The Misinformation Virus was a 35 minute BBC Sound production released on the 17th December 2019. Narrated by BBC science journalist Angela Saini, it called for regulation of the internet to tackle the terrible danger of online misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation means false information spread without the intent to deceive. Disinformation suggests the deliberate intent to mislead. Ironically “the Misinformation Virus” was disinformation.
The objective of “the Misinformation Virus” was to convince you, unless you get your information from “officially approved” sources, everything you are told online is a lie. Only the State, the mainstream media (MSM) and the scientific orthodoxy tell the truth. Everyone else is working to a dark agenda, trying to destroy our democracy.
According to the BBC, you are just too stupid to differentiate between fact and fiction. You are also incapable of checking the evidence yourself. Therefore, all information must be controlled and regulated by the State. If not democracy is doomed, apparently.
The BBC Propaganda Machine In Full Flow
So off Angela trotted on 35 minutes of unadulterated propaganda, during which the self contradictory statements, unevidenced assumptions and false claims piled up so fast it was difficult to keep track. Take, for example, her opening statement:
“At the birth of the Internet a dream was born, that all the information of the world would be at our fingertips. What’s more, thanks to social media, every person with an internet connections would also have a voice.”
Angela concluded her opening:
“Well, that was the dream. The reality has turned out a little different….In this program I’ll be exploring why the online dream is turning into a nightmare. One in which the very architecture of the web is feeding the problem.”
The BBC had no intention of “exploring” anything. Preferring instead to spin a yarn based on nothing. The Misinformation Virus began with a lie by omission.
Tim Berners Lee invented the http protocol in 1989, enabling machine to machine communication in a World Wide Web. However, the first TCP/IP packet switching network (the architecture of the internet) was ARPANET, created in 1983, after decades of development, by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of U.S. Department of Defense (now DARPA). Thereafter the Internet, as we know it today, was developed with seed money from the defence and intelligence agencies.
When Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote their seminal paper The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine they were working at Stanford University on a project part funded by Stanford Digital Libraries Project whose backers included DARPA, NASA and the FBI. The intelligence agencies, primarily the CIA and NSA, were also funding private computer science contractors to develop a way to monitor and manipulate human behaviour en masse through their Massive Digital Data System project (MDDS.)
The surveillance system the Intelligence Community (IC) wanted to develop was a collaboration between themselves and the big data technology firms. Many companies, including Google, received MDDS support.
The internet was never the people’s dream, it was the dream of the IC and their multinational corporate partners. Their dream was a global surveillance grid, which is precisely what the internet is. In order for us to enthusiastically adopt it, we were first persuaded to believe that the free and open sharing of information was possible.
The other dream, which was always a nightmare for the State and its IC, was of ordinary people having “a voice.” The “nightmare” unleashed was the State’s temporary loss of narrative control.
This brief loss of information control was the price the State was willing to pay in order to roll out its surveillance grid. Now it is in place, the guarded freedoms it momentarily afforded can be safely removed. Leaving the State in full command of the surveillance grid while ensuring dissenting voices are marginalised and returned to obscurity.
From the UK’s proposed Online Harms legislation to the EU’s Copyright Directive, from Russia’s raft of online “disrespect” laws to India’s complete shutdown of the internet in Kashmir, governments around the world are in a censorship arms race. The ability for people to “have a voice” is now being taken away. So the propagandists current task is to convince you to accept this. Which presumably is why BBC created the Misinformation Virus.
The Misinformation Virus openly advocates State regulation of the internet to protect democracy. According to the BBC, if there’s one thing guaranteed to destroy “democracy” it’s diversity of opinion.
The Misinformation Virus Quagmire
As we trawl through the quagmire of the “The Misinformation Virus” the irony of its title becomes evident. Virtually nothing in it is true.
After some wild speculation about white supremacists misusing science to substantiate their arguments, no evidence offered, about 3 minutes in Angela declares:
“Nothing illustrates the danger of misinformation quite as starkly as the controversy around vaccination……Most recently was in 1998 when Dr. Andrew Wakefield wrongly linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. Although retracted and comprehensively debunked, online it has a life of its own.”
The media evisceration of Dr. Andrew Wakefield was perhaps one of the most obscene examples of corporate and media corruption ever witnessed in the UK. Angela’s claim that Wakefield “linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism” is not true. I invite you read the paper in question.
You will quite clearly note the following:
“We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue……..Further investigations are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine.”
Wakefield categorically stated there was no proven link between MMR and Autism. A fact totally overlooked by everyone who falsely claims otherwise. All he said was, due to the evidence found in the study, further investigation was required.
Given that most of the Autistic children in the study developed symptoms shortly after receiving the MMR vaccination, the possibility existed. Further research was warranted. That was all. The only people who claimed a link between MMR and autism were the MSM, most notably the BBC.
Despite Angela’s claims that the study has been comprehensively debunked, as a matter of fact, that too is wrong. The study findings have been corroborated. The study was looking at gastro intestinal inflammation and a possible link to autism. U.S researchers recognised that bowel inflammation was possibly associated with children who went on to develop Autism and the American Society for Microbiology , among many others, found:
“Many children with autism have gastrointestinal (GI) disturbances that can complicate clinical management and contribute to behavioral problems…..Here we describe an association between high levels of intestinal, mucoepithelial-associated Sutterella species and GI disturbances in children with autism.”
In the media driven alarmism that followed release of the study, Wakefield advised that children be offered monovalent (single) vaccine alternatives. While he continued to encourage parents to vaccinate their children, he raised concerns about the safety evaluation of MMR. With good reason. The previous MMR vaccine Pluserix was withdrawn from the UK in 1992 after it was found it could cause aseptic meningitis. Furthermore, his post study comments were also corroborated by the leading systemic scientific review journal the Cochrane Review who stated:
“The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre‐ and post‐marketing, are largely inadequate. The evidence of adverse events following immunisation with the MMR vaccine cannot be separated from its role in preventing the target diseases.”
More than a decade after publishing the paper, once Wakefield had been struck off, the Lancet withdrew it. Up to that point there had been no scientific reason to remove it from the medical archives. Though made controversial by the MSM, the science was sound. The decision to withdraw it was political, not scientific. However, Angela either doesn’t know, or doesn’t want you to know, that the study itself was effectively exonerated by the High Court.
The clinical director of the study was Prof. Walker Smith (not Andrew Wakefield). He appealed the GMC decision to strip him of his license for his part in the Lancet study. Sir John Edward Mitting ruled the GMC’s decision demonstrated “inadequate and superficial reasoning,” they reached the “wrong conclusions” and added:
“The panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it.”
By finding Prof. Walker Smith innocent of any scientific fraud or medical malpractice, no scientific justification remained for the study’s withdrawal. We must ask why the BBC’s science journalist, researchers and their editorial team didn’t think this information was relevant?
The Real Misinformation Virus Revealed
The intent of the Misinformation Virus becomes more apparent with the comments of Prof. Heidi Larson from the Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP). The VCP are funded by vaccine manufacturers Glaxo Smith Kline and Merck, who make the MMR vaccines. Prof. Larson is also paid by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries & Associations (EFPIA). It is Europe’s largest industrial trade organisation and an incredibly powerful lobby group for the pharmaceutical industry. Heidi tells us:
“When the Wakefieled paper was published in 1998, people forget [that] was the same year that Google opened their doors. That was followed by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. If that paper had come out ten years before, I think we would be in a very different place.”
Perhaps Larson doesn’t know that it was the BBC (and other MSM organisation) who falsely reported the paper’s findings. Rather than blame those responsible for spreading misinformation, she insists you imagine the internet itself was the reason.
Angela and the team at the BBC do not think it is necessary for you to know that the “expert,” telling you all about online misinformation, takes her coin from the corporations whose profits are dependent upon you “believing” in their product. This massive conflict of financial interest is of no importance whatsoever for the BBC, and you certainly shouldn’t know anything about it.
Prof. Larson is really keen for you to accept two falsehoods. Firstly, that the so called Wakefield paper alleged a link between MMR and Autism and secondly that people only noticed because of the internet. To reiterate, the first people to misinform the public, both about the contents of the paper and its implications, were the MSM. The internet had absolutely nothing to do with it. However, the BBC aren’t interested in facts. It’s the message that counts. Angela goes on.
“Mistakes on the internet can have a remarkably long life. The virus of misinformation, once released on the Web, is impossible to contain.”
This is what the Misinformation Virus wants its listeners to believe. It is the core propaganda message. Yet, at this juncture, all the misinformation under discussion has come from the BBC’s “Misinformation Virus.”
They’ve misinformed listeners about the Wakefield study and omitted to report who first misled the public. They’ve deceived their audience, by ommission, about who their experts work for and are about to proceed upon a 30 minute litany of misinformation, so appalling, we must consider if it is disinformation.
The Misinformation Virus Contagion
We next here from Dr. Martin. Another “expert” who works for Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck and other pharmaceutical corporation, via the VCP. She uses software to model how “negative messages” about vaccines are shared globally. This is all completely subjective, isn’t remotely scientific and assumes that anything questioning any aspect of any vaccine is “negative.” Dr. Martin considers this to be an “emotional contagion.”
Now were getting to the nub of the BBC’s “Misinformation Virus.” Based upon her faith in some computer graphics shown to her by a representative of the pharmaceutical industry, Angela then alleges that ‘incredibly’ (quite) Russia (of course) is behind it all. According to Angela and the BBC, the Russian’s endgame is to “sow social disorder.” Dr. Martin adds:
“Russian bots are automated social media accounts that periodically post polarising messages across all social media platforms.”
There is not a scrap of evidence to back up this claim of a widespread Russian, automated disinformation campaign. Nor is there any evidence that, if such an operation existed, it would work. The notion that people believe everything they read online, that it drives their electoral or health choices is unsubstantiated, speculative drivel. It is just banally stated as fact, by the BBC, without any evidence. A theme which continues throughout the Misinformation Virus.
To illustrate how absurd their whole “Russian bot” theory is, Dr. Martin then claims that the hashtags #vaxxed #learntherisk and #informedconsent are somehow the product of a Russian troll farm. I challenge the BBC to provide some evidence to back this statement up. Because the Misinformation Virus provides none.
Vaxxed, for example, as stated by the BBC, was a hashtag used to promote a documentary unsurprisingly called Vaxxed. It revealed quite compelling evidence of regulatory malfeasance within the CDC. Millions of people have seen it and, because it is so good, they’ve shared it and discussed it online. Vaxxed was not made by Russian agents and the associated hashtag has been shared by human beings, not ‘bots.’
Rather than discuss the Vaxxed evidence, the BBC importuned listeners to accept it as dangerous disinformation. Based upon the counter claims of the vaccine manufacturers, the people who make money selling vaccines, including the CDC who hold vaccine patents, the BBC have decided the “science is settled” and all vaccines are all perfectly brilliant. Because the likes of Merck said so.
To date the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in the U.S has paid out more than $4.8 billion in compensation to people who have been injured by vaccines. Similar Vaccine Injury Compensation Programs (VICP’s), around the developed world, have also paid out large sums in reparations. Given this fact, to assert there is no reason to ever question any aspect of vaccines is quite obviously risible dross. Not only is the premise flawed, the BBC are manipulating you to believe that anyone who discusses the reality on the internet is a Russian disinformation agent.
Misinformation Virus and Logical Insanity
Next the BBC take comment from Damian Collins, Chair of the UK’s Digital Culture Media and Sport Committee, who published their comical, though alarming, “Fake News” Report in February 2019. Collins considers anything which questions vaccines to be a “conspiracy theory.” A label used to automatically discredit anyone who highlights evidence the State doesn’t approve of.
This technique, of applying the conspiracy theorist label to illegitimately discredit whatever someone says, without discussing the evidence, was first devised in 1967 by the CIA. To date this logical insanity has been very successful. Which is why people like Damian Collins and others use it. The most important message, from their perspective, is that you do not, under any circumstances, look at the evidence highlighted by ‘da conspiracy theorists.’ This is crucial for them.
The Committee chaired by Collins insisted that Russian disinformation was everywhere. They decided the best way to evidence this was by completely ignoring their own witness testimonies. Reporting government statements, they noted:
“[The UK government] has not seen evidence of successful use of disinformation by foreign actors, including Russia, to influence UK democratic processes……We have seen nothing that persuades us that Russian interference has had a material impact on the way in which people choose to vote in elections.”
Yet, from this, the Committee concluded:
“The Government also cannot state definitively that there was no evidence of successful interference”
That’s right, as far as Dominic Collins and his committee colleagues were concerned, no evidence is proof that evidence of Russian ‘hacking’ must exist. They don’t know what it might be, mainly because there isn’t any, but are certain it’s out there. Determined to prove Russian election hacking is real, the Committee cited NATO’s DFRLabs report as evidence of the non existent evidence. Which was, in part, accurate because DFRLab’s produced a report which didn’t have any evidence in it either.
A perfect fit for the BBC’s Misinformation Virus.
The Misinformation Virus Descends Into Farce
Angela then plays out a scenario, devised by social psychologist Dr. Sander L. van der Linden which ‘models’ how ‘misinformation’ can be spread “in the same way Russian bots” achieve it. For Dr Linden, misinformation is everything and anything that challenges State or corporate narratives. He too believes this is a virus, although obviously it isn’t, and intends to “inoculate” people against wrongthink. Sadly, as she embarks upon the fantasy game, Angela says:
“I really want to try this now. I want to see if this works, because I like to think of myself as quite sceptical and rational.”
She plays a computer game, based upon nothing but assumption about what does or does not constitute “disinformation”. It is set in a mythical country, using a ‘modeled’ social media network with AI bots acting as the networks users. Reporting her experience, Angela states:
“So we’re off and I’m sowing discontent across the mythical community of Philamasca, and I’ve chosen to do it about health……The game carries on like this for a while. I keep playing, sowing mistrust, generating smarter lies and watching fear develop within the group. I’m winning, I’m behaving like a Russian bot and it’s remarkably easy.”
Having played the made up computer game, interacting with fictitious NPC’s in an artificial world using an imagined social media network, without a shred of irony, the sceptical and rational Angela opines:
“It’s proof that we are all susceptible to misinformation.”
This statement is farcical. Angela’s game playing proves nothing other than some people appear to believe that computer games are facsimiles of reality. They’re not. No fallible human being programs reality.
On the evidence presented in the Misinformation Virus, Angela is very far from being sceptical. On the contrary, she wholeheartedly accepts everything she is told by the State, multinational corporations and globalist non governmental organisations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation who fund Dr. Linden’s objective ‘research.’
Speaking to CNBC at the World Economic Forum in January 2019, Bill Gates said he had invested “a bit more than $10 billion,” into vaccination programs, adding “we feel there has been a 20 to 1 return.” Yielding a $200 billion return from an initial $10 billion investment is excellent motivation to fund Dr. Linden’s work. Though, of course, access to such vast sums in no way influenced Dr. Linden. It is purely a coincidence that his research dovetailed perfectly with Bill and Melinda’s business model.
Once more, the BBC do not think you need to know this. Perhaps because it would ruin their story.
Essentially Linden’s Cognitive Inoculation theory argues that misinformation spreads because people are incapable of evaluating information and, remarkably, share information simply because they already agree with it. Which is precisely what Angela has been doing throughout the Misinformation Virus.
Linden believes that the underlying driver for sharing what he considers to be “disinformation” is a world view which questions the State. He’s is right to acknowledge that millions of people doubt the value of some aspects of the State, its corporate sponsors and the science they pay for. He is wrong to assume this is all disinformation.
The Misinformation Virus Splendid Arrogance
The most striking and consistent element of the war against disinformation is the absolute refusal to discuss the evidence highlighted by those who question “official narratives” and “accepted science.” Looking at evidence to define disinformation doesn’t usually feature in psychologists scientific research into the spread of conspiracy theories. It is science based upon their assumptions.
Linden doesn’t need to consider this evidence either. Rather, it is the questioning itself which tells him everything he needs to know. This ‘mistrust’ of authority is misguided, he concludes, and Angela agrees. They are entitled to their opinion but that is what it is, their opinion. One I find incredibly naive and historically illiterate. That’s just my opinion.
In keeping with the Cognitive Inoculation theory, Linden, Angela, the UK government and the BBC assert that their opinion is correct while all who disagree with them are wrong. They claim their belief in the unimpeachable sanctity of the representative democratic system is the only valid opinion. Everything else is misinformation, disinformation and “conspiracy theory.” They are the custodians of the truth.
Apart from opinion, the other notable difference between those who question the machinery of State and those who unquestioningly extol it, based upon the opinions expressed in the Misinformation Virus, is that most who question the State believe in free speech whereas those who don’t appear to believe in silencing it.
Angela, sceptical and rational as always, defines those who don’t completely agree with her world view as “like minded outcasts,” living in their “self contained universe.” To illustrate this point, Angela states:
“Antivaxxers, global warming deniers to flat Earthers, they’re not one type.”
No, they’re not. People who question some aspects of vaccines, and those who point towards the peer reviewed scientific papers which contradict the theory that CO2 drives climate change, have evidence to back up their opinions. Whereas flat Earther’s don’t.
I don’t know if Angela and the BBC team know this, but it’s obvious they want you to equate perfectly reasonable, evidence based scepticism with delusion. Carefully avoiding ever discussing the pertinent evidence in the process.
You are supposed to think we, in the West, live in an open and free society. Unlike China, western state’s can’t just roll out censorship and shut down freedom of speech without first deceiving us into believing it necessary. Otherwise our illusions will be shattered, and we might realise there’s no discernible difference between nominally democratic nations and some supposedly authoritarian regimes. Hence the Misinformation Virus and its mission to sell you the idea that state censorship is essential.
The Misinformation Virus Concludes With Disinformation
Thanks to the Misinformation Virus, we hear from Julia Ebner. Julia works for the globalist think tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (IDS), who are funded by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, the Open society Foundation, the British Council, the EU, the U.N, Chatham House and numerous western governments. Julia tells us why we need to accept internet regulation. She unequivocally states:
“There is a very strong connection between extremism and disinformation.”
We are then regaled with stories about how the Christchurch shootings were “caused” by an online “conspiracy theory” alleging the white race is being deliberately destroyed by multiculturalism. The internet caused this “great replacement theory” to spread, and that is the reason why 51 people were murdered in New Zealand. Julia and the IDS are certain. It is a fact. Accept it!
The BBC, and the ever sceptical and rational Angela Saini, wholeheartedly believe this monumental tripe. Despite the fact there is neither evidence nor any reasonable rationale to support a single word of this totally baseless fairy tale, the BBC strongly urge you to believe it as if it were real. However, before you swallow their nonsensical propaganda, there are a couple of points you first need to agree.
If the internet causes the extremism, which leads to terrorism, then both extremism and terrorism must have been relative rarities prior to emergence of the online world. The IRA, the Stern Gang, Ordine Nuovo, ETA and the hundreds of other terrorist groups, active before the advent of the internet, were all inconsequential. All those car bombings and mass shootings in the 20th century must have been figments of your imagination. Your memory playing tricks on you.
Similarly, you need to acknowledge that fascists and far right extremists only emerge because of Google. Hitler, Mussolini and Franco are all fictional characters. So too lone nutters, one allegedly being responsible for the Christchurch shooting, according to the official story. Prior to WhatsApp he wouldn’t have existed. Sociopaths would never take it upon themselves to kill people and commit suicide, were it not for the provocative memes they stumble across on Instagram. Their insanity is caused by Facebook posts, engineered in Russia, turning them into crazed maniacs.
Most importantly, you must ignore the fact that, outside of conflict zones, terrorism has broadly declined in the internet age. It is true that terrorism has increased considerably in troubled hot spots around the world. Invariably as a result of conflicts started by governments. Not because ISIS are addicted to Candy Crush.
Finally, you also need to accept there is an established link between seeing stuff online and committing acts of extremist violence. However, there isn’t. No such evidence exists.
Given the woeful bilge spewed out by the Misinformation Virus thus far, perhaps this comes as little surprise. In fact, the paucity of sensible research in the subject is well known.
In 2016 the U.N. Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson issued a report to the U.N. on national governments counter extremism and counter terrorism efforts. He noted the lack of any clear, agreed definition of “extremism” with different nations deciding what constitutes extremism based upon their own political perspectives. In regard to the claim that there is plausible evidence defining how people become ‘radicalised‘ he said:
“[m]any programmes directed at radicalisation [are] based on a simplistic understanding of the process as a fixed trajectory to violent extremism with identifiable markers along the way……there is no authoritative statistical data on the pathways towards individual radicalisation.”
In July 2018, this view was reinforced by a team of researchers from Deakin University in their peer reviewed article the 3 P’s of Radicalisation. The scholars collated and reviewed all the available literature they could find on the process of radicalisation leading to violent extremism. They identified three main drivers. Push, pull and personal factors.
Push factors are the structural factors that propel people towards resentment, such as state repression, relative deprivation, poverty, and injustice. Pull factors are things which make extremism seem attractive, like ideology, group belonging, group mechanisms and other incentives. Personal factors are individual character traits that make a person more, or less, susceptible to Pull or Push. These include psychological disorders, personality traits, traumatic life experiences and so on.
Julie Ebner, Angela and the BBC would have listeners believe that online “disinformation” is the Pull factor that creates terrorist. So what does the available science say about their opinion?
“We acknowledge that radicalisation, for the most part, takes place in social settings……This means that factors such as the consumption of propaganda, narratives or political grievances do not operate by themselves but rather have effect within specific social settings…..the lack of rigorous methods in the field also leaves unanswered the questions about the causal relations between the factors……There is no definitive answer to the question whether the adoption of an extreme ideology precedes engagement in violence.”
[Vergani & Barton et al. 2018]
Bluntly, Julia, Angela and the BBC were promoting pseudo scientific rubbish. Their ‘story’ about why the Christchurch attacks occurred was meaningless. They appeared to be exploiting the murder of 51 people to spin propaganda. Not the first time, the BBC have seemingly strayed onto the sick side of their own peculiar brand of moral relativism.
Had Angela, the BBC’s science journalist, read the science she would have known their claims were dross. Who knows, maybe she did? In any event she didn’t reveal it to her audience.
Anyone who suggests it is legitimate to censor the internet to counter extremism is either ignorant or deliberately misleading their target audience. This is the definition of disinformation. When the person, or organisation, spinning this falsehood has enormous resources, teams of researchers and simultaneously falsely claims their opinion is science and fact based, then it is undoubtedly pure propagandist, disinformation.
The Misinformation Virus concludes with the message it was designed to deliver from the outset. Carl Miller from the think tank DEMOS, funded by the Open Society Foundation among others, tells you what you need to accept in order to avoid online harms.
“We have to realise that platforms which have been designed to grow as quickly as possible are not necessarily those which lead to our social and political health as a country. And different basic principles have to be woven in, with more public interest aims in mind, about what kind of content is served up, how harm is detected and, basically, that engagement in the platform itself is not the be all and end all of how those platforms now need to work. And the only way that will happen is through regulatory interventions by government in the way those platforms are engineered.”
Having hammered home the essential, completely groundless message that only State censorship can save us from ourselves, the last words, from Julia Ebner, finally nail the lid shut on the BBC’s Misinformation Virus. Truly a lesson in disinformation.
“This new age of viral disinformation lends itself in destroying our democracies.”
No! It doesn’t. This describes what will really destroy democracy:
“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.”
[Benjamin Franklin]
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The fake news media may bark but the popular caravan has moved on. It is telling that the BBC feels compelled to bloviate about how it is NOT full of crap.
Please, God, let Der Sturmer-NYT and Der Angrif-WaPo double down. Because regular folks weighed down by austerity, low wages, gig work, evaporating pensions, declining health care, broken roads aren’t buying their Party Line any more. The mouthpieces for the powers that blatantly oppress them. So, collaterally, people view askance the Russia rubbish, more money for wars, all hail the uber-rich and see-no-corruption, militarized police are your friends.
Every person reaches their own tipping point. “How can I square the media pitch against the daily fear that my standard of living is in jeopardy?” Since all that is sure to get worse, people seek out and are open to alternative sources of opinion and information. Once headed down that road, no one turns back.
And then, they started looking where their proverbial Yellow Vest is.
Good. Good. Very good.
And very good writing going on here. As things should be.
Cheers John. I don’t know if you watch the Corbett Report (highly recommended if you don’t) but his recent video about how we tackle this beast was excellent (link below.) I couldn’t agree more with his stance. “Fighting” the system won’t work in my view. It is geared up for conflict, which is both part of the problem and one of its worst traits. I don’t know about you but I want to live in a world based upon peace and cooperation. So he asks how we get there. His view is that we start by growing inside the system like an embrio. Be thoughtful, strategic and lawful.
https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-371-going-viral/
Nice dissection of this BBC programme. You can see how our corporate media continues to ‘nudge’ us into accepting their ‘narrative’ around the clock, day in day out. It’s so pervasive and subtle that most of us simply accept it without question. And if you DO question the BBC, their complaints procedure will simply drive you mad ! Job done for our corporate masters !
Cheers Jon. After years of Union work I quickly learned that “complaints procedures” are designed to stop complaints not advance them. I’m sure the BBC’s is one of the world’s best and most fruitless buraucratic gatekeeping exercises. I think the problem is that most who listened to the Misinformation Virus probably did accept Angela’s sceptical and reasonable authority. That is at the root of the problem I feel. People want to devolve their authority, to be told what to do, say and think. It’s easier innit?
Iain, thank you very much for your work on this. I had much the same reaction when listening to the programme, but I wasn’t aware of all the background information you have put together here – very enlightening.
Today I finally received a reply to my BBC complaint about the fabricated photo of the “measles baby”. My original complaint was lodged on 4th November 2019, and as I heard nothing back, I also lodged it with OFCOM on 3rd December 2019. OFCOM has not yet made a decision, there seems to be some delay. When I phoned to enquire, they said that the delay was caused by a backlog of complaints about the election coverage. Anyway, here is the long awaited response from the BBC…
Thank you for getting in touch about our article “Measles makes body ‘forget’ how to fight infection”.
You appear never to have received a response to your complaint, submitted in early November, and we’d like to apologise for the long and regrettable delay in getting back to you.
To hopefully address it now, we originally used this photo in good faith but have since removed it and made enquiries with Getty.
Thank you once again for getting in touch.
Best wishes,
Sean Moss
That’s how it works Fran I’m afraid. The MSM put out fake news, the public notice and complain then they stall the complaints process for so long, by the time they simply say “Oops, sorry” the fake news is out there and the propaganda has sunk in with millions. Thanks so much Fran for caring enough to try to hold these propagandists to account. Keep going.
Hi, thanks for the great article. Very small editing comment: the possessive form if its has no apostrophe.
grammar is just grammar, I know, but better to be grammatically correct, to not be ignorant of grammar, in order to avoid being dismissed as ignorant by the trivialists.
Thanks Joe appreciate it. I’m dyslexic, spelling and grammar are a challenge so please do let me know if you spot errors. I’ll correct them now.
You stated that flat earthers don’t have evidence to back up their opinions.
You’re engaging in disinformation, Iain!
Here’s evidence:
http://prntscr.com/s4woss
Also, Russian radars can see targets 500 kms away. The horizon is less than 13 kms away.
Apart from that point, keep up the good work Iain.
Lol. Yes, thanks for the observation. To be fair to the F’E’s they raise some interesting points. The Bedford Levels (and modern laser equivalents) Michelson Morley and Sagnac experiments all raise interesting questions. Given the current science that suggests the universe (or rather our perception of it) is essentially holographic in nature https://phys.org/news/2017-01-reveals-substantial-evidence-holographic-universe.html Could it be that we perceive the Earth as a flat plain while it is actually a planet in a universe of star systems?
Correction: You’re egaging in misinformation, not disinformation!
Sorry, my mistake – my little misinformation! lol
🙂
As regards your dyslexia and grammar, Iian, you do very well. As higher English accomplishes I haven’t noticed problems with your spelling nor your grammar and your logic in my opinion is sound.
Thanks Tom. Appreciated.