April 2018 attack on dissent

The Times front page of April 14, 2018: "Apologists for Assad"

The Times attacks Corbyn

The Sunday Times claims "Russian bots" on Twitter almost gave Labour a victory. (April 29, 2018)

Bots explained in 2 dimensions

See also Integrity Initiative, Totalitarian Media Regime

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)