Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Karam Bales Profile picture
@karamballes
Feb 6, 2022 • 39 tweets • 13 min read • Read on X
🧵Canadian Truckers, a case study on how the International Covid Disinformation Network operates to distort political debate and radicalise with the aim of destabilising democracies.

It's a cross border project
2/ To start with, the antivaxxers and disinformation groups are hiding behind anti mandate banners around the world are celebrating the Truckers, its no coincidence start of the convey coincided with Antivax fest in the US, expect copycat events elsewhere
3/ The convey is very similar to a 2020 Truckers rally in Mitchigan, same messaging, actions and even ppl, the aim is to bring the city to a halt, several UK commentators supporting this whilst they were all for locking up climate protestors last year
4/ Its more than just an antivax or "freedom" message, the radicalisation seeks to create insurgency groups, similarities to Russian tactics in the Ukraine

5/ Astoturfing networks rely on a combination of coopting fringe groups and movements almost like cuckoo's while building up satellite groups to amplify

Interesting that a senior Trucker organised is also involved in Canada's Yellow Vests and Wexit
6/ Yellow vests are an example of a movement that's been coopted and gone international, attempt to do this in the UK pre pandemic, our Yellow vests seem to be turning into "common law constables"
7/ Wexit is Canadas RW separist movement, seen many of these springing up around the world off the back of Brexit, seems like they all link back to the same opaquely funded organisations, some ppl benefit from division and disruption

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maverick_….
8/ Bannon and others had been seeking to build international far right networks, using pressure groups and new political parties to influence and develop links into mainstream RW political parties

Bit like franchising they had to tailor conspiracy theories and select "the enemy"
9/ for their domestic target audiences. The pandemic gave them the opportunity to have a unified enemy and a core "freedom" ideology to unite behind

They coordinate disinfo and amplify events cross border through Telegram and other private msgs,

10/ Look at the actions of protestors in Canada last year, change the names and it could be a description of identical action in many other countries.
11/ You get the academics, media, politicians and mainstreamed campaign groups, all say they don't agree with violence, but they they constantly play to the same narrative as extremists,

Some countries crazies are more batshit than others, Canada⬇️
Image
12/ The far right rely on the narrative of an enemy that requires strong action and truth only they can provide

Internet now allows propoganda to propagate at lightning speed, a lot of it is about stoking up anger
13/ Canada regional governments means responses have varied, BC government have been particularly bad, Ontario also struggled,Atlantic bubble seems to have done better

From the start as with many countries there were failings around airborne transmission
14/ At the start there were contrarian medics/academics like Rodger Hodkinson, disinfo organisations started forming after lockdowns and 1st gen got going in May

World Doctors Alliance started across board, had Canadian members
15/ This starting network includes world freedom alliance, medical freedom alliance, doctors for covid ethics, these were mainly European but identical groups were formed in Canada, MWGFD in Germany had a twin organisation WSHFD set up in Canada
crinner.github.io/mshfd/
16/ Claus Rinner is the founder of MSHFD, also involved in several other organisations
Image
17/ Other groups include Concerned Ontario Doctors
(Besides their love of freedom there's a lot of concern and care in these groups)

They hosted an event with Simone Gold of US Trump/Bannon linked AFLD Image
18/ Worth seeing how AFLD got going and Simone Golds involvement in the Capitol Hill Insurrection, Canada and others need to wise up,
people are trying to form militias around the world

Those funding "freedom fighters" are destabilising democracies
19/ Canadian Covid Care Alliance have followed AFLD into the Ivermectin grift

Affiliate of British Ivermectin Research Development group (BIRD) who are linked into FLCCC

BIRD affiliates and Threads on Ivermectin netowork⬇️
Image
20/ Hodkinson who I mentioned earlier is involved in the Truth for Health Foundation which includes Michael Yeadon
21/ Hodkinson is also involved in UKs C19Assembly which started off collecting donations for a death audit and has now moved onto their own vaccine adverse reaction form that links straight to their mates law firm

22/ You can see how all these groups have over lapping members domestically while also joining groups in other countries while also creating what are essentially international organising committees
Image
23/ We see a Canadian group setting up its own Vax Tracker just like C19Assembly in UK, we also get Canadian doctors speak out having Ros Jones as a guest speaker
Jones is a member of disinfo group HART, anti school measures UsForThem,Safer To Wait etc
24/ As in the UK we see disinformation and GBD crowd working their way into official documents, particularly on schools
Ludvigsson, GBD signatory is quoted in Ontario documents in March 2021, he's accused of covering up covid harms in Sweden
25/ Ludvigsson is also quoted in BC documents to support lack of measures in schools Image
26/ I notice many of these references in the BC document are pre covid papers on influenza, also quotes Russel Viner from the UK, this study from April was a non reviewed systematic review, most papers reviewed were on flu not covid
27/ Viners work at start of the pandemic was quoted around the world and was instrumental in the early false narratives that children rarely get infected and rarely transmit to adults, he's gaslighted UK for 2 years currently opposing 5-11 vax
28/ Disinformation is two way, while groups in Canada quote questionable foreign sources, questionable Canadian groups are then quoted elsewhere

In the instance below its Australia
Image
29/ These groups foster links with RW media and politicians, and a key objective is to keep measures out of schools to further the pro infection herd immunity strategy

Just look at BC for the influence these people have had over policy
30/ And what you Canadians should be asking is, why am I, a full time education worker in the UK having to connect the dots which your media should be doing?
I have spoken to some good journalists in Canada who are looking into this but there aren't enough of them.
31/ The Truckers are organised and well funded
32/ Other countries, do not allow these opaquely funded organisations to take over your politics, look at what the Republicans have become, look at the Tories being taken over in the UK

CNP/Koch network⬇️Not comprehensive
33/ Image
34/ We also need to find a way to counter psy-ops, Palantir, Cambridge Analytica tricks are being utilised by the Covid Disinformation Network
35/ At the end of the day, the ppl at the top of the Libertarian movement want unconstrained anarchy for the few and a form of financial feudalism for the many

36/ Just seen this thread in my replies, interesting how the Koch network even picks the same names, eg
Canada -Taxpayers Federation
UK- Taxpayers Alliance
Western countries will all have their clones
Would help if I passed in the link🤦‍♂️
🧵Part II : Update
Truckers Update Part III

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Karam Bales

Karam Bales Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @karamballes

Karam Bales Profile picture
Aug 26
🧵So Musk has decided to go off on one about the UK again

Migrants, Rape Gangs, Lucy Connolly, tweeting Tommy Robinson, and backing Rupert Lowe over Nigel Farage

Just before Farage goes to the US in September and as big antimigrant protests are planned shortly afterwards Image
Image
Image
Image
2/ Some similarities to before the Southport attack and subsequent riots, creating a narrative and setting conditions to prime potential rioters for the next event that can be used as a match to start the fires
Image
Image
3/ Musk offers to fund legal actions in the UK Image
Read 10 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Aug 23
1/ Lucy Connollys appeal was funded by the Free Speech Union
Allison Pearson of the FSU led the media in supporting Connolly and promoted the crowdfunder that raised over £150k for Connolly (after Lawrence Fox took a 7% cut as it was his crowdfunding site that was used Image
Image
Image
Image
2/ The FSU was set up with support of Peter Thiel
James Orr a founding member of FSU is also on the Edmund Burke Foundation's board which organises NatCon, that Orr is also on the board of

JD Vance is Thiels minion, previously spent a record $15 million on getting Vance elected
3/ Vance has been leading the US attacks on free speech in the UK

The FSU has been busy backing anti-abortion and anti-trans legal cases, working alongside Christian Concern and US ADF, an important NatCon group

Vance is linked to NatCon
Read 11 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Jul 13
Why is @Tony_Diver giving a full page interview to Malhotra in the Telegraph?
The self-titled "leading cardiologist" has become an antivax hero, who has to publish his papers via his own journal because they are as dodgy as anything Wakefield put out

Deeply irresponsible Image
Image
Image
The platforming of disinformation grifters in mainstream papers, particularly Telegraph, Express, Daily Mail, GB News and TalkTv is contributing to the increase in vax hesitancy
People will die because of shoddy journalism from likes of @Tony_Diver
@Tony_Diver 3/ Describing Malhotra as "serious public prominence" and promoting his antivax papers without pointing out that he set up the journal it's printed in, is frankly dishonest journalism Image
Image
Read 17 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Jun 6
1/ Telegraph and Toby Young claiming "culture nationalism" being included is the latest attack by Labour on Free Speech is a lie

The Conservatives added this to Prevent in 2023 Image
Image
Image
2/ From my October 2023 article for @BylineTimes on the updated Prevent training Image
@BylineTimes 3/ While they misrepresent Conservative policy to attack Labour complaining that cultural Nationalism was too broad a term, they didn't have a problem that socialism was also added to Prevent at the same time
bylinetimes.com/2023/10/19/ter…
Read 10 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Feb 14
1/ So Toby Young, now a member of the house of Lords is directly receiving support from Musk, a member of a foreign government Image
Image
2/ This is after the FSU jumped onto a case of a teacher appealing against a school for being dismissed for their online posts, the case was being backed by Christian Concern and FDU piggybacked as an intervener Image
Image
3/ Worth noting the case centred around a petition from CitizenGo, an organisation identified as being part of a US/Russian network designed to undermine sexuality and reproductive rights Image
Read 7 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Feb 4
🧵Trump 2.0 

While much of the UK media has focused on DEI, tariffs and confirmation hearings there's been less focus on what appears to be an attack on the US constitution, purges of people and scientific information, and efforts to supress opposition and scrutiny
2/ First a quick look at the pardoned Jan 6 rioters as an example

3/ The interim Attorney General for DC had defended some of the rioters

Read 23 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(