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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

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More from @karamballes

Karam Bales Profile picture
Apr 24
1/ Contrary to its name, changes in the Data Protection and Information Bill further shifts the balance of power towards commercial interests
2/ The bill gives the Secretary of State the power to add to the list of interests that can access your childrens data through secondary legislation avoiding parliamentary scrutiny Image
3/ The Bill also permits 14-18 year olds to be targeted with political marketing Image
Read 7 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Apr 24
1/ The thing is, the UK is institutionally not curious about identifying harms directly caused by covid

For instance it's been a year since they stopped collecting and publishing data on long covid
2/ Many families of children with long covid have faced gaslighting and struggled to access meaningful care
3/ More and more evidence emerges of the long term harms caused by covid, but the UK govs preferred paedatricians continue to peddle claims that with enough infections children will develop lasting immunity
Said this would occur after 1 infection, what is it now? 5? 7? 10?🤷‍♂️
Read 15 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Apr 11
🧵Cass Review
Not had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but have had time to look through the main points

What positives can be taken from it? The time spent on waiting lists was identified as a major issue, all children's services are massively underfunded at the moment
2/ I would like to think that this will lead to an investment in all children's support services like CAHMS, more pastoral support in schools etc

That would be a positive outcome, regardless of what else is included in the review, unfortunately real terms cuts are the reality
3/ What matters is how government interprets the review and what it chooses to implement, additional funding for children isn't going to be prioritised over tax cuts to appease RW papers
Imagine if the billions from last round of tax cuts had instead been invested in children
Read 11 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Mar 15
Institutional gaslighting here
This is a helpful read
So is this
Read 7 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Mar 11
Miriam Cates and Ranil Jayawardena's offices were very insistent that speaking at this conference didn't constitute "sharing a platform" or speaking "alongside" the other speakers

Cates' office even threatened legal action if those words were used
Interesting how Tory MPs and RW media consiser going on marches to call for a ceasefire in Gaza will have ppl labeled as being part of a hate march, but speaking at the same conference as multiple ppl named in a EU report on US and Russian dark money shouldnt draw associations Image
In total over $707,000,000 in funding between 2009-2018 was identified by the Tip Of The Iceberg Report published 2021 Image
Read 14 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
Mar 3
🧵This article by Camilla Turner is a great example of how antivax talking points are laundered into the mainstream by those trying to claim excess deaths are being caused by vaccines

Group of MPs call for data to be released insinuating there's a cover up Image
2/ They claim they need data on dose and deaths, worth noting this has come from McVeys anti-lockdown APPG and UsForThem whose founder is supporting Bridgen and RFK Jr Image
3/ However I'm not certain what data they claim is being withheld as data on dose and death stratified by age is publicly available from the ONS

Right here⬇️
Read 16 tweets

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