacks they would splutter and
probably say: ” Well I asked for your condemnation first because Hamas Started it! ”
This is the standard of analysis that passes for journalism in The West – emotion – Gotcha! questions but
no intention of analysis at all.
In fact they know a lot of info but they ‘aint sayin’ and the not saying has the biggest impact of the lot.
Because what the public don’t know can’t hurt them – the THEM they can’t hurt are the one’s paying the wages.
Not the watchers.
It’s like a load of Grotesques wandering around in a Hall of Mirrors at The Media Circus.
Cowardly – snivelling and disgusting.
But to me – not surprising.
p.s. Looks like Imran Khan is the latest victim of ‘ Lawfare’
That may stir up a Civil War in Pakistan and then the ISI will have to tap their backers and funders in the USA
up for more funds to quell to situation.
‘
You have covered the key issues comprehensively. Real journalists like Seymour Hersh and Peter Oborne can’t get published in the MSM.
Sometimes a report by someone like Peter Bowen leaves me wondering if we will ever see him again.
Look what happened to Lyse Doucet.
Lets not forget that it is standard practice for police to video demonstrations.
Not only a vindication for Antoinette and yourself but me too. Like you, having edited a few documentaries, I could see all the jump cuts and yet the sound track carried on seamlessly. I’m no Hitchcock but if I could spot it and you could too, how come it took more than 100 days for the truth to come out?
Sadly we live in an age where gullible folk, and even the more discerning, fall hook, line, and sinker for this crude propaganda that I have to wonder why does it not seem to matter? Is it that folk want it to be true so badly they promulgate it because they know, deep down, no matter how poor the proof is, it suits their narrative?
If that’s the case then I will just have to suffer these fools but it’s the shooting of the messenger I find more alarming!
“Is it that folk want it to be true so badly”
They want to believe in the people who are bringing them the narrative, for if they are lying then what is our civilisation?
I think you have identified the problem very accurately, Johnny. The key question for any individual is whether they prefer to know the truth (or as much of it as possible) or whether they prefer to feel secure and protected by the herd.
The following is a Talk TV video with Piers Morgan entitled: “We Are On The BRINK!” Piers Morgan Analyses World War 3 Threat Amid Middle East Conflict, talking to Dennis Prager, a ‘Conservative talk show host’ (who I’ve not come across before) and Cenk Uygur, Young Turks host and creator (who I have come across just once before). And in the first few minutes Dennis Prager says that he believes ‘there’s a world war now between the West, and those who hate the West’, and shortly afterwards says ‘Western civilisation has been the most decent in human history’. And a bit later on Morgan cites a Wall Street Journal article as saying there were 200 UNRWA employees involved in the October 7th attack, citing an Israeli Intelligence dossier. And at another point, and in response to Cenk Uygar, Dennis Prager says something like ‘The idea that Israel wants to starve the people of Gaza is vile’. It’s surreal!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngajXYIFB0s 19mins 53secs (but at around 12mins 35secs it suddenly changes to a different interview with someone else)
NB The video was posted one day ago and had over 200k views so far, and Talk TVs youtube channel has 760k subscribers, and rising.
If only zionist lies were confined to the far fringe of youtube. For 3 months they’ve been virtually unchallenged in mainstream European politics and media.
Thing is of course that Talk TV doesn’t only have a presence on youtube, but every single video uploaded to youtube is taken from programmes on their TV station. It’s not possible to copy it (and paste it in this comment), but check out what it says in the (fairly brief) section entitled ‘Reception’ in the wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TalkTV_(British_TV_channel)#Reception
And Talk TV (and GB News) is ultra toxic (Piers Morgan being probably one of the most moderate presenters on the channel comparatively). It’s tantamount to the Sun on TV, and is definitely designed to be the British equivalent of Fox News.
If they were honest – which is the last thing they are – they would call the channel Fascist Talk TV!
Let’s also not forget that the Jewish association of Zionist volunteers (names starts with Z, but I forget the rest) who rushed into the kibbutz attacked on October 7 and started reporting about beheaded babies, etc. Ha’aretz just did an investigation onto them and found out that not only did they tell blatant LIES (including children “cooked in ovens”) but were also mishandling remains (of Jews, btw) and tossing body parts around, willy nilly.
These liars truly know no bounds.
The latest terrible progandistic reporting must be the narrative around the Houthis.
So the Houthis are attacking shipments that are connected to a nation that engage in gross human rights violations, acts of genocide.
Now, how are the Hothis acts any different from heroic partisans, anti-nazi sabotage, resistance movements during the 40s?
Instead the Houthis are framed as some irrational, rag-tag terrorist islamists forces that must be taken down.
Case in point, this bozo named Tim Black at Spiked:
Why are leftists hot for the Houthis?
Yemen’s vicious Jew-hating Islamists are being whitewashed as brave anti-imperialists.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/02/why-are-leftists-hot-for-the-houthis/
How are they not brave anti-imperialists? How are they “jew hating” ? Because they are against a genocide unfolding against their own ethnicity?? This is also typical, the racist that supports a racial genocide, blame critics for… racism!
If there was an ukrainian group that attacked russian shipments, you could bet your life that such armed resistance would be hailed by the same western MSM as heroic.