2/ So first up. A core component of the biolabs story was a key piece of disinfo.
Remember, for a good conspiracy, it helps to have scandal and perceived nefarious behaviour. It's especially good if you can make it look like your adversary is hiding something!
How though?
3/ Well it was fairly simple. It was reported by 'investigative journalist' @dgaytandzhieva around 26th Feb that the US Embassy in Kyiv had deleted documents about its biolaboratories in Ukraine.
4/ As I have said before, this is false. The documents were never deleted. Furthermore the screenshot used by Dilyana saying 'site can't be reached' appears not to be related to the Embassy webpage. In sum, this new was false, but it went viral. +12k RTs! #Ukraine#disinformation
5/ (Incidentally, when I first mentioned this Dilyana blocked me and did not qualify or delete her tweet.) Which at the very least seems unprofessional, at the most, suspicious
6/ After Dilyana tweeted this, a number of others picked it up.
@kylenabecker blogged it March 7, saying DoD were trying to 'hide' documents
@SpokespersonCHN Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs - March 9
7/ Below you can see how the Twitter activity has evolved over the past two weeks. Dilyana (green) is initially the main influencer of this trend, then @SpokespersonCHN picks it up (orange), then most recently @zlj517 . This resulted in tens of thousands of likes/RTs
8/ I singled out these names because they are the most influential voices amplifying this conspiracy, which has also been a key point in appealing to the likes of QAnon. You can see the RT networks below
But they are not the only Chinese officials amplifying it
9/ Despite the fact the story was debunked days ago, some officials are still spreading it. E.g. The Chinese Consul General in Belfast has also repeated it, as has the Chinese Consul in Lebanon (today!)- at least in English, not sure about other languages.
10/ So regardless of veracity, the story is still going on. This 'what is the US trying to hide' narrative (see below) is explicitly being used to bolster the conspiratorial nature of the story, & a lot of the most influential people spreading it in English are Chinese diplomats
11 / So TLDR is; Chinese diplomats, who, like most diplomats, rarely stray from an official line, are demonstrably propagating a fake story popularized by an unaffiliated pro-Russian journalist, and fueling the biolab conspiracy. #UkraineRussiaWar #disinformation
12/ Some notes, this analysis involved around 7600 interactions on Twitter involving around 6700 unique accounts, mostly sent between 5-14th March. That's it for now. Peace
13/ oh yes, this is the link to the US Embassy in Kyiv where you can see all the 'deleted' documents ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/s…
14/ interesting that links may have been down for an unspecified amount of time. Of course doesn't explain failure to correct narrative or cease it on the part of those involved
15/ Thanks @NadineNonny for pointing this out. Chinese state media is also spreading the deleted documents story in Arabic - group has over 15million likes
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🧵1/ Thread on the Islamophobic and antisemitic disinformation about the #SydneyAttack . I downloaded X posts that wrongly stated that the attacker, Joel Cauchi, was either a Muslim or Jewish terrorist
2/ The size of the network was at least 140,000 posts (from X). This time series graph shows that initially, most of the disinformation (red bars) accused the attacker of being a Muslim or Islamist. At about 1700 UTC we see more and more disinfo about the attacker
3/ being Jewish (orange bars). This temporal analysis reflects the fact that there is a notable tendency when it comes to such attacks in Western countries to accuse, without evidence, the perpetrator of being Muslim. To accuse the attacker of being Jewish is less common
🧵1/ Just want to point out a few disturbing elements regarding misinformation in this article - "What's I've Heard From Gaza" published in the @TheAtlantic . I will focus on two specific references that are quite crucial in framing a broader argument about Hamas's actions #Gaza
2/ The article asserts with no equivocation that Hamas killed fleeing civilians on the Al Rashid coastal road in Nov 23. Not only is there no evidence for this, but the link is to an article in the Jerusalem Post, that relies on a tweet from known disinfluencer, @amjadt25
3/ Even if one wasn't to take an Occam's razor approach (i.e. it was probably the IDF since they have killed > 33000 people), then it would make sense to at least report this ambiguously. Reuters, for example, covered the strike, but did not even mention it could have been Hamas
🧵It is increasingly clear that ISGAP are operating in a capacity that has nothing to do with antisemitism, but rather malicious disinformation and a war on education. Their latest report is akin to saying ppl in Qatar shouldn't study *anything*, anywhere, lest they nuke us all
2) The highlight is perhaps how they use the third party aggregate edurank to "prove" that @tamuq and @QatarUniversity have "nuclear engineering programs". I don't even think a first year uni student would be this stupid. Neither uni has a nuclear engineering program, but I love
3) the idea that somehow the cunning foxes at Edurank managed to be party to this information that has been hidden from the public. The "report" then documents research projects at TAMUQ that could be "dual use". Below are some favourites. I kid you not, studying "sensors" is
🧵Although there is more pressure on right-wing and pro-Israel lobbies, most of the reporting on Texas A&M's recent decision to close its Qatar campus in four years cites a report by ISGAP - a pro -Israel think tank, which launched a disinformation campaign about nuclear secrets
It goes back to this press release on 4th Jan 2024, when ISGAP claimed absurdly that Qatar could exert control over nuclear weapons research. Make no mistake, it's a disinformation campaign. It is also evident that the only people who took it 'seriously' were right wing
think tank, or Israeli media - e.g. @i24NEWS_EN @Jerusalem_Post . The fact some of these articles were written by FDD-affiliated 'journalists' (& by that I mean people with a record of harassing people who aren't pro-Israel) simply highlights the fact they are not credible
🧵🚨Discovered hundreds of sock puppets promoting Israeli propaganda on X, Threads, FB & Insta. It also includes 'fake' websites. Recently, it has been spreading anti-UNRWA #disinformation, & trying to undermine solidarity between Palestinians & Black people. #Gaza
Analysis 👉
2/ A few people noticed that influential accounts writing about Gaza were getting replies with people linking a @WSJ article about an Israeli 'intelligence' report claiming 10% of UNRWA staff have links to Hamas. One of the authors of the WSJ was a former IDF soldier.
3/ You may have noticed that the wording of the tweets was very similar. All of them focused on the '10%' figure. All of them uncritically embraced the 10% figure of UNRWA employees being 'linked' to Hamas.
🧵1/ Analysis of why Israel's UNRWA 'dossier' smearing UNRWA is misleading propaganda.
Indeed, Israel's own statistics actually show that the alleged Hamas presence in UNRWA is significantly LOWER than elsewhere in #Gaza.
Read on for more >
2/ A number of outlets, including Reuters, Sky News, CNN and Forbes (to name but a few) have run stories about an intelligence dossier provided by Israel (solid source!) attempting to smear UNRWA. @EylonALevy even called UNRWA a 'front' for Hamas'
3/ First the claims.
Claim one: 190 UNRWA employees in Gaza are 'hardened militants'. The WSJ reported that the dossier noted that 23% of UNRWA male employees had ties to Hamas (whatever that means), a higher percentage than 15% for adult males in Gaza.