Thread by @HeatherMoAndCo

Disinformation, propaganda & #Conservative operative, Jeff Ballingall. A thread.

Erin O’Toole’s chief digital strategist, Jeff Ballingall, can be likened to a young Roger Stone, in terms of how far he is willing to push the envelope. #cdnpoli #CPC #ErinOToole

Ballingall has chided organizations he’s worked for, such as RW conservative outfit “Canadian Taxpayers Federation” for being too “risk averse” in their propaganda campaigns.

He found other RW political campaigns he’d supported too risk averse too....

#cdnpoli #ErinOToole

So Ballingall started his “Proud” groups on #Facebook.
#Ontario Proud, later “Canada Proud”, which became third party advertisers, unconstrained by rules...or ethics.
#cdnpoli #ONpoli #CPC #ErinOToole

The seemingly endless propaganda, viciously misogynistic & anti-LGBTQ attacks on former Ontario Premier, Kathleen Wynne, had “Ontario Proud” as ground zero. Attacks shared & amplified thousands upon thousands of times, primarily on #Facebook & #Instagram.
#ONpoli #cdnpoli

Ballingall obfuscated where the funding for his “Proud” endeavours were coming from. He’d claimed it was “small donations” of “$100 or $200, $300”. It wasn’t:

#cdnpoli #ErinOToolecanadalandshow.com/ontario-proud-…

Loopholes allow #DarkMoney to be disguised as individual donations. However, Ballingall’s group made private pitches to large donors: pressprogress.ca/here-is-ontari…

While the #ManningCentre funded affiliate groups engaging in similar forms of propaganda: theglobeandmail.com/canada/article…

Jeff Ballingall is also Chief Marketing Officer (& co-owner, according to the National Post) of The #PostMillennial (another owner is TPM founder, Matthew Azrieli, from the Azrieli multi-billionaire developer tycoon family). TPM is shared widely by #Conservatives in both 🇨🇦 & 🇺🇸.

Remember this? #PostMillennial helped tank Peter MacKay’s campaign. Did MacKay know Jeff Ballingall was working for #ErinOToole, while Ballingall was using The Post Millennial to go after MacKay? #cdnpoli #CPC #ErinOTooletheglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…

Another troubling aspect of Ballingall’s “Proud” groups is the troll farm activity that appears in these groups. Fake accounts amplifying “Proud” content, was an unsettling feature in both recent provincial & federal elections. globalnews.ca/news/4735465/c…

cbc.ca/news/canada/ca…

Jeff Ballingall always makes sure he has plausible deniability on the hate, racism, disinformation & propaganda shared in his “Proud” FB groups by both real & inauthentic users & on the types of people hired at the Post Millennial. #Cdnpoli #ErinOToolenationalobserver.com/2019/08/22/new…

Legitimate critiques of who’s putting out content on #PostMillennial, is met with attacks, not facts.
This represents a dangerous degradation in the #cdnmedia landscape.
#cdnpolirrj.ca/fullish-disclo…

The degradation of objective truth & facts, disruptive disinformation & propaganda disguised as “news” sites, is a feature, not a bug, of RW media. People like #JeffBallingall #HammishMarshal #EzraLevant...& their wealthy backers...are key players in this degradation.
#cdnpoli /

I’m attaching this old thread at the end here, because it very much relates to this topic, & as a reminder of the dangers to democracy when the information ecosystem is infected with info-toxins pretending to be “news”.

#cdnpoli #cdnmedia
x.com/heathermoandco… x.com/HeatherMoAndCo…