Thread by @OzKaterji

So... are we just not going to say anything about all the frequent media commentators that pushed disinformation on the Salisbury poisonings for months? No? We're not going to ask them about the conspiracy theories they were disseminating & whether they will retract & apologise?

Craig Murray wrote conspiracist drivel and implied Israel might have been behind the Skripal poisoning. The issue is these people don't know what investigative journalism is, they can't tell it apart from opinion pieces or disinformation.

They spent months scoffing at & undermining real journalists who had been reporting the story accurately. Then they throw their hands up in the air when stuff like this happens, refusing to take any responsibility for the role they are actively playing in undermining public trust

Some people are actively on the Russian payroll at RT, Sputnik etc. Some are just stupid enough to help advance Russian disinformation methods for their own egocentric contrarianism. Regardless, the effect is the same, Putin gets away with murder & deflects the blame elsewhere.

The case is watertight enough now that the only the regular pro-Kremlin voices will argue against it, like Wight, Murray and Galloway have already attempted, wildly snatching at anything reported to try and deflect the blame from Putin and the GRU.

The more mainstream figures who helped propagate those conspiracies will just say they were asking questions, just like they do when Russia bombs a Syrian hospital. But they don't ask questions when Saudi Arabia bombs a Yemeni hospital. No poking holes in witness testimony then.

There is no contrition for any of the damage done by spreading these lies. They aren't the people who have to live with the consequences of these conspiracy theories, they never have any contact with the survivors of these crimes, but they routinely undermine those who do.

For the avoidance of doubt, credible journalists report equally on Russian backed atrocities in Syria & Western backed Saudi-UAE atrocities in Yemen. The evidentiary threshold for reporting credibly on this and any other conflict is identical. Beware all those that fail this test

The issue arises when malign forces advocate for an unattainable evidentiary threshold, one that would never be required for atrocities committed by other actors, in order to sow doubt and paralyse any potential punitive response.

Questioning evidence is good, critical thinking is vital to maintaining a healthy liberal democracy. But there is a difference between a healthy questioning of evidence and blind dissemination of the Kremlin's dismiss, distort, distract and dismay agitprop ies.be/node/3689

In conclusion, anybody that shared the disinformation put out by the Russian state on Salisbury should at the very least show some contrition & admit that they (perhaps unwittingly) boosted a Kremlin-sponsored propaganda campaign to undermine faith in British institutions.

For a good primer on how the Kremlin is still using Murray for its own ends to deny the body of evidence presented by the British government, Bellingcat have the scoop.
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…