Hi Doug (Sawsan) - Thanks for these follow-ups. I am perhaps too sensitized from years of frustrating advocacy in peace activism. There’s so little progress over decades. Sawsan, thanks for the note – I had misread the critiques of Snopes perhaps, I didn't mean to argue as much as to redirect the discussion back to the problematic astroturfing Bellingcat. Now if some don’t mind, I’ll redirect myself, not to argue but to fill you in a bit. (Others can ignore this personal story.)
World beyond War is actually a newer organization, started in 2014 by veteran online activist David Swanson and some serious thinkers, including former US Navy officer Leah Bolger. Their Global Security System is a real systems science approach to the complexity of today’s hybrid warfare. My own research agenda is in how to disrupt and displace this $2T world-level business model of militarization. The US DoD is also the world’s largest user of fossil fuels and the single largest organization contributing to climate impact. This is an issue few people in the climate movement are even aware of. WBW has moved from US to international in an evolutionary way, by holding live conferences in the different major cities where ant-war activist are wiling to host them. Because they are an “all-embracing” organization they have become the peace org that has the intellectual integrity to embrace the other peace movements. I hosted their 2018 conference at OCAD University here in Toronto. We need arts and design for activism, or we don’t engage people in the culture. I had contacted David when he was looking to host the 2018 event in Toronto. It was their biggest conference ever, we had Medea Benjamin do a book signing for her Iran book, Yves Engler, and great indigenous speakers, etc. The Canadian peace movement was galvanized and have been holding meta-meetings across about a dozen groups ever since WBW invested some assistance. (They even hired a part time Canadian coordinator – we are actively fighting Trudeau’s $19B fighter jet buy, we have specific issues). So Doug, I know you from the Participatory Design community, and I guess my last PDC was 2008. I took a lot of that learning into the http://RSDSymposium.org I was in the US until emigrating to Canada to protest the continuation of the Iraq War- we have been settled in Toronto since 2006. And I’m not against working with the military directly to enable their transition into peace-supporting security organization. They are perhaps the least corrupt of the organizations involved in the MMIC complex. They will have a future, there is a huge role for a military without wars, even if the business model that invents threats to generate the $2T dissipates. Sorry to go on long here, but this stories why I’m passionate about truth-finding, as information warfare is a major part of hybrid war (fourth generation warfare) and this is the battlefield in which we are all on every day. Happy New year, and kind regards, Peter PETER JONES, PH.D. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR FACULTY OF DESIGN T <tel:416%20799%208799> 416 799.8799 @redesign E <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] <http://designdialogues.com/> Design Dialogues <http://slab.ocadu.ca/> Strategic Innovation Lab <https://systemic-design.net/> Systemic Design Association (RSD) OCAD UNIVERSITY Strategic Foresight & Innovation 205 Richmond St. West, Suite 410 Toronto, Canada M5V 1V3 From: Doug Schuler <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, January 1, 2021 9:04 PM To: [email protected] Cc: Domestic Caverns <[email protected]>; Richard Brooks <[email protected]>; LT <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Intentional Big Tech Leftist Bias in Social and News Media Corrupts Elections and Defrauds Peoples Peter --- It's quite possible that I weigh in in the future on this but for now don't quit the list because of my ignorance! I actually try to some degree to understand a bit of what's actually going on. It's not easy. I also hope that well-meaning people with lack of knowledge can participate in these discussions. I prefer people holding that role to true believers, professional dissemblers, and super spreaders. I'm opposed to much of US foreign policy and I obviously am way in the dark on a large percentage of it. My sense is, however, that the US is not the only "bad guy" out there. In fact I'd like to think that the US can be something of a "good guy" on occasion. I'll look into the beyond war perspective. Is this the same group that was active in the 80's (or thereabouts)? — Doug On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 4:53 PM Peter Jones | Redesign <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: You are seriously citing “Snopes” in a list that purports to engage scholarship into serious surveillance, security technology or (in this case) foreign policy issues? Perhaps you didn’t look at any of the references I cited. The most significant issue with Bellingcat is that they are funded and sponsored by a NATO advisory. It is their job to disinform. That is how wars are promoted when you are the aggressor. Higgins has been caught outright lying about his relationship with the FCO and government funding by Hitchens and others on Twitter. These are not arguments, they are misrepresentations. The critical issue here is the cover-up. The lead OPCW field chemist who led the fact-finding mission for the Douma Syria report verified that there was no indication of a chorine “chemical weapons” attack on the purported site. There were two dozen children’s bodies placed in the basement, that were claimed as victims, but they did not die of chlorine. There was no chlorine beyond the level found in normal household use. But the field investigation team’s unanimous findings were deliberately misreported by the OPCW by their (Bush appointed) Dir General, who publicly claimed there was a confirmed chorine release. Which is not revealed by the field findings. That is the real political scandal. The filed team did not state that the filmed scene was staged – that’s outside the purview of OPCW. But that is also the subject of Patrick Watson’s analysis BTW. Read some of the painstaking analysis and you will see why this is suppressed, and why I think very poorly of “Snopes” who is enabling (our) war crimes here. Snopes is also partisan and unreliable in a media ecology that is now hopelessly divided and divisive. Its as much of an establishment tool as exists in the US/UK universe of bought-reporting. If this level of insight on the list persists - I’ll just going to quit the list. I don’t have the time to waste on “liberation tech” that finds favour with the MIC/NATO establishment and its media trolls and is uninterested in learning from actual citizen-led independent investigations. And that are in apparent uncritical support of the $2 trillion / year US/NATO war system that uses mercenary “terrorists” to create events that justify its attacks and regime change programs. Who did you think is paying for the surveillance systems that this list was set up to intervene? Its all the same Five Eyes. I recommend to those interested in our new approach to the peace movement, to find the report on Global Security System at World Beyond War https://worldbeyondwar.org/alternative/ Wishing everyone peace in your own communities in the New Year. Peter From: LT <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Intentional Big Tech Leftist Bias in Social and News Media Corrupts Elections and Defrauds Peoples Thanks Tom. That seems to clear up some things. — Doug On Thu, Dec 31, 2020 at 5:17 PM Domestic Caverns <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Hi Peter, I’m not sure if this is what you’re referring to regarding the white helmets, but here is some fact checking on them as a hoax: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-this-proof-white-helmets-staged-chemical-attack/ Best, Tom On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 2:45 PM Peter Jones | Redesign <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Hi Richard - Its interesting you'd suggest Bellingcat on this list (Liberation Tech) as an exemplar for investigative techniques that purport to identity motive and source. In my observation of their work, they have the resources to conduct very sophisticated study - because that are a dedicated insider info ops (hybrid warfare) group of the NATO-sponsored Atlantic Council - their DFRL organization https://www.digitalsherlocks.org Bellingcat started up two days before the infamous MH17 airliner shootdown in Ukraine 7.17.2014 (a problematic case that is still definitely unresolved in the Dutch special court). They immediately entangled themselves in evidence production from the "fog of war" among the various actual investigators on the ground. Their notoriety and founding were started up in sync with this event, which would give them interesting context for their own motives. The founders Higgins and Toler are senior fellows at the NATO DFRLab https://www.digitalsherlocks.org/360-os-2018 which verifies not necessarily a guarantee of income, but at least the level of establishment of their primary client. I’d suspect they aren’t hurting for a job. The goals of the DRFL program are ostensibly to "counter disinformation." But the explicit means of doing so are to construct preferred information that is certified by their vast network of the military complex that requires such "bottom up" narratives to justify their own interventions and weaponization of social media. After all Obama shelled out $250M in his last gift to the Mil Complex December 2016. Also for “countering (primarily Russian) disinformation” which is a neat way of saying “creating disinformation for the public.” All US wars have been started and justified by such information ops long before kinetic actions, and this was done with newspapers before electronic media. Put your McLuhanist hats on. Who has the most to gain from these operations? Who has skin in the game and who is paying for these investigations? Who is working at their OWN risk and conscience to develop and expose (or whistleblow) truthful reporting? The anti-Bellingcats are actual citizen sleuths such as Northern Ireland’ Patrick Watson, who was disgusted by what he saw as obvious fake videos with the White Helmets, used to promote the Syrian “chemical weapons” videos. He did hos own research and blew open quiet a bit of trouble. His website https://hiddensyria.com/ covers a number of his investigations – he’s clearly not a “Russian” anything, as I’ve followed his work from the very first tweet I think (I happened to see his easily outbursts) AND he doesn’t’ have a lot of followers. A troll tries to sensationalize and get a lot of attention. Philip has also worked hard, and at risk, to show the OPCW organization is at fault for covering up their field evidence that exonerates the Syrian government, a very inconvenient finding. There are whistle-blower memos and support from the founding OPCW General Director for their exposure. It’s a significant scandal, and on this issue Bellingcat is arguing (and was caught fabricating) for the establishment, again, and every time, for the wars. I would also confirm regard for the small UK academic team, the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media that has done open sources and deep investigative reporting on the Syrian hoaxes and White Helmets (along with Vanessa Bealey's fieldwork). has also been heavily attacked by mainstream reporters, (Guardian types) and 77th Brigade (the British military info ops soldiers) https://syriapropagandamedia.org/ Because they have been on-0tagert, the BBC and Guardian have smeared their work on front page stories to try to recover their Syrian war “information superiority.” In the shadowy world of information ops, this is a war on real people. And the establishment will lose, over time, regardless of how many more millions they throw at 77th Brigades and projects like the UK’s FCO-sponsored Integrity Initiative https://syriapropagandamedia.org/the-integrity-initiative Humans with a conscience will always eventually win on social media, as the war narrative is always a drumbeat of the same talking points and arguments. Reality is complex, ambiguous, and subject to surprises – which is what we see in the citizen reporter stories. As a professor I would at least present students with case studies from “both sides.” To a more peaceful 2021, Peter Jones PETER JONES, PH.D. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR FACULTY OF DESIGN T <tel:416%20799%208799> 416 799.8799 @redesign E <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] <http://designdialogues.com/> Design Dialogues <http://slab.ocadu.ca/> Strategic Innovation Lab <https://systemic-design.net/> Systemic Design Association (RSD) OCAD UNIVERSITY Strategic Foresight & Innovation 205 Richmond St. West, Suite 410 <https://www.google.com/maps/search/205+Richmond+St.+West,+Suite+410+Toronto,+Canada++M5V+1V3?entry=gmail&source=g> Toronto, Canada <https://www.google.com/maps/search/205+Richmond+St.+West,+Suite+410+Toronto,+Canada++M5V+1V3?entry=gmail&source=g> M5V 1V3 <https://www.google.com/maps/search/205+Richmond+St.+West,+Suite+410+Toronto,+Canada++M5V+1V3?entry=gmail&source=g> -----Original Message----- From: LT <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of Richard Brooks Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2020 2:39 PM To: Doug Schuler <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >; Richard Brooks <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Cc: LT <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Intentional Big Tech Leftist Bias in Social and News Media Corrupts Elections and Defrauds Peoples The idea of thoughts and ideas being similar to a biological ecosystem has been around for a while. I think that Richard Dawkins, William S. Burroughs, and Robert Anton Wilson all have legitimate claims to having originated the idea. (It is likely to have roots in antiquity somewhere.) The US does have a certain anti-intellectualism deep in its subconscious and at least one (nameless) political party has worked hard to delegitimize science (evolution, economics, climate change, ...). That this would lead eventually to people being susceptible to having their innate biases exploited by other actors, is not surprising. Social media has exacerbated the process. One idea that I have been playing with is trying to introduce somewhere in curricula having students use tools/techniques like those used by Bellingcat to determine the source and motivation of online campaigns. I really am impressed by Bellingcat. On 12/30/20 2:12 PM, Doug Schuler wrote: > An article in the recent Science magazine talked about a “syndemic” > which > > "is the intersection of two epidemics—two diseases ravaging a > population at the same time, exacerbating each other. HIV weakens the > immune system, for instance, which makes people more likely to develop > tuberculosis. The world witnessed some- thing similar this year. We > live in an eco-system that allows viruses to cross from wildlife to > humans more often and spread farther and faster than ever before—that > gave us SARS-CoV-2. But the virus emerged in an information ecosystem > that helps misinformation and lies spread faster than scientific > evidence, weakening our ability to respond to new threats. That made > the pandemic far worse." > > <https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/370/6523/1395.full.pdf> > https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/370/6523/1395.full.pdf > > Without necessarily buying into the entire metaphor it seems pretty > useful, bringing up concepts susceptibility, vulnerable populations, > super spreaders, mode of transmission, and, of course, inoculation. > > It also fits well into my investigations into civic intelligence which > I believe is threatened like other natural resources. And if it gets > too low, our ability to address our problems cooperatively becomes > ever more helpless. > > I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! > > — Doug > > > > > On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 8:49 AM Richard Brooks <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> > < <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > Interesting. > > > <https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21278601/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-tr> > https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21278601/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-tr > ump-posts-employee-call-fact-checking-voter-misinformation > > <https://faculty.lsu.edu/fakenews/elections/thethreatofqanon.php> > https://faculty.lsu.edu/fakenews/elections/thethreatofqanon.php > > > <https://www.france24.com/en/20201006-qanon-conspiracies-go-global-in-p> > https://www.france24.com/en/20201006-qanon-conspiracies-go-global-in-p > andemic-perfect-storm > > > <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1329334?jour> > https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1329334?jour > nalCode=rics20 > > > <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radi> > https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radi > cal.html > > On 12/23/20 4:31 AM, grarpamp wrote: > > The Invisible Influence of Big Tech on Politics & Elections - Allum > > Bokhari #Deleted > > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFJfGphZBmQ> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFJfGphZBmQ > > #Deleted: Big Tech's battle to erase the trump movement and steal > the election > > <https://deletedbook.com/> https://deletedbook.com/ > > > > -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial search engine. 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