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The integrity initiative

Started by biggytitbo, December 04, 2018, 02:23:34 PM

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biggytitbo

Good piece, is that you?


Duncan and the FCO, after initially feigning concern, are just going to shut up shop on this one I think. At worse they'll just move its activities somewhere else and be more careful next time. It's an interesting glimpse of them essentially contracting this work out to a third party though - similar strategy to bellingcat in that its basically an intellegence front but they want it to appear more 'authentic'.

Pepotamo1985


biggytitbo

Smearing of British citizens was one of the things that annoyed me the most, cunt Nimmo accusing all and sundry of being Russian trolls so that pensioner from Ipswich had to go on Sky News and deny he was working for Putin - this is full on McCarthyism.

Keep up the good work, hopefully we can leverage this cess pit open a bit further.

What do you make of Aaronovitch, who point blank denied he had ever even heard of II? This seems deeply improbable to me since most of his mates are connected to it in some way and they were following him.

I did notice Deborah Haynes, also named in the documents, has been rubbishing the whole story on twitter, whilst not disclosing her conflict of interest. I asked her about it here but she mysteriously didn't reply -


Zetetic

Cheers Pepotamo.

Has anyone provided an archive of the @InitIntegrity account's tweets anywhere?

(Something of a tangent - I've often thought it's a interesting, and a bit miserable, how critics of the political actions of x end up in this position of attracting the people that they do.)

Pepotamo1985

Thanks dude! And yeah I pointed this out to her too.

Quote from: biggytitbo on December 13, 2018, 06:39:20 PM
What do you make of Aaronovitch, who point blank denied he had ever even heard of II?

In the Integrity Initiative's damage limitation statement after the leak, they state

QuoteMany of the names published were on an internal list of experts in this field who'd been considered potential invitees to future cooperation.In the event, many were never contacted by the Integrity Initiative and did not contribute to it. Not only did these individuals have nothing to do with the programme – they may not even have heard of us

And I actually do think there may be some truth in that - he may have just been someone they intended to recruit, whose own apparent world view and activities aligned so snugly with their objectives he was considered a prime candidate. Alternatively, perhaps he IS in a WhatsApp group/loose affiliation with other hacks etc. and someone leads its activities (you do see some names constantly popping up together on Twitter to collectively attack xxx idea or person, although that doesn't necessarily imply coordination at all tbf) without them knowing. Or perhaps he's so prone to apologising for British state behaviour and posting Russophobic nonsense they figured they didn't need to involve him at all, and was a reliable propagandist without direction.

biggytitbo

Yes I did think Aaronovitch is such an empire bitch he'd do all this stuff of his own accord. That said, It would hardly be surprising if he has 'contacts'.

biggytitbo

Ha just watching Alan Duncan and Emily Thornberry in the house and he gets absolutely apoplectic when she challenges him about this. How odd.

ZoyzaSorris


BlodwynPig


Pingers

When Labour activist Marc Wadsworth accused MP Ruth Smeeth of working hand in hand with the Daily Telegraph to attack Corbyn, an accusation he was expelled for making as Smeeth is Jewish and this was seen as a racist stereotype of Jews controlling the media, does anyone know if he named a specific journalist? If so, it would be interesting to know if they are part of the UK 'cluster'.

Pepotamo1985

Quote from: ZoyzaSorris on December 13, 2018, 08:11:03 PM
Amazing work Peps. Big things.

Thank you so much dude. I'm actually really a bit worried.

Hank Venture

Good work, Pep. And a killer name for an investigative journalist!

Jakey Chesterton

Yes, thanks Pep.

Has there been any coverage/reaction in Spain regarding the the thing with the minister there?

manticore

Quote from: Pingers on December 13, 2018, 08:50:42 PM
When Labour activist Marc Wadsworth accused MP Ruth Smeeth of working hand in hand with the Daily Telegraph to attack Corbyn, an accusation he was expelled for making as Smeeth is Jewish and this was seen as a racist stereotype of Jews controlling the media, does anyone know if he named a specific journalist? If so, it would be interesting to know if they are part of the UK 'cluster'.

He didn't name her, but it seems he was referring to Kate McCann, who as far as I can see isn't known to be part of the UK 'cluster'.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/95602/excl-corbyn-ally-chris-williamson-under-fire-after

Pepotamo1985

Quote from: Jakey Chesterton on December 14, 2018, 12:36:16 AM
Has there been any coverage/reaction in Spain regarding the the thing with the minister there?

Not that I'm aware of but this may change very soon. The lack of media coverage on this has been absolutely incredible, with reports typically small and leading with government/initiative claims the hack was Russian and part of a Kremlin information war campaign, which even if true on either count seems to be point missing on a massive scale. The source of the documents and the intention of whoever published them seem pretty immaterial, particularly given they set out in some detail how British taxpayers are unknowingly funding a highly secretive disinformation and destabilisation outfit designed to discredit individuals, groups and movements opposed to militarism and other fundamental parts of the UK's imperial agenda not merely in Britain but a great many other countries.

In any event I have strong reasons for thinking such suggestions aren't true, some of which I won't go into, but it's important to note while the 'Russian' media were the first outlets to publicise the documents, this says more about the mainstream media than RT or Sputnik - they'd been available for literally weeks by the time we got round to publishing stories about them. And the totally not propaganda BBC's first story on the subject used the phrase 'Russia Hack' in the headline, but acknowledged it was Anonymous in the first paragraph.

It's interesting that a lot of discussion among mainstream hacks on twitter about the docs is centered on these non-issues and highly condemnatory of Thornberry for invoking RT reporting in her fiery speeches on the subject, despite her toeing the 'KREMLIN CARRY OUT INFORMATION ATTACKS ON US ALL THE TIME ARGH' line very clearly and carefully.

When I was writing an article on the media the other day I came across City Uni research which found journalists overwhelmingly have far higher trust in the police, politicians, lawyers, spooks, courts etc than the general public, which seems amazing to me. My time spent in the mainstream media was enough to convince me never to trust anything any of those cunts say ever, unless the evidence supporting it is incontrovertible.

biggytitbo

Yes there is nothing remotely sinister about rt and sputnik been first to report this, I've been following it since day one and it was a collection of British journalists, presenters and academics who either work for rt and sputnik or follow them who picked up on this. What it represents is the usual shameful failure of the British media to ever move beyond the official establishment narrative when it comes to matters like this. There would be no need for rt if the British media wasn't such a stifling monoculture with no genuine diversity of opinion at all. The usual kremlin disinformation line is becoming an increasingly shop worn response to cover up there own utter uselessness.

biggytitbo

I see that international conman bill browder is also named in the integrity documents, and not content with getting western governments to turn his personal vendettas into new cold war foreign policy, is now lobbying to get advertisers to boycott RT, with loads of the usual empire journalists amplifying him. The same people are now spinning RT's quite legitimate objection to this as 'a sickening attack by Putin front on UK journalists'.


It really is a pathetic shit show.

BlodwynPig

Pepotamo, you are doing good things - taking our frothing, gut instinct, reactionary wittering and providing calm, reasoned and thoughtful writings on the subject.

Pepotamo1985

OK, how's this for a conspiracy theory?

I see two of Integrity Initiative's Spanish cluster members - and an El Pais journo - gave evidence to parliament's 'fake news' committee in December 2017 and claimed Julian Assange was intimately involved in a Russian influence campaign in relation to the Catalan referendum of 2017, allegations which contributed to Assange's internet access being cut off at the Embassy.

Analysis of their testimony -http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/disinformation-and-fake-news/written/80989.pdf - by a data expert identified numerous instances of "misinterpretation of data sources, inaccurate information, poor of attention to detail, and inherently flawed research methodology", and concluded their allegations were "exceptionally misleading".



Jakey Chesterton

Quote from: Pepotamo1985 on December 14, 2018, 02:15:23 PM
OK, how's this for a conspiracy theory?

I see two of Integrity Initiative's Spanish cluster members - and an El Pais journo - gave evidence to parliament's 'fake news' committee in December 2017 and claimed Julian Assange was intimately involved in a Russian influence campaign in relation to the Catalan referendum of 2017, allegations which contributed to Assange's internet access being cut off at the Embassy.

Analysis of their testimony -http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/disinformation-and-fake-news/written/80989.pdf - by a data expert identified numerous instances of "misinterpretation of data sources, inaccurate information, poor of attention to detail, and inherently flawed research methodology", and concluded their allegations were "exceptionally misleading".

Doesn't seem to directly mention it in that testimony, but the article it refers to by the El Pais journalist quotes the Integrity Initiative at length:

https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/11/12/inenglish/1510478803_472085.html

biggytitbo

Quote from: Pepotamo1985 on December 14, 2018, 02:15:23 PM
OK, how's this for a conspiracy theory?

I see two of Integrity Initiative's Spanish cluster members - and an El Pais journo - gave evidence to parliament's 'fake news' committee in December 2017 and claimed Julian Assange was intimately involved in a Russian influence campaign in relation to the Catalan referendum of 2017, allegations which contributed to Assange's internet access being cut off at the Embassy.

Analysis of their testimony -http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/disinformation-and-fake-news/written/80989.pdf - by a data expert identified numerous instances of "misinterpretation of data sources, inaccurate information, poor of attention to detail, and inherently flawed research methodology", and concluded their allegations were "exceptionally misleading".


MSM journalists can literally say anything about Assange and not only get away with it scott free, because he's locked in a toilet, but receive riches and promotion. The recent Luke Harding bombshell is undoubtedly fake news, and since it dropped both him and the Guardian have just ignored all attempts to get them to clarify or even defend their story. Nobody cares, nothing is done, no committees in parliament are set up. For empire journalists there are no consequences for lying, only reward.

biggytitbo

Man who finds out about the horrors of British foreign policy on Russia today does mad thing, and this is the fault of Russia today


Paul Calf

Yeah, that's The Daily Mail. It's a bit of a desolate pass we've come to when we're getting outraged by Mail headlines.

biggytitbo


Pepotamo1985

https://www.cyberguerrilla.org/blog/operation-integrity-initiative-british-informational-war-against-all-part-3/

New docs are insane but I'm trying to remain cautious, ensure there isn't any disinfo in there designed to discredit anyone publishing them. But they seem pretty legit, and highly radioactive. Pablo miller allegedly attended a meeting with the White Helmets arranged by the Institute. Just wow.

biggytitbo

Tons of stuff on Skripal, malicious wikipedia editing, offensive disinfo operations, and 'activity' in multiple EU countries. This is rapidly becoming one of the biggest scandals ever ignored by the mainstream media.

Hank Venture

The White Helmets stuff is incredibly shady in its own right. If it's tied into II, wow...

biggytitbo

We already know the White Helmets is a joint US/UK logistics and propaganda cover for the jihadi terrorists we are sponsoring in Syria. Even a cursory look at the II's social media feeds will show you that one of their most zealous, recurring obsessions is to amplify mainstream media support for the white helmets and Syria regime change operations (largely from the same collection of II linked journalists that keep cropping up again and again).


This is all connected, the whole reason anti-Russian information warfare has escalated to such an extreme level is because of Syria - they stepped in and stopped our regime change operation dead in its tracks and the empire is absolutely FURIOUS about it. II, Skripal and all the rest of the bullshit is a direct consequence of Syria, it is patient zero in this whole dizzying saga.

Twit 2

I wonder if Private Eye will pick any of this up?


Pingers

Quote from: biggytitbo on December 14, 2018, 09:24:21 PM
We already know the White Helmets is a joint US/UK logistics and propaganda cover for the jihadi terrorists we are sponsoring in Syria. Even a cursory look at the II's social media feeds will show you that one of their most zealous, recurring obsessions is to amplify mainstream media support for the white helmets and Syria regime change operations (largely from the same collection of II linked journalists that keep cropping up again and again).


This is all connected, the whole reason anti-Russian information warfare has escalated to such an extreme level is because of Syria - they stepped in and stopped our regime change operation dead in its tracks and the empire is absolutely FURIOUS about it. II, Skripal and all the rest of the bullshit is a direct consequence of Syria, it is patient zero in this whole dizzying saga.

An alternative explanation for why Russia in particular, as opposed to China for example, is being targeted in this way: pretty much all national governments try to ensure that the profits accruing from the exploitation of global labour flow to people living in their jurisdictions. China attempts to gain dominance through trade, and while that's a threat to European capitalists it also presents opportunities to them, so this is seen as tolerable and within the rules of the game. Russia on the other hand, while it does well out of trade in gas, is a much weaker economy, particularly in the context of many economies trying to de-carbonise. And so they try to gain influence in very different ways, through cyber-warfare, espionage and disruption. Therefore, European governments retaliate in kind, while trying to pretend they don't.