Marc Owen Jones Profile picture
Mar 16, 2022 14 tweets 11 min read Read on X
1/Just a quick weather update on biolab mis/dis/information and or propaganda. Who is discussing Ukraine and biolabs, and what are they saying? Who are the most retweeted and most influential in the past 48 hours. #ukraine #disinformation
2/ See clusters 1, 2 & 3. Cluster 1 is mostly people criticising the biolabs conspiracy, or the absurdity of it. Cluster 2 are generally those that can be considered active in the spread of propaganda or misinformation. Cluster 3 is a French NWO type spreading Russian propaganda
3/ Zooming in on Cluster 1 for example, @atrupar is calling out @TuckerCarlson for misrepresenting biolab info. @oneunderscore__ wrote a piece on the conspiracy and its 'dumb' origins. @JoeTrippi is sharing Ben's and @kevincollier's critique of the conspiracy

#Ukraine
4/ Cluster 2. The most influential are @TulsiGabbard and @TuckerCarlson as well as @repmtg . All are involved in some form of manipulation or propaganda. Right wingpolitician Marjorie T Greene leads in with a 'not only is it true', as if someone were hiding the biolabs
5/ Obviously secrecy and hiding add to the conspiratorial element. @TuckerCarlson uses hyperbole and simplification, claiming EVERYONE who says there are biolabs is accused of treason. He's basically talking about a spat between Tulsi Gabbard and Mitt Romney. Indeed, no one
6/ is denying there are biolabs, so presumably we are all traitors Tucker? Then there is Tulsi Gabbard, who likes talking about biolabs, and who once parroted Kremlin denial propaganda about use of chemical weapons in Syria. See more from @EliotHiggins
7/ As @RVAwonk stated, Gabbard's disinformation is insidious, and attempts to invoke a parity of responsibility when Russia is the clear aggress >

#ukraine
8/ Some other cluster 2 members include; @jackposobiec (we all know him), @thevivafrei (this guy keep suggesting the biolabs are a 'secret'), @tomfitton (author), former RT journalist @rachblevins (who is backing up Tulsi & still has the 'russian state-affiliated media' label)
9/ Of course Sputnik are in the mix, defending Tulsi. There are many more in the cluster, but it's clear the right-wing information ecosystem in particular is latching onto this story. At the extreme end, QAnon are using it to blame Ukraine for Covid19!
10/ I want to finish with a few comments. The conspiratorial nature of this biolabs misinfo relies a lot on the trope that it was 'secret', hidden by the US. This trope got a big boost when a journalist falsely claimed US Embassy in Kyiv deleted docs >
11/ This trope has been jumped on by Chinese officials too as well as Russian, as well as the US right - read this thread for more >
12/ An important thing to remember is this. It's not about believing #disinformation that's important. The fact so many are expending media resources to talking about this as opposed to, say, covering the invasion, is a massive distraction that benefits Putin. If the Kremlin
13/ can shift the news agenda, at least in part, to talking about something else, especially if that thing can be used as a stick to beat the current administration with by the opposition, #Ukraine does not benefit.

And now to Tony with the sport
14, also, the French account is >

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More from @marcowenjones

May 22
🤖 1/ Ok this is pretty wild. I saw some sus pro-Israel astroturfing activity on a BBCNews Facebook post about aid arriving in Gaza. Lots of Hasbara comments like "Hamas will take the aid". The following 2 identical posts were side by side so I looked into it. #disinformation Image
2/ Specifically I looked at Dean O' Connor. Firstly up, there were two almost identical Dean O'connor pages, both created on consecutive days last week (15 + 16 May). The one that posted is the one on the right. Image
Image
Image
3/ When I reverse image searched the picture I was inundated with dozens of pages from forums about romance scams asking about people using this same picture. A lot of people scammed out of thousands. Someone even asked on Quora about O'Connor! Image
Read 7 tweets
May 15
Macron Cocaine Thread/ - The first 10 hours of the @EmmanuelMacron @Keir_Starmer @ZelenskyyUa Cocaine disinformation.

Seemed to be promoted initially by a few dubious accounts like @Veritiste @SitgesFranck @99percentyouth @SilentlySirs @goddeketal

#disinformation Image
2/ Before being boosted by the right-wing ecosystem and conspiracy accounts e.g. @DineshDSouza @RealAlexJones @CollinRugg. No serious journalists reported this story (because it's absurd). Nonetheless, those tweeting in the first 10 hours generated over 103 million views on X! Image
3/ The boosting of the info by Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev was via Alex Jones, who as the above timeline shows - wasn't the first to put it out on X - but the most widely viewed. Image
Read 4 tweets
Apr 29
🚨1/ Fake News Alert: A number of accounts are spreading false information that a church in #Wales was burned down by two Pakistan migrants/muslims. There are other narratives, but this is the dominant one. It is false but has obtained millions of views. some data> #disinfo Image
2/ It is true that a church did burn down. It was set alight by two local teenagers. The South Wales police have tweeted that other rumours circulating are false - they are of course talking about the false info about the ethnicity of the attackers (right). Image
Image
3/ The most shared claim comes from 'RadioEuropes'. This is a 'Dysinfluencer' account - an account that repeatedly spreads false and malicious information - in this case xenophobic and anti-Muslim content. You can see its false tweet garnered over 3.6 million views Image
Read 12 tweets
Jan 8
1/ THREAD: On populist gaslighting and the war on truth-tellers 🧵 Image
2/ Something concerning is happening in our information ecosystem: populists aren't just spreading misinfo, they're systematically trying to undermine the very concept of verifiable truth
3/ When fact-checkers or experts present evidence contradicting false claims, they get labeled as "elitist manipulators" or 'censors' - effectively inverting reality
Read 8 tweets
Jan 7
🧵 THREAD: Meta's disturbing new "free speech" announcement is a masterclass in how platforms enable digital harm under the guise of freedom 1/9 theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Meta announces it's getting rid of factcheckers & "restrictions" on gender/immigration content. This isn't about free speech - it's about platforming hate & disinformation under the guise of "mainstream discourse" 2/9
Key red flags: ❗️❗️❗️

Moving content teams to Texas "for less bias" (read: political motivation)

Replacing factcheckers with "community notes"

Framing basic content moderation as "censorship" 3/9
Read 10 tweets
Dec 21, 2024
1/ 🧵This graph shows X posts by impressions in the first six hours after the Magdeburg attack. Specifically these are posts falsely attributing the attack to an Islamist terror attack or a Syrian, or using it as an opportunity to attack immigration or muslims #disinformation Image
2/ The usual suspects are there - that is, the anti-Islam disinfluencers (routine spreaders of disinformation). As you can see, one of the most widely viewed is @visegrad24 - who shared at least 6 posts falsely claiming the attacker was an Islamist Image
3/ The posts falsely claiming that the attacker was a Muslim or Islamist gained at least 38,000,000 views. False claims that he was Syrian resulted in around 8.4million views (remember this is just an approx 6 hour period). Image
Read 8 tweets

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