Written evidence submitted by Mark Rostron

Disinformation and ‘fake news’

1.    Personal introduction

2. I am a UK citizen with an interest in the propagation of true news.

3.    Executive summary

4. Fake news is generated by both lone or powerful individuals, and corporations as well as governments and their departments. Governments have been faking it for years when required and generally the fakers have been their tools. The fake news has resulted in massive loss of life and misrule.

5.    Recommendation

6. I recommend that no censorship occurs of any kind. To censor will only lead to the repression of both true and fake information because the arbiters will always have a bias. Some examples of the use of fake news and the suppression of true news and the results follow.

7.    Legal permission for propaganda

8.      The US Government created and uses the internet for propaganda against British and US nationals

9. The US Government has legal permission to use broadcast propaganda to influence public opinion both within and without the United States.[1]
1. The Department of Defense created the Internet which was originally called ARPANET, after the Department of Defense agency called DARPA. These groups have incubated and funded the principle components of the Internet, …...
2. All areas of our modern Internet-life were created for military purposes – not to create a system of world-wide free information as Leader Technologies first envisioned.
3. Eric Schimdt and Mark Zuckerberg used Google and Facebook to manipulate users during the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections. The Facebook “Template to Win” was written by a Russian. This program was used by Obama in the 2008 election to win and during the 2016 election, Obama set up a political war-room that utilized the Template to Win officially under the aegis of the US Digital Service – a service used by Democrats against Republicans.
4. Schmidt has been so bold as to brag about his billion dollar efforts to get Obama and Hillary into the White House by writing new algorithms that direct users to rigged sites and ads that support his candidates. Zuckerberg has tried to hide his crimes by lying about Russian ads and hiding his Template to Win, but the head of the Global Engagement Center has told the press that he used Facebook to target and attack US citizens throughout the election.[2]
5. Zuckerberg now must answer to why Yuri Milner and other Russians own large amounts of Facebook shares. Mark also needs to answer why his best friend and investor ($200 million), the Russian Yuri Milner now lives in Silicon Valley and buys political and corporate support like it is popcorn. The tech-lord corruption is out of control and the US government is complicit.[3]
6. (The “fake news” issue is being used as a pretext to attack “right wing” news sites.)
7. Changes to Facebook’s algorithm have reduced traffic significantly for (right wing) …outlets……. while other (right wing pages)… were shut down without warning, (and remain closed).
8. The Washington, DC–based NDI and IRI are staffed with senior Democratic and Republican politicians; the NDI is chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, while the late Sen. John McCain was the longtime IRI chair. Both groups were created in 1983 as arms of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a Cold War enterprise backed by then–CIA director William Casey (Jacobin, 3/7/18). That these two US government creations, along with a NATO offshoot like the Atlantic Council, are used by Facebook to distinguish real from fake news is effectively state censorship.
9. … (T)he US government has effectively become the arbiter of what the world sees and hears, with the ability to marginalize or simply delete news from organizations or countries that do not share its opinions. This power could be used at sensitive times, like elections. This is not an idle threat. The US created an entire fake social network for Cubans that aimed to stir unrest and overthrow the Cuban government, according to the Guardian (4/3/14).
10. That a single corporation has such a monopoly over the flow of worldwide news is already problematic, but the increasing meshing of corporate and US government control over the means of communication is particularly worrying. All those who believe in free and open exchange of information should oppose Facebook becoming a tool of US foreign policy.[4]

10. The UK Government permits fake news

11. It has been reported that the British GCHQ has been used by the Obama US Democrat administration to spy on Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign:
1. …the US president first claimed that his phones had been "tapped" by former US president Barack Obama. Last week, President Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer repeated accusations that GCHQ had been "wiretapping" the leader on behalf of the NSA, a claim initially made by Fox news "media commentator" Judge Andre Napolitano.[5]
12. with a view to sabotaging it,
1. …Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down.  When that didn’t work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make him see the light.[6]
13. An illustration of the use of fake news is the publication of an obviously forged letter from GCHQ designed to devalue the probably true allegations implied by it.[7]

14. US security services complicity in faked news operations

1. “..The fact that the Democratic National Committee funded the dossier via its law firm Perkins Coie renders it less credible still, as does the fact that the world has heard nothing more about the alleged video…
2. ... In a legal paper filed in response to a libel suit last May, (Steel) said the document “did not represent (and did not purport to represent) verified facts, but were raw intelligence which had identified a range of allegations that warranted investigation given their potential national security implications.”   The fact is that the “dossier” was opposition research, not an intelligence report. It was neither vetted by Steele nor anyone in an intelligence agency. Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at taxpayer’s expense to “protect” the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not his government.
3. Nonetheless, …. Dearlove and Wood both advised Steele to take his “findings” to the FBI, while, after the election, Wood pulled Sen. John McCain aside at a security conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to let him know that the Russians might be blackmailing the president-elect.  McCain dispatched long-time aide David J. Kramer to the UK to discuss the dossier with Steele directly.
4. Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker found a former national-security official who says he spoke with him at the time and that Kramer’s goal was to have McCain confront Trump with the dossier in the hope that he would resign on the spot. When that didn’t happen, Clapper and Brennan arranged for FBI Director James Comey to confront Trump instead.  Comey later testified that he didn’t want Trump to think he was creating “a J. Edgar Hoover-type situation – I didn’t want him thinking I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way.”[8]

15. NATO uses terrorism against its own people (Operation GLADIO) to create a fake news agenda

1. “….you carry out a terrorist attack …. and then you blame it on your enemy. During the Cold War it would have been the communists; today it is the Muslims. Thus, your enemy is totally discredited, even if they didn’t do it, and that is called a false-flag Strategy of Tension.”[9]
2. Vincente Vinciguerra, the perpetrator of the 1972 Peteano terrorist attack, who later confessed and was found guilty of terrorist attacks in Europe, explained it like this:
3. “You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game.”
4. So, basically, you just kill anybody, say, in a railway station.
5. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.”[10]
6. “We know for sure that these secret stay-behind armies were co-ordinated by NATO, because Italian Generals, who directed the secret armies, openly admitted that NATO had two branches that secretly co-ordinated those networks, the Allied Clandestine Committee and the Clandestine Planning Committee. These are substructures within NATO.[11]

16. The US Operation Northwoods was planned by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Military, to generate fake news of atrocities to justify the removal of the Cuban Government

1. “..As we said before, the CIA wanted to overthrow Fidel Castro with the so-called Bay of Pigs invasion in April of 1961. When that failed, Kennedy turned to the Pentagon to ask for a better plan to be rid of Castro. The Pentagon generals then sat down together and drew up a plan and now, more than fifty years later, we have this original document. At the time it was Top Secret, but today it is available. Lyman Lemnitzer was at the time the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
2. …If you look at the ideas Lemnitzer came up with, .. it is clear … that military officers .. contemplate manipulating terrorism to achieve their ends. (In)..1962,.. the Generals suggest:
3. A “Remember the Maine” incident could be arranged in several forms: We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
4. ….(T)hey were saying: “We …, could blow up a US ship and then say Fidel did it.” This sort of deviant thinking is false-flag, strategy-of-tension terror. Here’s another of their ideas:
5. We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington… exploding a few plastic bombs .., the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would ..project(ing) the idea of an irresponsible government.
6. ..This proves that Pentagon Generals planned to carry out terrorist attacks in Florida, in Washington and in Miami, and then blame them on Fidel Castro….They then recommend arresting so-called Cuban ‘agents’,… claiming: “You did it”, followed by the release of fake documents, prepared and planted in advance,   to substantiate their claims.
7. JC:  And wasn’t there another suggestion (that)…
8. DG:  … actually suggests flying a drone – an unnamed aircraft – over Cuba and detonating the bomb it’s carrying by remote control. Nobody would die, but they could claim it was a civilian aircraft full of young American women flying to Peru to help the undernourished poor, and that it had been downed by Fidel Castro. It would be a very emotional story. That is a vital component of false-flag terrorism: to shock the public, so that they become emotionally incapable of questioning the official narrative. After all, who would then say: “That’s probably a drone, blown up by remote control by the Pentagon”?

17.                       Successful attempts by States to label uncensored but true news as fake conspiracy theories

1. JC:  That, of course would be a ‘conspiracy theory’.
2. DG:  Oh yes, exactly, a ‘conspiracy theory’. And historians like me who research it would be called ‘conspiracy nuts’.
3. JC:  That’s right; but when the actual document comes out it’s a bit harder to say that.”[12]

18.                       Fabricated content

19. False descriptions of videos

1. “While the independent and alternative media … are accused without evidence of publishing “fake news”, the routine publication of “fake news” by the corporate (and state) media is invariably overlooked.
2. ..(T)hose who criticize the mainstream media are tagged as “conspiracy theorists”, the evidence amply confirms that the corporate media is involved in the publication of “fake images” and “fake video footage.”
3. And now the European Union is contemplating the adoption of laws which criminalize “fake news”:
1. “Is criminalizing fake news the way forward? German lawmakers have called for legal action against the production and distribution of fake news. But digital rights groups warned of the harrowing effects it could have online, including censorship.” (Deutsche Welle, December 14, 2016)
2. This proposed legal action is largely intended to “go after” the independent online media and social media which is challenging mainstream media reports.
3. In this article we will focus on the news coverage pertaining to a selection of important events including the March 2016 Brussels terror attacks in which fake videos and/or fake images were used by the corporate media with a view to deliberately misleading public opinion.[13]

20. Green Screen

21. There is a widespread use of “Green Screen”, to simulate events by videoing actors in front of back projection on “Green Screens”, see for example CNN[14] and others.[15]

22. Crisis Actors

23. So called “Crisis Actors” are widely used to fake news, for example after the Sandy Hook school shootings, Robbie Parker was filmed laughing and joking before adopting the role of grieving father, even asking whether those filming would like him to read the prompt card.[16]
24. Many faked terrorist attacks have been staged by using crisis actors.[17]
25. Many civil defence training exercises dovetail with mass shootings.[18] For example, on and after the 7/7 Kings Cross attack, Peter Power the Director of Visor Associates:

So how do we do this with you?

Facilitating the exercise scenario if often, but not always, best done through a series of simulated TV / Radio News broadcasts since this is exactly how the team and all of your stakeholders will get the news for real.

It is here that our Crisis Communications specialist has a critical role to play during an exercise since it is vital to have a skilled / professional face on the screen coupled with equally professional graphics / quality of broadcast. It's not a question of debating what is reality versus perception, nor the ethical dimensions of sensational media reporting. It's simply a case of bringing the scenario to life by showing unexpurgated (albeit simulated) news exactly as it would appear on any news channel, without it being sanitised by the organisation under the spotlight.[19]

Power gave a number of interviews in which he referred to the terror exercise he was running on the morning of 7th July.

Power (has not) been questioned further about the exact nature and scope of the rehearsal operation he was running, not even about the "One scenario in particular" which "was very similar to real time events."[20]

26. Harold Saive explains his encounter with the Colorado-based VisionBox Crisis Actors Guild, and features a video of example of fake crisis actor.[21]

27.                       Suppression of opposition free speech by describing it as fake news

28. Foreign media outlets which dominate information worldwide; Google, Facebook, systematically remove video evidence of fake news created by crisis actors and suppress user accounts of posters that publish them. They shadow ban posters whose political views they disagree, and lower them in search rankings. It is dangerous that foreign corporations censor the information that forms the opinions of the electorates of other countries including our own.
1. “If you’re going to censor the web, you better make sure those doing so are accountable to voters.” [22]
29. For example, BitChute, a censorship free repository of videos has many videos about Sandy Hook showing the reporting of it to it to be “fake news”[23], but the censored You Tube has very few such videos that have not been removed by their censors. The only videos that are allowed are those that support the government controlled “fake news” narrative[24].

30.                       The purpose of fake news staged attacks

31. The purpose of fake news is to sell unpopular policies, such as (in the USA) removing personal weapons as a means of civilian defence against repressive Governments.
32. Foreign governments are targeted for destruction, for example; Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, Egypt, Tunisia.
33. Ethnic groups are demonised, for example some Muslims are portrayed as insane religious maniacs, while white males are portrayed as right wing nationalist neo nazis.

December 2018