April 2018 attack on dissent

The War

 * The War on Dissent, CJ Hopkins, January 26, 2018
 * The War on Dissent 2: The Specter of Divisiveness, CJ Hopkins, February 16, 2018

The Attack

 * ''See also Integrity Initiative

Before the launching of the April 2018 attack, dissenting voices about the official versions of both the Poisoning of Sergei Skripal‎ and the Alleged Chemical Attack, April 7, 2018‎ in Syria, followed by the FUKUS April 14th missile attack, had made it even into some edges of the corporate media.


 * Russian Trolls Denied Syrian Gas Attack—Before It Happened - Adam Rawnsley, Daily Beast, April 12, 2018
 * Apologists for Assad working in British universities - The Times, April 14, 2018 (paywall)
 * Assad’s Useful Idiots - The Times, April 14, 2018 (paywall)
 * ''The chemical attack on the Syrian city of Douma last weekend was a monstrous crime in which scores of civilians died. It was a violation of the most basic humanitarian norm of warfare, dating back to The Hague Convention of 1899, that outlaws the use of “poison or poisoned weapons”. Given all that is known of President Assad’s willingness and capacity to inflict harm on a captive population, it would take an extraordinary degree of credulity, sophistry and ignorance to exculpate him of this atrocity.
 * ''Exactly those characteristics are exemplified by a small group of academics, on whom we report today, at respectable institutions that include the universities of Sheffield and Edinburgh. The organisation calls itself the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (SPM), and in an unintendedly perverse way it lives up to the “propaganda” part of its name. Some of the academics involved disseminate material that is wrong, unscholarly and morally odious. Their output is no more reputable than the conspiracy theories of the Kremlin and its online trolls. Such material is an insult to the victims of a depraved regime and a stain on the reputation of the institutions which host its authors. The leading figures of SPM’s steering committee include three professors. None has expertise in Middle Eastern affairs and all display an exaggerated willingness to entertain any idea, however improbable, that acquits the regime of Vladimir Putin and its client in Damascus of abominable acts.
 * Professors ‘shut down debate’ over Assad’s chemical attacks - Georgie Keate, The Times, April 14, 2018
 * Senior UK boffins accused of ‘spreading pro-Assad conspiracy theories' - Daily Mail, April 14, 2018
 * How Assad's War Crimes Bring Far Left and Right Together - Under Putin's Benevolent Gaze - Alexander Reid Ross, Haaretz, April 17, 2018
 * Syria war: The online activists pushing conspiracy theories - BBC, April 19, 2018
 * How An Obscure British Blogger Became Russia's Key Witness Against The White Helmets - Chris York, Huffington Post, April 23, 2018
 * Logical Fallacies Fuel Kremlin Disinfo - Atlantic Council, April 23, 2018
 * Noted: Ad Hominem Fallacy, on top of the list here, appears to negate the gist of the attack in the previous entry on Vanessa Beeley ?
 * The Left, Syria and Fake News, Sonali Kolhatkar, counterpunch, April 24, 2018
 * Exposed: Russian Twitter bots tried to swing general election for Jeremy Corbyn - The Sunday Times, April 29, 2018 (more...)
 * After a week of Russian propaganda, I was questioning everything - Elizabeth Flock, PBS, May 2, 2018
 * We Need a NATO for Infowar - Elizabeth Braw, Defense One, May 3, 2018
 * Revealed: UK’s push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance - The Guardian, May 3, 2018
 * Who, us? Russia is gaslighting the world on the Skripal poisonings - Alexey Kovalev, The Guardian, May 25, 2018
 * How anti-Western dogma drives odious conspiracy theorists - Oliver Kamm, May 30, 2018
 * The pro-Assad academics’ sources are neither scholars in the relevant fields nor genuine reporters who are trained to distinguish fact from propaganda, but obscure bloggers whose only qualification is obsequiousness to the regime in Damascus


 * TO DO:
 * Atlantic Council
 * The Times
 * Sunday Times: Anti-semites lurking in...
 * BBC
 * 2 x The Guardian
 * Sky News
 * etc.

Subsequent attacks: see talk.

The Response

 * UK Academics Questioning Western Foreign Policy in Syria, Interview with Piers Robinson, Sputnik, April 17, 2018
 * Open Letter to The Times on Assad and Academic Freedom - Academics for Academic Freedom, April 18, 2018
 * Syria, The Times, and Free Speech, Tara McCormack, April 19, 2018
 * Academic Freedom And Setting An Example - Tim Hayward, April 20, 2018
 * SyrianGirl Bot claims she is human - April 20, 2018 (video)
 * Sky statement - why I'm not a Russian bot - Ian Shilling (Ian56), April 20, 2018
 * ‘I’ve seen the censorship’: Syrian blogger tells RT how she was labeled a ‘Russian bot’ (VIDEO) - RT, April 23, 2018
 * Another person accused of being ‘Russian troll’ by Times newspaper for non-mainstream views - RT, April 23, 2018
 * The Guardian Is Committing Journalistic Malpractice By Not Retracting This Claim - Caitlin Johnstone, April 24, 2018
 * Blocked By Facebook and the Vulnerability of New Media, Craig Murray, April 26, 2018
 * https://twitter.com/RTUKnews/status/989876824422297601

Leeds, May 2018

 * Playlist, including
 * The interface between Propaganda and War: Professor Piers Robinson; Robert Stuart, Tim Hayward, Peter Ford. Vanessa Beeley.

Response to response

 * #TrollTracker: From Tags To Trolling - @DFRLab, June 27, 2018
 * ''How tweets to a small group precede attacks on critics of the Syrian and Russian regimes

Analysis

 * The Silencing of Dissent - Chris Hedges, Truthdig, September 17, 2017
 * McCarthyism Inc: Introducing the counter-terror ‘experts’ hyping Russian threats and undermining our civil liberties - Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone, November 10, 2017


 * Britain’s free speech crisis - David Sergeant, The Spectator Australia, March 28, 2018
 * The Guardian, “Russian bots” and the dehumanisation of dissent - Kit, OffGuardian, April 20, 2018
 * The Media War On Truthful Reporting And Legitimate Opinions - A Documentary - Moon of Alabama, April 21, 2018
 * Index on Disgrace - Craig Murray, April 22, 2018
 * MSM Is Frantically Attacking Dissenting Syria Narratives, And It Looks Really Bad - Caitlin Johnstone, April 23, 2018
 * How did the media sink this low? - MarkGB, April 23, 2018
 * Syria Controversy: Don't Believe the Official Narrative, Max Blumenthal, April 23, 2018
 * How The Media Reveal Inconvenient Truth About Syria - Tim Hayward, April 23, 2018
 * Another Failure Of MSM Propaganda: ‘Kremlin Bots’ In Twitter Appear To Be Real People - SouthFront, April 25, 2018
 * Syrian dirty war Backfires on International Media - Elijah J. Magnier, April 25, 2018
 * The League of Assad-Loving Conspiracy Theorists, CJ Hopkins, April 26, 2018
 * Operation Barbarossa II Update: The Battle Will be Everywhere Christopher Black, New Eastern Outlook, April 27, 2018
 * UK Fusion Doctrine: Britain’s USA Patriot Act - Stephen Lendman, April 29, 2018
 * Whether It’s Russiagate, Skripal or Syria, the Media Have Lost Their Grip on Reality - Paul Mansfiel, Russia Insider, May 2, 2018
 * Atlantic Council Explains Why We Need To Be Propagandized For Our Own Good - Caitlin Johnstone, May 3, 2018
 * Media Use Disinformation To Accuse Russia Of Spreading Such - Moon of Alabama, May 4, 2018
 * ''Dubious or false 'western' government claims are held up as truth. That Russia does not endorse them is proof for Russian mischievousness and its 'disinformation'.
 * ‘Coordinated Campaign’ of Smears Stifles Forum on Bias in UK’s Syria Reporting - Sputnik, May 29, 2018
 * They Work To Manufacture Consent Because They Need It. So Don’t Give It To Them - Caitlin Johnstone, August 2, 2018
 * ''There was a stretch in April of this year where the mass media machine was cranking out attack editorials on alternative media voices who’d cast doubt upon the establishment Syria narrative, because there was so much opposition to what we were being told to believe about the Assad government that the alliance of plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies were unable to manufacture support for a large-scale invasion. All they got out of their massive MSM propaganda blitz in April was a meaningless bombing which accomplished essentially nothing, and now the Syrian government is recapturing its territory from the violent jihadists who had seized it with western backing. Had the “think of the children!” propaganda campaign succeeded in the wake of the highly suspicious Douma incident, we would likely have seen a very dangerous and costly western regime change intervention in Syria by now.
 * The Big Tech Companies are Just Contract Mercenaries for the U.S. Intelligence Agencies, Brian Kalman, SouthFront, August 10, 2018
 * One Year Ago — Academic Freedom? : “Syria Working Group Attacked By The Times” - Intel Today, April 16, 2019
 * Nobody Sets Out To Become A War Propagandist. It Just Sort Of Happens. - Caitlin Johnstone, January 31, 2020
 * @leftworks1 on Twitter: Wikipedia editor Philip Cross was very busy making sure these pieces went into @Wikipedia, until he got banned from doing so. Here are the references on Professor Hayward's and Dr Robinson's pages from early May 2018.

Integrity Initiative

 * ''See also: Integrity Initiative, Poisoning of Sergei Skripal


 * Was the Integrity Initiative behind the Salisbury Poisoning? - Tom Secker, January 4, 2019
 * ''On April 14th, FCO propaganda man Andy Pryce (an associate of the Integrity Initiative) sent out a letter summarising what in his view is Russian disinformation. It accused Russia of faking evidence, staging news broadcasts and running an army of Twitter-bots and trolls promoting the idea that maybe the Skripals weren’t poisoned with Novichok by the Russian state.
 * See email: (EXTERNAL)FCO Disinformation update: Salisbury and Syria - Andy Pryce, April 15, 2018 (PDF)

2019

 * Läntiset yhteiskunnat ovat mätiä ja Notre Damen polttivat keltaliivit – nämä ja muut valheet leviävät valeuutisista elävissä ryhmissä - Anna Saraste, YLE, May 13, 2019 (in Finnish)
 * Ylen kömpelö hyökkäys toisinajattelijoita kohtaan - Vesa Raiskila, Vastavalkea, May 15, 2019
 * @oliverkamm of the @thetimes continues his attacks on academics working on alleged chemical weapon attacks. - Piers Robinson on Twitter, September 7, 2019
 * Using Forged Emails, “Progressive” Journalists Smear Their Own for Challenging Syria Groupthink - Alexander Rubinstein, Mint Press News, September 20, 2019
 * The Privatisation of Espionage: What on Earth is MI6-Connected 'Citizens=Network' Up To? - Kit Klarenberg, Sputnik, September 27, 2019
 * NBC Ignores Evidence, Publishes Fake News About CrowdStrike Theories & Smears Those Who Report The Truth - Adam Carter, October 5, 2019
 * The Demonization of Dissent - James Carden, The Nation, October 28, 2019
 * Mainstream Journalists Who Refuse To Defend Dissident Journalists Are Worshippers Of Power - Caitlin Johnstone, October 31, 2019
 * ''Then they came for Blumenthal, and I did not speak out, Because I was a mainstream western journalist with no intention of ever upsetting the powerful.
 * Social Media Censorship Reaches New Heights as Twitter Permanently Bans Dissent - Mnar Muhawesh, Mint Press, November 14, 2019
 * Attacking The Source: The Establishment Loyalist’s Favorite Online Tactic - Caitlin Johnstone, November 28, 2019
 * How the UK military and intelligence establishment is working to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister - Matt Kennard, Daily Maverick, December 4, 2019
 * The new cold war and the redoubling of U.S. propaganda power - Rainer Shea, December 27, 2019

2020

 * Iran’s Fawning Western Apologists - Kaveh Shahrooz, Quillette, January 8, 2020
 * Cross-platform disinformation campaigns: lessons learned and next step - Misinformation Review (The Harvard Kennedy School), January 14, 2020
 * The 'Useful Idiots': How These British Academics Helped Russia Deny War Crimes At The UN - Chris York, Huffington Post, January 29, 2020
 * Conspiracy theories spread by academics with university help - Dominic Kennedy, The Times, June 13, 2020
 * US govt-funded Coda Story smears American journalists who undermine new Cold War propaganda - Ben Norton, The Grayzone, August 18, 2020
 * War on Truth, Dissent and Free Speech - Piers Robinson, OffGuardian, October 6, 2020
 * The BBC Prepares Another Hit Piece on Independent Journalists - Corbett Report Extras, October 20, 2020

2021

 * The foreigners in China’s disinformation drive - BBC, July 11, 2021 (archive)

2022

 * hansard.parliament.uk, Robert Halfon, March 14, 2022
 * ...Will my right hon. Friend contact these universities directly to stop them acting as useful idiots for President Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine?'
 * Leaked emails expose UK Home Secretary Priti Patel’s connection to MI6-style ‘research and influence operation’ - Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone, May 18, 2022
 * Ukraine: The Disinformation War - Declan Hayes, Strategic Culture, June 4, 2022
 * Paul Mason’s covert intelligence-linked plot to destroy The Grayzone exposed - The Grayzone, June 7, 2022
 * Intellectual Prostitutes Call Critics Foreign Agents, Useful Idiots - Yves Engler, Dissident Voice, June 12, 2022
 * Russia-backed network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified - Mark Townsend, The Guardian, June 19, 2022 (archived original)
 * MI5’s Leaked Flowcharts Expose NATO’s War on British Democrats - Declan Hayes, Strategic Culture, June 20, 2022