Propaganda 101 - Redux

b.c.

Worshipped Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Posts
20,540
Media
0
Likes
21,779
Points
468
Location
at home
Verification
View
Gender
Male
Meet the Propagandists and Conspiracy Theorists Behind the One America News Network – Mother Jones Trump has taken a shine to the far-right channel’s fictional pro-Trump reports.

GettyImages.jpg

Over the last several weeks, Trump has repeatedly promoted the conspiracy-mongering One American News Network on his Twitter feed and by regularly calling on its correspondent at White House news events.

On Tuesday morning, he did so again by tweeting an unsubstantiated conspiracy that has been pushed by the network, citing its reporting to claim that a 75-year-old man who was knocked over and bloodied by Buffalo police while taking part in a protest after the death of George Floyd may have been “an ANTIFA provocateur” working to disrupt police communications.

Trump has helped OAN gain outsized reach and reputation by endorsing its outrageous reporting and by his multiple assertions that he might prefer the network to Fox News. The channel’s willingness to do stories without a factual basis seems to know no bounds, as long as they make the left look bad and the right, particularly Trumpism, look great. The channel amplifies hoaxes that, before, were usually sitting on the margins of the internet.

OAN’s willingness to amplify the false and absurd probably comes from its personnel. It’s established a team of on-air personalities who, without the network’s platform, would be hard pressed to do much beyond being tinfoil hat-wearing, internet shit posters. Here’s a look at some of the wildest members of their organization:

The Cream of the Crap

  • Kristian Rouz
Rouz went viral last month in the midst of the coronavirus crisis after Media Matters’ Matt Gertz happened to see a segment he created claiming “mounting evidence of a globalist conspiracy” by the Clintons, Soros, Bill Gates, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the Chinese government, citing a comically high amount of unnamed “reports.” (To be 100 percent clear, no reports indicate this.)

In 2017, Rouz made up a claim about how Clinton was secretly funding antifa through her political action committee. In another, he repeated the debunked claim that Soros collaborated with Nazis during World War II, when he would have been in his early teens.

Rouz didn’t just come out of nowhere with viral megahits. He’s been practicing in a well known conspiratorial training ground: Russian propaganda state media. As of 2019, The Daily Beast pointed out that Rouz has been working simultaneously for both OAN and for the Russian state media outlet, Sputnik.
  • Jack Posobiec
Posobiec may be the channel’s flagship disinformer. The OAN host is notorious for being one of the most prominent pushers of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory....

I once witnessed him dash around the lawn of the Capitol telling Democratic Senators that supporting net neutrality would mean that they were supporting Satanic porn.

Some of his most repugnant hits include trying to plant “Rape Melania” signs at an anti-Trump rally, falsely tweeting that Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch had called for “blood in the streets...

None of rose to Pizzagate levels of fame, but not for lack effort on Posobiec’s part. He has also tweeted in support of a white nationalist conspiracy which holds that immigration and other trends are part of a secret plot to commit white genocide.
  • Chanel Rion
Rion, who is the channel’s White House reporter, may be supplanting Posobiec as OAN’s most well-known staff member due to Trump’s recent habit of calling on her during new conferences, where she can be relied upon to ask questions whose thrust is either helpful [Trump] or damaging to his opponents.

Another unhinged conspiracy theorist, she has peddled theories including Pizzagate, that the Clinton’s were responsible for Seth Rich’s murder, anti-semitic tropes about liberal financier George Soros, and conspiracies about Joe Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.

Rion’s bio boasts that before she came to OAN, she worked as a volunteer on Trump’s 2016 campaign and spent time “producing illustrations for ... Trump and family.”

["illustrations..." riiiiight. Take a look at her sick s------- for a snapshot of THAT psycho]


  • Robert Herring Sr.
Robert Herring Sr. founded OAN in 2013. On Twitter, Herring boosts his own suspect theories (he’s been really into hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure, which doctors are not yet confident in). According to the Washington Post, Herring banned polls that didn’t show Trump in first place during his last election.
.
Sounds like an ensemble of OUTSTANDING human beings... ahem. The article went on to list more of their reich-winged quacks involved in the production horse shit in the guise of journalism.

.
 
Last edited:

b.c.

Worshipped Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Posts
20,540
Media
0
Likes
21,779
Points
468
Location
at home
Verification
View
Gender
Male
Whenever I bring up right winged disinformation campaigns, propaganda, and deliberate disruption and infiltration of media outlets there are always a few who try to make it about them... like it's some kind of personal attack.

Fact is, I've been bringing this subject to this forum, in several iterations of threads like this, and for quite some time because the continuous right winged and foreign involved efforts at infiltration, lies, disinformation, and propaganda have LONG been a tool of the right and their crony associates.

Take for instance James O'Keefe, a character of ill repute who I've discussed many times before. Well, he's still around and still up to NO GOOD. From a DailyKos article I saved three months ago:

Trumpublican operatives infiltrated liberal groups to subvert campaigns since 2016

Okeefe.jpg

James O'Keefe - Wikipedia

The NY Times has a new article describing the dirty trick campaigns in this election cycle designed to subvert Democratic party supporters. The Erik Prince training of Project Veritas stooges seem to have become operational with numerous moles infiltrating liberal organizations. These are likely only the tip of the intelligence operations mimicking the success of 2016 data theft and disinformation activity.

Losing the services of Roger Stone to the justice system, our orange IMPOTUS* ... has always had fellow insurgent travelers, whether west of the Urals or his fellow Trumpublicans.

This time James O’Keefe and his minions were trained by Erik Prince of formerly Xe/Academi/Blackwater et al.

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation.

Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her.

Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations...

Mr. Prince appears to have become interested in using former spies to train Project Veritas operatives in espionage tactics sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign.

.
 

b.c.

Worshipped Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Posts
20,540
Media
0
Likes
21,779
Points
468
Location
at home
Verification
View
Gender
Male
MEANWHILE, from another story dated January 2020:

Far-Right Trolls Creating Fake Accounts, Posing as Jewish Users

After a string of recent anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S., far-right trolls are creating fake Twitter accounts to try and divide the Black and Jewish communities.

People who belong to the communities are calling for users to report and block fake accounts.

“These fake accounts are on a mission to do some serious damage between Black and Jewish communities. Feeding on a whiff of tension,” Lara ‘Challah, who is Black and Jewish, tweeted.

In her tweet, Challah included a screenshot of a tweet by a user dubbed “Elaine Goldschmidt.”

“As a fellow Jew who was frightened by the string of anti-Semitic attacks, I am frightened” the account tweeted. “[N-words] were supposed to be on our side. Now we have lost control of them.”

According to Haaretz, “Goldschmidt’s” tweet is the “most prominent and widely circulated” one from a fake Jewish account.


AND then there is the never ending demonization of George Soros:

'Dripping with poison of antisemitism': the demonization of George Soros | US news | The Guardian
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...nspiracy-finkelstein-birnbaum-orban-netanyahu
The Plot Against George Soros

Right-Wing Conspiracists Pull From Old Playbook: Blame George Soros For Riots


As Minnesota officials blamed violent protests on organized groups from out of state, far-right commentators on Twitter increasingly began blaming billionaire George Soros for playing a shadowy role behind the riots taking place in cities across the country—employing an old conspiracy theory based on false information and anti-semitic tropes.

... many right-wing conservatives have begun to resurrect an old conspiracy theory about billionaire George Soros—who is a major donor to liberal and progressive causes—to make unsubstantiated claims that he is the mastermind behind organizing protests and riots.

 

b.c.

Worshipped Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Posts
20,540
Media
0
Likes
21,779
Points
468
Location
at home
Verification
View
Gender
Male
‘Antifa bus’ hoaxes are spreading panic through small-town America - The Verge Misinformation leads to suspicion and even police action

Mythical buses full of bloodthirsty antifa protestors are causing panic in rural counties throughout the country — even though there’s no evidence they exist.

The Associated Press has catalogued at least five separate rural counties where locals have warned of imminent attacks, although none of the rumors have been substantiated. Notably, the rumors are often tailored to a specific local region, a “hyperlocal” approach sometime used to boost the spread of misinformation on social media platforms.

NBC News first reported on the recent surge of antifa-related misinformation, some of which was promoted by white nationalist groups posing as antifa accounts. But even after the rumors were debunked, they continue to spread on Facebook, often inspiring real-life confrontations and instances of violence.

In Forks, Washington, a multi-racial family of four was harassed by armed locals, who believed they represented an antifa incursion. The family had arrived in town on a camping trip, traveling in a full-sized school bus. Local police say they were confronted by “seven or eight carloads” of people, who aggressively questioned them about their antifa connections. When the family attempted to drive off, locals felled trees across the roadway to prevent them from escaping. They were only able to leave after a group of students intervened.

In other cases, everyday bus charter businesses have been pulled into the confusion, treated as presumed troop convoys until proven otherwise. On Wednesday, an Idaho fleet services business was targeted by a minor panic, after a debunked rumor claimed incoming agitators were targeting the state. One local posted a picture of his bus on Facebook as evidence of the antifa incursion, claiming “this bus was full of them.”

meanwhile:

Alt-Right Trolls Are Trying to Sabotage Black Lives Matter Chatrooms – Mother Jones
https://www.nbc12.com/2020/05/31/officials-see-extremist-groups-disinformation-protests/
.https://www.nbc12.com/2020/05/31/officials-see-extremist-groups-disinformation-protests/
 

b.c.

Worshipped Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Posts
20,540
Media
0
Likes
21,779
Points
468
Location
at home
Verification
View
Gender
Male
Propaganda 101: They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

propaganda.jpg


Trump's reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americans’ understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings.

Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup.

That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.

The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about [Trump's] conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video—served up by the Trump campaign—that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?

As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.

I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I’d assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline.

It wasn’t that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself—about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else—felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world.

Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Stories of Russian troll farms and Macedonian fake-news mills loomed in the national imagination.

But while these shadowy outside forces preoccupied politicians and journalists, Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world’s demagogues and strongmen in power.

In conversations with political strategists and other experts, a dystopian picture of the general election comes into view—one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fearmongering, and anonymous mass texting. Both parties will have these tools at their disposal. But in the hands of a [person] who lies constantly, who traffics in conspiracy theories, and who readily manipulates the levers of government for his own gain, their potential to wreak havoc is enormous.

The Trump campaign is planning to spend more than $1 billion, and it will be aided by a vast coalition of partisan media, outside political groups, and enterprising freelance operatives. These pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history.

Whether or not it succeeds in reelecting [him], the wreckage it leaves behind could be irreparable.

 

b.c.

Worshipped Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Posts
20,540
Media
0
Likes
21,779
Points
468
Location
at home
Verification
View
Gender
Male
Fox News Used Digitally Altered Photos in Coverage of Seattle Protests and ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’

Fox News has repeatedly published digitally altered photographs as part of a series of stories about protests on Seattle’s Capitol Hill that aired June 12.

“Fox’s site had no disclaimers revealing the photos had been manipulated. The network removed the images after inquiries from The Seattle Times,” The Times reported June 12.

The photos are purported to be taken inside Seattle’s so-called “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” a six-block radius in downtown Seattle that is now outside police control. The area was established May 25 after Mayor Jenny Durkan ordered Seattle police to abandon their East Precinct station during protests against the May 25 killing of George Floyd. Seattle residents have nicknamed the reclaimed police station the “Seattle People Station.”

One of the altered images used by Fox News shows a civilian standing outside a demolished storefront with a military assault rifle. The Seattle Times reports the image is not one photograph but a “mashup” of several photos from different days and different photographers — created by layering images from riots in downtown Seattle on May 30 under a Getty Images photo of a man with a gun. Fox News also published an alternate version of this image, where the armed man appeared to stand in front of a sign that said, “You are now entering Free Cap Hill.”

Fox removed the images, telling the Times “we have replaced our photo illustration with the clearly delineated images of a gunman and a shattered storefront, both of which were taken this week in Seattle’s autonomous zone.”

However, according to the Times, that statement and the new photos are also misleading. The gunman photo is from June 10, but the storefront image it has been combined with is a Getty Images photo dated May 30, the paper said.

Fox also used images from protests in other states in its coverage of the Seattle unrest. The network published an image of burning streets in St. Paul, Minnesota as part of its package on Seattle May 30, along with the headline “CRAZY TOWN.” Fox has since also removed that image.

Fox News is making up images because they can't stand the fact that Seattle is not in chaos
 
D

deleted15807

Guest
Fox News Used Digitally Altered Photos in Coverage of Seattle Protests and ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’

Fox News has repeatedly published digitally altered photographs as part of a series of stories about protests on Seattle’s Capitol Hill that aired June 12.

“Fox’s site had no disclaimers revealing the photos had been manipulated. The network removed the images after inquiries from The Seattle Times,” The Times reported June 12.

The photos are purported to be taken inside Seattle’s so-called “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” a six-block radius in downtown Seattle that is now outside police control. The area was established May 25 after Mayor Jenny Durkan ordered Seattle police to abandon their East Precinct station during protests against the May 25 killing of George Floyd. Seattle residents have nicknamed the reclaimed police station the “Seattle People Station.”

One of the altered images used by Fox News shows a civilian standing outside a demolished storefront with a military assault rifle. The Seattle Times reports the image is not one photograph but a “mashup” of several photos from different days and different photographers — created by layering images from riots in downtown Seattle on May 30 under a Getty Images photo of a man with a gun. Fox News also published an alternate version of this image, where the armed man appeared to stand in front of a sign that said, “You are now entering Free Cap Hill.”

Fox removed the images, telling the Times “we have replaced our photo illustration with the clearly delineated images of a gunman and a shattered storefront, both of which were taken this week in Seattle’s autonomous zone.”

However, according to the Times, that statement and the new photos are also misleading. The gunman photo is from June 10, but the storefront image it has been combined with is a Getty Images photo dated May 30, the paper said.

Fox also used images from protests in other states in its coverage of the Seattle unrest. The network published an image of burning streets in St. Paul, Minnesota as part of its package on Seattle May 30, along with the headline “CRAZY TOWN.” Fox has since also removed that image.

Fox News is making up images because they can't stand the fact that Seattle is not in chaos

America will never recover from Fox, Russia, Trump and Moscow Mitch. Ever.