Thread by @AlanRMacLeod

[Thread] Twitter is partnering with a crazy, hawkish, US-govt & arms industry funded think tank to regulate false info online.

This should be alarming to anyone who cares about truth, free speech or peace, as my new @MintPressNews investigation explains:

mintpressnews.com/aspi-think-tan…

The think tank— the Australian Stretegic Partnership Initiative (ASPI) — have already deleted hundreds of thousands of Chinese, Russian, & Iranian accounts, and consider chellenging Western govt narratives about these countries as evidence enough for permabans.

ASPI is directly funded by Western governments and by the arms industry, and pumps out relentless pro-war propaganda on their website.

Around half of its executive council also sit on the boards of weapons giants, sparking a ludicrous conflict of interests.

Also on the board are former Australian Defense Ministers, Robert Hill and Brendon Nelson.

Hill was a key force in pushing Australia into war with Iraq, relentlessly lying to the public about WMDs.

His organization now decides what is true and that is false info on Twitter. 🙃

ASPI chief Peter Jennings recently called for war with Russia, denounced Biden leaving Afghanistan, thinks we should INCREASE troop numbers in Iraq, said “the West is setting the bar for military response too high” & claimed that Russia, Syria + China are “Leninist autocracies”🤡

ASPI also publish blatant advertorials for their weapons company sponsors; they run Lockheed Martin ads on every page.

This would be bad enough if ASPI were an orange juice-promoting think tank filled with execs from Tropicana. But they aren’t selling OJ: they’re selling war.

ASPI are behind much of the China hysteria we see today, including the lab leak conspiracy.

They’ve even claimed that putting Huawei sensors on garbage trucks would constitute a national security crisis.

Last year they also said China was essentially about to nuke Australia

ASPI has played a leading role – some would say, the leading role – in driving Australia’s mendacious and self-destructive and often absurd China-bashing campaign. [Australia] has relied upon the ASPI to disseminate Washington’s desperate strategic policies.” - @johnpilger

@johnpilger Unfortunately, Twitter is not the only social media platform now significantly controlled by the national security state. See my article on who is Director of Policy at Reddit as well:

mintpressnews.com/jessica-ashooh…

@johnpilger Meanwhile, Facebook has teamed up with NATO think tank the Atlantic Council, who advise it on algorithms, bot networks, suspicious behaviour and banning of users.

mintpressnews.com/facebook-partn…

This is already being used against the left. In November, Facebook and YouTube mass deleted accounts supporting the FSLN Party, saying they were bots.

When those people went on Twitter to show they were real, Twitter deleted them! @BenjaminNorton reports:
mintpressnews.com/meet-nicaragua…

@BenjaminNorton All in all, a very interesting and important story.

Gonna tag @caitoz, @DanielDumbrill, @timand2037, @MaxBlumenthal,@ajitxsingh, @Mango_Press_, @qiaocollective, @vijayprashad, who could be interested.

mintpressnews.com/aspi-think-tan…

News just in 🚨:

ASPI chief Peter Jennings demands war in today's edition of The Australian.

(HT: @deepa_driver).

theaustralian.com.au/commentary/auk…

Lmao, yet more blatant advertorials for weapons companies today.

ASPI is funded by Northrop Grumman, manufacturers of the B-21.