The integrity initiative

[biggytitbo]

Edit, they almost certainly doctored that aswell, as not only has kit not tweeted that much even over months, twitter rate limits tweeting at 180 per 15 mins. So the (lack of) Integrity Initiative are promoting faked tweets now.

[Pepotamo1985]

Thanks Bigs. I've been waiting for them to respond and they seem to be doing so, finally - although it's tepid af (so far), just retweets of people abusing me on Twitter.

In other news, I wrote this about the II's German operation which I'm pretty happy with - https://sputniknews.com/europe/201901071071265270-integrity-initiative-germany-criminal/

[hummingofevil]

I've slowly read through everything on here and all the links and it's fascinating stuff. I have one nagging doubt about the whole thing though.

If II is some kind of secret high-end military-grade disinformation campaign how come everything they seem to do is so dumb and amateurish. Perfect example is with those RTs today. So easily debunked their simplistic points (are you a bot? No. How did you send 500 tweets in 5 mins? I didn't). Is it all part of some bigger psy-ops technique where you meant to think they come across as little more than a uppity student with very inflated opinions of their own influence..

And...

If that really is the case then is the Integrity Initiative itself a free hit. Designed to meant to be "exposed" as a distraction from the real shit everyone is up to.

[biggytitbo]

I think there are plenty of fantasists and bullshitters involved with it, but at its core it is a psyop run by hardened military intelligence people, and it does have connections to all manner of powerful and dangerous people. They're desperately trying to downplay what it is, but the amount of journalists involved, even if it is somewhat casually as they maintain, all echoing each others fake talking points really adds up to something. The veracity of it hardly matters, it's the gish gallop effect from this vast network of clusters that really affects the public perception.


I'm still interested in Bracey Lane and whether he was 'just volunteering' for Bernie Sanders campaign while he was working for II. That is a genuine scandal imo.

[Blumf]

If II is some kind of secret high-end military-grade disinformation campaign how come everything they seem to do is so dumb and amateurish.

You're making the mistake in thinking the various secret service branches are in any way competent. They only have two advantages; large amounts of unscrutinised state funding, and access to high levels of government (i.e. legal immunity). Beyond that, they're basically public school toffs, maybe not Bertie Wooster dumb, but not Mycroft Holmes.

In this case, they don't need smart people, just compliant journalists (easy with money plus old boy's club) and some half arsed twitter postings for said journos to echo.

[biggytitbo]

Lemme dig that Adam Curtis blog out on that very subject - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460

The recent revelations by the whistleblower Edward Snowden were fascinating. But they - and all the reactions to them - had one enormous assumption at their heart.

That the spies know what they are doing.

It is a belief that has been central to much of the journalism about spying and spies over the past fifty years. That the anonymous figures in the intelligence world have a dark omniscience. That they know what's going on in ways that we don't.

It doesn't matter whether you hate the spies and believe they are corroding democracy, or if you think they are the noble guardians of the state. In both cases the assumption is that the secret agents know more than we do.

But the strange fact is that often when you look into the history of spies what you discover is something very different.

It is not the story of men and women who have a better and deeper understanding of the world than we do. In fact in many cases it is the story of weirdos who have created a completely mad version of the world that they then impose on the rest of us.

That latter point is very evident whenever you try to argue with these people on twitter, they are so fucking weird.

[hummingofevil]

Dont let anyone on the Brexit thread see you've posted those words or this place will have a collective meltdown!

If that is the case then it can easily be applied to those on all sides as a general point and specifically to this Russia vs the rest of the world discussion. I suspect it also answers the question about why the public don't give two shits about many things that are going on; even if the evidence is there that governments are up to the most heinous of shit, the doubt and confusion people have over these issues is enough to drive them loopy if they begin to give a shit.

So we ignore and move on...

[BlodwynPig]

Weps?

[Pepotamo1985]

It actually appears now that account had blocked me (I'm on a number of block lists, evidently - several people I've never spoken to have blocked me, and several users I've been speaking to have been blocked by the same accounts despite sometimes not having heard of them before), and then now unblocked me (maybe with some II prompting...) which accounts for the anomaly.

Also, in respect of the competence of II, it's clear they don't know what they're doing in many regards - their Twitter account was intended to be a major outlet for anti-Russian/anti-Assange/anti-Corbyn etc. material and a core part of their operations but despite their very high profile contacts/connections/operatives it's taken them two-and-a-half years to get 5,000 followers, at least some of whom are presumably critics wanting to keep a close eye on their online activities. By contrast, in the first week of January I got 1,000 new followers and now have only slightly less than them, and I'm just some twat tweeting in his spare time, rather than an account run by several people -  among them alleged 'social media experts' - and funded with masses of government money. Likewise, it's abundantly clear they didn't tell individuals involved in their overseas clusters - not even the British MI6 'coordinators' who act as the organization's on-the-ground cutouts! - about the leaked files for weeks afterwards. Some overseas cluster chiefs I've spoken to have accused me of hacking the files myself, when I'm contacting them over a month after the initial disclosures. Ineptitude of the highest fucking order - or are they really embarrassed and hoping they can just suppress it without having to admit they're fucking useless?

My overall take on II is it's a bunch of old, sad, bored armchair generals who felt 'alive' during the Cold War and aren't happy about their tedious retirement, so are fighting a phoney war of their own creation in order to feel important and excited again. Imagine a cross between James Bond and Dad's Army.

[BlodwynPig]

Do you have a safety deposit box with all the secrets in case you "disappear", Pep? If so, please PM me or Bigster the access code.

[biggytitbo]

They certainly want to play up on the slightly amateurish, casual nature of it, now they've been busted. But there are definitely some dangerous people involved, and what they're doing - covertly interfering in the democratic process of the UK and its allies, is not really on.

[Pepotamo1985]

Oh yeah, it's not remotely funny these people have potentially significant power extending all over the world or a bizarre obsessional priapism for all things conflict. This is Dr. Strangelove shit made real.

[biggytitbo]

Not sure exactly what the deal is with these absolute loons, but I think they're a government thing somewhere down the line.

[BlodwynPig]

Not sure exactly what the deal is with these absolute loons, but I think they're a government thing somewhere down the line.

Some fucks need a damn good slap down. Imperialist warmongers.

[biggytitbo]

They've certainly quarantined 90% of my vocabulary :(

[Pepotamo1985]

Same as the Kremlin 'key messages' Elletson writes about

[Pepotamo1985]

[biggytitbo]

I see the British taxpayer is now funding personal insults against you pep.

[BlodwynPig]

Lord Haw-Haw?! Loonies.

[biggytitbo]

Tim hayward has made the good point that virtually all of the very small number of mainstream media articles about the integrity initiative so far were written by people from... The integrity initiative. That kind of says it all about what a stitch up they have in the media.

[Pepotamo1985]

I'm still interested in Bracey Lane and whether he was 'just volunteering' for Bernie Sanders campaign while he was working for II. That is a genuine scandal imo.

Well, he allegedly conducted a 'special study' of 'Russian election interference' in the US - its not clear when this was, or what it entailed, but it's listed next to his Sanders work on his internal profile.

It's interesting how prominently Britain figures in RussiaGate. Funnily enough, one of the posts on SBL's now deleted Medium was a massive love letter to Mitt Romney, suggesting he should run for the nomination in 2020...

[biggytitbo]

Absolutely, unfortunetly this story hasnt escaped the confines of right wing conspiracy sites in America but there are pretty much no actual Russians involved in Russiagate, only a hell of a lot of figures connected to British intellegence. It should more properly be described as UKgate. Even the much vaunted joseph mifsud, who is bafflingly described as a Russian agent, is quite clearly a British intellegence asset, who Incidentally has done a Skripal and vanished without trace. Maybe they're both in Portmeirion with number six.



Have you got a link to the Romney thing? That would certainly be another weird chink in the 'character' he was playing with Sanders.

[Pepotamo1985]

http://web.archive.org/web/20181122092305/https://medium.com/@Hewell?source=footer_card

Witness also his talk (mentioned by Blumenthal) on how the West needs to shift to a permanent war society and culture. I know radical conversions happen but to go from running a 'progressive' campaigning outfit to being at the centre of a military intelligence effort funded by NATO and committed to discrediting and smearing even vaguely dovish political figures is just unbelievable to me.

[hummingofevil]

I've got sucked into reading about all this and the various Twitter spats and one very simple thing seems to strike me as being obvious and I would be interested on your views.

Is it fair to summarise the argument as two opposing groups of people (say loosely the Russian government and UK/Western governments) both attempting to engage in information wars and propaganda and people who are aligned with one side or other pointing fingers as they think that their cause is more worthy? There seems to be a great deal of whataboutism going on.

I'm finding it difficult to be entirely convinced by argument that just because the UK gov is up to tricks that means the Russians aren't.

Of course the bigger picture of our press only reporting one side is crucial and the Corbyn attacks and role of the Bernie kid are very dodgy In their own right and need investigating impartially (as if that will happen) but on bigger point I can't see how anyone following this can come to objective conclusion that one side or the other are in the right.

[biggytitbo]

The most important thing to remember, and why this is so dangerous, is its really an operation targeting us, not Russia. That's why it's so easy for them to use their smear and misinformation against Corbyn, or Spanish politicians, or Scottish nationalists or whatever else is seen as some kind of threat to their masters.

[biggytitbo]

And now we have the beingly named 'newsguard' - https://www.mintpressnews.com/newsguardneocon-backed-fact-checker-plans-to-wage-war-on-independent-media/253687/


Another neocon propaganda outlet styling itself as an independent arbiter of 'press standards' - aka waging war on alternative, indepedent and anti-war media.

[Pepotamo1985]

Is it fair to summarise the argument as two opposing groups of people (say loosely the Russian government and UK/Western governments) both attempting to engage in information wars and propaganda and people who are aligned with one side or other pointing fingers as they think that their cause is more worthy?  There seems to be a great deal of whataboutism going on.

I wouldn't say so necessarily although double standards and whataboutery definitely plays some role, and there's an obvious assumption among II's defenders that we're the good guys and Russia is invariably evil (isn't that the case with most binary debates of this ilk?), and I'm sure some Russians/Russian-sympathizers take the opposite view (I'm neither, and don't btw). To their mind (and I don't doubt they sincerely believe this), this dynamic makes it fine (if not great) the UK's doing it. I've been chatting with a certain Times columnist recently and this disposition really shines through. When II spread disinformation/smears about Russia, they're doing "brilliant work", because Russia is a "hostile" state - when Russia does the same, it's an attempt to exploit weakness, undermine democracy, meddle, etc. We have good intentions, they have bad intentions, always.

On the subject of intent, this attitude is also a handy means of discrediting any Sputnik/RT reporting on anything in general, and as I've said before many mainstream journalists seem far more concerned about who hacked the II documents and why than their content, which says a lot - that Russian hackers could be behind the leak (an allegation without any supporting evidence AFAIK, and much to suggest the contrary) is apparently a bigger scandal than the UK covertly meddling in domestic politics overseas for its own selfish military/financial/political ends somehow.

Likewise, Russian-funded media organizations are automatically villainous because Russia funds them. When Sputnik reports on LGBT hate crime in Britain, it's an info op - when the BBC does the same in Russia, it's important journalism, despite the II files (among many other bits of evidence) clearly demonstrating Western media coverage of events in/involving Russia specifically seeks to damage the Kremlin's standing internationally and nationally, and is deliberately and determinedly distorted for that precise purpose. Aforementioned Times columnist conceded to me the Western media is exploited by the powerful to perpetuate messages conducive to their interests - but he simultaneously exonerated media outlets, the journalists who work there and their reporting from blame for doing so  on the basis these organizations weren't specifically set up for the purpose, "unlike RT/Sputnik". If the end result is apparently the same in his mind, I'm not seeing much of a substantive distinction there.

I'm finding it difficult to be entirely convinced by argument that just because the UK gov is up to tricks that means the Russians aren't.

I don't make this argument myself, although I do find it amazing the examples of Russian dirty tricks cited by II and II-connected individuals are almost invariably extremely thin indeed. In the German II article I linked to, I document the various examples of Russian information warfare cited by the national cluster coordinator (an MI6 agent) - he makes immense claims about Russian cyber warfare capabilities, but the only evidence he cites are claims from one DW journalist that his outlet's Russian-language Facebook page often gets negative comments from Russian speaking accounts, and various scaremongering quotes from a 2015 article by Adrian Chen on the Internet Research Agency which the author has completely repudiated since. Likewise, that someone makes comments critical of NATO or sympathetic towards Russia - or even states basic facts, such as the anti-Russian sanctions have damaged and will continue to damage the German economy - is apparently proof they're a (witting or unwitting) Russian disinformation asset. Likewise, a paper written by potential German cluster member Susanne Spahn claims Russia "[exploits Germany's] Russian speakers for its political goals", using them to "spread a negative image of Germany and its western allies". The basis for these claims is polling data suggesting 30 percent of Russian speakers think Germany needs a "strong leader", versus 18 percent of the wider population. Likewise, that these people view AfD leader Alexander Gauland "slightly negatively, but not as negatively as Germans without a migration background" she thinks highly significant. Taken together, she somehow concludes "these results suggest a positive attitude towards President Putin and his foreign policy" among Russian speakers in Germany, and are proof of the efficacy (and existence) of Russian disinfo ops in Germany.

Compare this with II's activities in Spain, where individuals connected to the organization managed to successfully block the appointment of a politician with a dovish stance on Moscow to a senior government position.

[hummingofevil]

Thank you. Much to consider.

It's fairly minor issue in the bigger picture but I'm intrigued by this doping in sport stuff too that was mentioned in one of the documents.

It's histotically been the case that if the Soviets do it considered systematic and is the direct responsibility of the government of USSR/Russia but in the West it's outliers going against the rules. Particularly in 80s and 90s I'm convinced the US had a systematic doping policy in place (Carl Lewis admits failed drug tests were covered up before his multiple gold winning Olympics runs and his modern day defence is "everyone was doing it"). And Flo-Jo died yet if we think about steroids in athletics it's always the Soviet/Russian stories that get brought up ("they turned a woman into a man").

Then we've had Lance Armstrong and even in last few weeks USADA has been proven to be complicit with drugs cheats in the Jon Jones case. The American doping system is rotten to its core but it's Russia that gets systematic ban.

Sorry if that not relèvent. Just an interesting to me parallel to bigger issue.

[biggytitbo]

I genuinely think a good three quarters of the 'Russian threat' is invented by us as part of an information warfare campaign against both Russia and domestic enemies.

[Mr_Simnock]

I genuinely think a good three quarters of the 'Russian threat' is invented by us as part of an information warfare campaign against both Russia and domestic enemies.

I agree but think it's somewhere around 80%