Thread by @LorraineBranna2

🏴‍☠️Inspired by SKY. Cooked in a DARK room. Delivered by the OZ. This is how a NEWS CORP exclusive is made.

Wed @SharriMarkson published an exclusive “investigation” which claimed there was “foreign interference” in the Royal Commission petition....

A delicious thread..🧵
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with over 1000 fake names on the petition “paid for & generated” overseas. The information had come from a “whistleblower,” & there would be an “official investigation.”

🙄As it turns out, Markson’s “exclusive” was drawn from an unknown Melbourne blogger, Nicholas Smith’s
🧵2/-

Facebook page. Its there, in between the diatribes against Vic’s lockdown & Black Lives Matter, & rants about the stolen US election & fake media, that u find a video posted on Oct 28th, where Smith outlines a plan to test the security of the Federal Govt’s petition website
🧵3/-

To do so, Smith says, he will pay “Mr Wang from Beijing” to get 1000 false signatures on the petition in the space of 12 hrs — all for $35. It worked, except that the job was actually done by a man from Bangladesh.

THIS was the “foreign influence” operation as reported
🧵4/-

by The Australian, arranged & paid for by a ‘rolled-gold TRUMP-supporting Aussie patriot’ from Melbourne.

Precisely how a 3 week old post from an obscure RIGHT-WING blogger made it to the front page of The Australian is a mystery..🤷🏻‍♀️

Its a mystery too, as to how the
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newspaper somehow CONTRIVED the headline “Kevin Rudd’s Bangladeshi ‘bots’ in media Royal Commission petition” given theres NOTHING at all to link Rudd to a Bangladeshi freelancer hired over the internet at $3 hrly rate.

But being The Australian means NEVER saying SORRY.
🧵6/-

Today the paper followed with an
“agent of foreign influence” ATTACK on Rudd.
@australian
#PaulKelly
👉🏼How Embarrassing!
👉🏼Zero Credibility!

✴️This is how a News Corp “exclusive” is MADE — & a campaign hatched — when 2 former Prime Ministers lead the call for CHANGE backed
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by a petition SIGNED by 501,876 members of the Australian PUBLIC

👉🏼Sorry make that 500,876

Its, at the very least, a prime EXAMPLE of what the SENATE INQUIRY might examine when it turns its attention to what happens when 1 media company has SO MUCH POWER
#TimesUpMurdoch
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Attention:
@MrKRudd
@TurnbullMalcolm
Maybe interested in this Crikey article written in response to the ridiculous articles in The Australian.
✴️Obvi under attack due to petition.

*slightly adjusted/added to by moi

Crikey Article by David Hardaker below
crikey.com.au/2020/11/19/new…