Tag: propaganda

A Good And Righteous Proxy War Wouldn’t Need Such Cartoonish PR

Star Wars megastar Mark Hamill was recently named an ambassador for United24, the fundraising platform of the Ukrainian government, where according to The Times his attention will center on “the procurement, repair and replacement of drones as well as pilot training.”

From The Times:

“In this long and unequal fight, Ukraine needs continuous additional support. That’s why I was honoured President Zelensky asked me to become an ambassador for the Army of Drones,” Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, said in a statement. “I know for certain that Ukrainians need drones to protect their land, their freedom and the values of the entire democratic world. Right now is the best time for everyone to come together and help Ukraine stand up in this war with the evil empire.”

In a statement thanking Hamill for his support, Zelensky said: “The light will win over darkness. I believe in this, our people believe in this. Thank you for taking on this difficult mission of being the first ambassador to help Ukraine raise funds for the Army of Drones to support our defenders. It is really important!”

Hamill, 71, is among an expanding list of celebrities who have lent their support to United24, which Zelensky launched in May. The website is reported to have raised nearly $188 million in donations, including a recent $5 million contribution from the Pfizer Foundation to support Ukraine’s medical needs.

Last week Barbra Streisand announced that she would also serve as an ambassador, hailing the “capability and courage” of the Ukrainian people as an “inspiration for all those worldwide who promote democracy and fight authoritarianism”.

So for the record if you were under the impression that this proxy war could not possibly get any more Disneyfied, you were wrong.

Hamill celebrated his new position by tweeting a graphic showing a Star Wars spaceship wearing the Ukrainian flag colors, which the actor captioned in Polish because Hollywood is brain poison.

Other recent Twitter PR shenanigans for this proxy war includes the Ukrainian government account talking to its “Crimea” account in the cringiest imitation of viral brand tweets you could possibly imagine.

“hey @Crimea what’s new?” tweeted the Ukraine account in lowercase letters just like the cool kids do.

“@Ukraine getting unchained, on my way home,” the Ukrainian government’s “Crimea” account replied.

Both of these accounts would of course be run by the same person, who would have been hired specifically for their understanding of social media, internet memes, and marketing. Because this is the most phony, PR-intensive proxy war of all time.

Keep reading

Feds Cooked Up Detailed Propaganda Plan to Push COVID Shots, Documents Reveal

Judicial Watch announced this week that it received 249 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing the extensive media plans for a propaganda campaign to push the COVID-19 vaccine.

The records were received in response to an August 2021 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after HHS failed to respond to an April 19, 2021 request for records related to the Biden HHS “COVID-19 Community Corps” program (Judicial Watch v. HHS No. 1:22-cv-02315).

Judicial Watch is asking for all records regarding the application process; all organizations asking to be chosen to participate; all grants and all communications of representatives of the HHS regarding the program.

Keep reading

Biden Administration Tried to Place ‘Trusted Messenger’ on Joe Rogan Podcast to Promote Covid Vaccine

The Biden administration sought to place a “trusted messenger” on Joe Rogan’s podcast to promote Covid-19 vaccines, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch.

The conservative watchdog group published 249 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) outlining the agency’s plans to push the Covid-19 vaccine via various media sources.

A public education campaign plan dated April 19 to May 31, 2021 suggested the agency could “Place a trusted messenger on the Joe Rogan Show and Barstool Sports to promote vaccination (work with outside expert to identify who will be most effective).”

Asked about the documents and whether HHS has been successful in placing a messenger on Rogan’s show, a spokesperson for the agency said: “As has been reported previously, HHS, in both the Trump and Biden Administrations, has done regular engagements to ensure Americans know about COVID-19 and the resources that they have to protect themselves.”

The Trump administration launched its own $250 million Building Vaccine Confidence campaign to encourage Americans to get the Covid-19 vaccine, which also included the use of paid and earned media.

“The ‘We Can Do This’ public education campaign under the Biden Administration has worked hard when it comes to reaching communities across the U.S. where they are, and informing them about safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines through paid and digital media, influencer engagement, and partnership outreach,” the spokesperson added. “Through ‘We Can Do This’ and other efforts, HHS will continue to encourage people to get the updated COVID-19 vaccine and fight vaccine misinformation.”

Rogan’s pandemic-related conversations with guests on his podcast oftentimes diverged from medical and scientific consensus, causing him to become a prominent voice of vaccine skepticism.

Rogan’s podcasts on Covid-19 and vaccination led to a campaign by several celebrity singers to have him deplatformed by Spotify in January 2022 over his spreading of alleged disinformation. Rogan has a licensing deal with Spotify worth more than $100 million.

Neil Young told Spotify it must deplatform Rogan or he would pull his music. Joni Mitchell later made a similar threat but Spotify did not cave.

Spotify responded to the criticism by agreeing to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that involved discussion about Covid-19, directing listeners to Covid-19 hub that links out to “trusted sources.”

In April 2021, HHS publicly announced it was launching a “nationwide, grassroots network of local voices and trusted community leaders to encourage vaccinations, with more than 275 founding member organizations that have the ability to reach millions of Americans.”

“This effort will mobilize health professionals, scientists, community organizations, faith leaders, businesses, rural stakeholders, civil rights organizations, sports leagues and athletes, and Americans from all walks of life to become leaders within their own communities to help get friends, family, and neighbors vaccinated,” the agency said in a press release at the time.

The HHS documents obtained by Judicial Watch included a number of paths the agency could potentially use to promote the vaccine, including to request a vaccination special on Christian Broadcast Network featuring Evangelic leaders, to request that major TV entertainment feature hosts get vaccinated on air, and to convene an editorial meeting with the publishers of Catholic newspaper and newsletters across the country, including America Magazine, Florida Catholic, The Catholic Spirit, and The Tablet.

Other objectives on the list included requesting that “the TV morning and daytime talk shows feature special vaccination reunion moments with everyday Americans talking about what this means to them (ex: hugging grandma for the first time)” and requesting vaccination specials with BET, The Undefeated, Desus & Mero, and Hot Ones.

Keep reading

UN tells WEF how it partners with tech platforms to promote narratives

The World Economic Forum (WEF) held the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings, where unelected groups held a “Tackling Disinformation” panel, with participants including the UN, Brown University, and even CNN.

The panel discussed how best to control narratives on issues like climate change and COVID-19.

The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, Melissa Fleming, noted that the UN had partnered with Big Tech companies, including Google and TikTok, to control narratives surrounding COVID and climate change.

“We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do,” she said.

The UN said it partnered with Google to influence search results on climate change so that narratives from “authoritative” sources would appear at the top of search results.

“We partnered with Google,” said Fleming. “For example, if you Google ‘climate change,’ you will, at the top of your search, you will get all kinds of UN resources.

“We started this partnership when we were shocked to see that when we Googled ‘climate change,’ we were getting incredibly distorted information right at the top.”

The UN also says it partnered with TikTok on a project dubbed “Team Halo,” to control the narratives surrounding COVID-19.

Keep reading

Exposed: Covert Pro-Western Info Op

A covert online propaganda operation said to be the world’s largest promoting “pro-Western narratives” has been found to be operating primarily out of the United States, targeting Russia, China and Iran.

“We believe this activity represents the most extensive case of covert pro-Western IO [Information Operation] on social media to be reviewed and analysed by open-source researchers to date,” say the researchers from Stanford University and internet research firm, Graphika.

The researchers found most of the Information Operation “likely originated in the United States.” From there it ran a massive, interconnected web of automated “bot” accounts on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.

The covert operation to influence online audiences has been using “deceptive tactics to promote pro-Western narratives,” while “opposing countries including Russia, China and Iran.”

“The accounts heavily criticized Russia in particular for the deaths of innocent civilians and other atrocities its soldiers committed in pursuit of the Kremlin’s ‘imperial ambitions’ following its invasion of Ukraine in February this year,” the report says.

Keep reading

CIA launches a podcast, hoping to ‘demystify’ the agency and boost recruitment

There is no shortage of podcasts out there exploring the mechanics of espionage, celebrating fictionalized spies and detailing the real-world exploits of the country’s premiere intelligence agency. But only one, as of today, is officially unclassified.

The CIA launched ‘The Langley Files’ podcast on Thursday, attempting to step out from its own shadows to share stories from the agency’s 75-year history — and provide a little insight into what it takes to work there.

The goal of the podcast, according to a CIA spokesperson, is to provide a bit more transparency into an agency premised on secrecy.

‘“The Langley Files’ is a major milestone for CIA as the agency marks its 75th anniversary,” said CIA press secretary Susan Miller. “It is the latest in CIA’s ongoing efforts to be as open as possible with the public, sharing what we can about our mission, people, and history.”

And in telling stories on the history of the CIA — featuring senior CIA officials, agency historians and CIA museum experts as guests — the agency hopes to attract new interest from a young generation of potential recruits.

“We want to reach a wider and more diverse audience than ever before, so that people who might not have thought of joining CIA — or might not have known that there could be a place for their talents here — consider CIA in their career plans,” a CIA spokesperson said.

“The podcast supports the agency’s efforts to connect with talent from all backgrounds and walks of life,” the spokesperson continued. “To be successful in its national security mission, CIA needs to build the diverse, skilled workforce of tomorrow, and we hope ‘The Langley Files’ can serve as a way to reach those candidates.”

The podcast will be hosted by two agency officers, exploring new topics with special guests in each episode.

Keep reading

MASTERS OF DECEIT: THE GOVERNMENT’S PROPAGANDA OF FEAR, MIND CONTROL & BRAIN WARFARE

The U.S. government has become a master of deceit.

It’s all documented, too.

This is a government that lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn; treats its citizens like faceless statistics and economic units to be bought, sold, bartered, traded, and tracked; and wages wars for profit, jails its own people for profit, and has no qualms about spreading its reign of terror abroad.

Worse, this is a government that has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.

With every passing day, it becomes painfully clear that this is not a government that can be trusted with your life, your loved ones, your livelihood or your freedoms.

Just recently, for example, the Pentagon was compelled to order a sweeping review of clandestine U.S. psychological warfare operations (psy ops) conducted through social media platforms. The investigation comes in response to reports suggesting that the U.S. military has been creating bogus personas with AI-generated profile pictures and fictitious media sites on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to manipulate social media users.

Psychological warfare, as the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group explained in a recruiting video released earlier this year, enables the government to pull the strings, turn everything they touch into a weapon, be everywhere, deceive, persuade, change, influence, and inspire.

Of the many weapons in the government’s vast arsenal, psychological warfare (or psy ops) can take many forms: mind control experiments, behavioral nudging, propaganda.

Keep reading

The Ukraine Proxy War Has Been A Propaganda Win For Interventionists

Neocon erotica publication The Atlantic has a new article out titled “The Rise of the Liberal Hawks” which is infuriating as much for its sycophantic empire apologia as it is for the fact that much it is entirely correct.

“Progressives typically see war as inherently murderous and dehumanizing — sapping progress, curtailing free expression, and channeling resources into the ‘military-industrial complex,’” sneers the article’s author, Dominic Tierney. “The left led the opposition to the Vietnam War and the Iraq War and condemned American war crimes from the My Lai massacre to Abu Ghraib. Historically, progressive critics have charged the military with a litany of sins, including discrimination against LGBTQ soldiers and a reliance on recruiting in poor communities.”

“Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” writes Tierney. “No foreign conflict since the Spanish Civil War has so captured the imagination of the left.”

“Russian President Vladimir Putin is the antithesis of everything the left stands for,” Tierney adds. “Not only did he launch an unprovoked attack on a sovereign democratic nation, but he has also disparaged LGBTQ rights, multiculturalism, and immigration, and claimed that ‘the liberal idea’ has ‘outlived its purpose.’ Zelensky, in contrast, has built bridges with the global left. He addressed the Glastonbury music festival, in the U.K., where the revelers chanted his name to the tune of The White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army.’ In Germany, the Green Party led the charge to supply weapons to Kyiv, overturning decades of German wariness about intervening in foreign wars. LGBTQ protesters in Berlin also demanded that Germany step up arms shipments to Ukraine, so that a Pride parade can, one day, be held in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol. Ukrainian liberals—artists, translators, teachers, filmmakers—have joined the struggle. As one writer put it: ‘All our hipsters in Ukraine fight.’”

Keep reading