Critics of Covid restrictions were targeted by a counter-disinformation team at the heart of the Government, according to a Telegraph investigation. Here’s how it begins.
A secretive Government unit worked with social media companies in an attempt to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown policies during the pandemic, the Telegraph can reveal.
The Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) was set up by ministers to tackle supposed domestic “threats”, and was used to target those critical of lockdown and questioning the mass vaccination of children.
Critics of lockdown had posts removed from social media. There is growing suspicion that social media firms used technology to stop the posts being promoted, circulated or widely shared after being flagged by the CDU or its counterpart in the Cabinet Office.
Documents revealed under Freedom of Information (FoI) and data protection requests showed that the activities of prominent critics of the Government’s Covid policies were secretly monitored.
An artificial intelligence firm (AI) was used by the Government to scour social media sites. The company flagged discussions opposing vaccine passports.
Many of the issues being raised were valid at the time and have since been proven to be well-founded.
The BBC also took part in secretive meetings of a government policy forum to address the so-called disinformation.
On Friday, MPs and freedom of speech campaigners condemned the disclosures as “truly chilling” and “a tool for censoring British citizens” akin to those of the Chinese Communist Party.
Much of the Government’s wider work on disinformation is shrouded in secrecy for “national security” reasons. Large parts of official documents are still redacted.
In America, Twitter has released similar information showing how the US government also introduced a secretive programme to curtail discussion of Covid lockdowns.
It can now be revealed that the activities of Prof Carl Heneghan, the Oxford epidemiologist who has advised Boris Johnson, and Dr Alexandre de Figueiredo, a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), were monitored by government disinformation units.
Molly Kingsley, who set up a campaign to keep schools open during the pandemic, also had her social activity monitored.
As well as the CDU, the Government operated a Rapid Response Unit (RRU) in the Cabinet Office that hunted online for content it considered disinformation.
The CDU, which is still operating, was embedded in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
The department has “trusted flagger” status at social media companies including Facebook and Twitter, which means that requests for content to be removed are fast-tracked for consideration.
In some cases, individuals whose social media posts were recorded by the units have subsequently faced sanctions by Twitter and Facebook. Ministers denied asking for posts by Prof Heneghan, Dr. de Figueiredo or Ms Kingsley to be removed.
The Government has said that the CDU “is focused on helping the Government understand online disinformation narratives and understand attempts to artificially manipulate the information environment”.
The Government also ran a Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum, which brought together civil servants from the DCMS and technology giants – including Facebook and Google – as well as the BBC to discuss how to limit the spread of what was considered COVID-19 disinformation.
This forum and the two units were not the only way the Government tried to apply pressure on social media companies during the pandemic.
The Lockdown Files, published by The Telegraph earlier this year, revealed that Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, repeatedly lobbied Sir Nick Clegg, the former Deputy Prime Minister and now a Facebook executive, about vaccine misinformation.
Facebook has been open about its efforts to tackle misinformation about Covid. During the pandemic, it removed posts and in April 2020 alone put warning labels on about 50 million pieces of content.
The CDU was established in 2019 and was focused on the European elections before turning to focus on the pandemic.
During Covid, the unit worked closely with the Cabinet Office’s now defunct RRU, whose responsibilities included tackling “purported ‘experts’ issuing dangerous misinformation”.
The RRU has admitted in an FoI obtained by Big Brother Watch and passed to the Telegraph that it made requests for social media posts to be taken down.
As part of its work, the Cabinet Office also passed the CDU “media monitoring” reports.
Documents revealed that the material flagged to the CDU included articles published by the Telegraph.
One of these was a piece by Ms. Kingsley published in February 2022, arguing that it was “indefensible” that children’s lives were still not back to normal when the rest of society was. She urged ministers to make a clear statement that children’s extracurricular activities should not be subject to additional curbs.
One of Ms. Kingsley’s tweets from December 2020, in which she said it would be “unforgivable to close schools”, was also passed to the CDU.
Worth reading in full.
I gave a quote to the Telegraph that wasn’t used. So I might as well include it here.
“The great danger of entrusting the state and state-funded companies to monitor and, in some cases, suppress ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ is that politicians and officials won’t be able to resist the temptation to classify perfectly legitimate criticism of their policies as falling into those categories and then using their ‘trusted flagger’ status with social media companies to get it removed, as happened during the pandemic.
“What started out as an understandable desire to protect the public from foreign, cyber-security threats has morphed into a tool for censoring British citizens.
“It’s in the Conservative Government’s interest to put a stop to this because you can bet your bottom dollar these tools will be used on a far greater scale to suppress dissent by a Labour Government.
“The solution is to build much stronger free speech protections into the Online Safety Bill so social media companies can be taken to court for removing the expression of perfectly legitimate points of view.”
Stop Press: The Telegraph Investigations Team has more on the Counter Disinformation Unit here. Meanwhile, Fraser Nelson has written about how Facebook is a law unto itself when it comes to censoring content it’s decided is ‘false’ or ‘misleading’.
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It looks like the Conservative government has gone a very long way down the slippery slope to a Chinese style totalitarian social credit system. The “conspiracy theorists” were right again. A similar system has been proposed for Net Zero.
The politicians, civil servants and quangocrats responsible need to be swept away in a tsunami of democratic accountability.
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/net-zero-behaviour-change-mind-games
Liz Truss attempted to restore some Conservatism and she was rapidly removed. The Civil Service, the WEF, the EU are all top down and heavily ideological and bureaucratic and therefore a large country of free thinking individuals is a problem because there is no control, in their eyes. Klaus Schwab said in his book that a world government is needed because no one is in control. He also praised the CCP, the EU, the UN and WHO for how they were controlling the pandemic while he singled out Brexit Britain and Trump US for not doing the ‘right thing’. This was stated with great authority in a book that was published just 3 months after the ‘pandemic’ was declared. With all our clever intelligencia in authority it is staggering that the timing of this hubris didn’t jump out as a ‘tell’ that a coup was taking place.
No, what’s really happening is that the Telegraph is being hi-jacked by conspiracy theorists, as one can tell from another headline today, “The Deep State is gearing up to fight a second Trump Presidency.”
Tin foil hats all round – Everybody knows that the Deep State is another conspiracy theory started by Trump on the instructions of his Russian paymasters, just as accusations of government COVID disinformation are far-right misinformation. Or vice versa. We know it because the press, including the Telegraph, told us so for 4 years of his presidency.
The only good sign is that the Telegraph is still on board with all right-thinking Russiophobes over Ukraine, Charles Moore writing that “Ukraine is fighting for a free Europe, against the legacy of Stalin.” We’ll know the paper has been thoroughly captured by Putin and/or Ji when it reports that the legacy of Stalin is actually alive and well in Britain’s “‘Chilling’ secret unit” and America’s “Deep State.”
Ah – the downticks showed that my disinformation was more convincing than the government’s. I shall apply for a job with SpyB.
Always need the “sarcasm” warning for those of a more literal persuasion.
I didn’t fall for it, Jon. You’re not that good just yet. Keep trying though
For a split second Jon I was going ! until I saw it was still you writing
Don’t do that 
The first time I heard the term deep state was in relation to Turkey in the early 80s. The Demirel vs Ecevit duopoly had led to a mess and General Evren mounted a couple with the backing of the ‘Deep State’.
There it was Kemalist, but here we have an establishment of big business, politicians (paid directly and indirectly), civil servants (obstructive in a way Sir Humphrey would never dare), academia, think tanks and NGOs. It believes in Global government with centralised control.
It sounds sensible. Let all the cleverest people run the world, but it assumes an altruism that is not there and ignores corruption and inefficiency.
Eventually it will fail like the USSR.
I think Trump saw this and described the American version.
Similar in Australia and I suspect the Western World.
As always, my only surprise/despondency is that not only do 90% of the population not give a rat’s anus that this happened, they fully support this deep state intervention and still likely feel all “anti-vaxxers” should be gaoled.
Or am I incorrect, and the sleeping masses are waking up?
They’re still fast asleep & totally disinterested.
More interested in Philip Schofield, sadly.
When a relatively innocuous story is jamming up the front pages… that’s the moment to start looking for stories being buried a few pages in!
The Telegraph piece has a number of comments along the lines of “The Government had to clamp down in these days of crazy keyboard warriors.”
Now, that may reflect public compliance, but given the subject of the article, there is every reason to suppose public opinion is being led by planted pro-government comments. And that suspicion is what they’re going to get increasingly as “truth” becomes “Whatever government narrative is in play.”
The trouble nowadays though is that you can’t tell who’s a genuine commenter and which are bots/77th etc. As the bots will never be opposed to any of the narratives my optimistic self always assumes the majority of comments supportive of the BS tyranny are not reflective of the general population and are bogus. Remember, the PsyOp never ends.
You must read Sage Hana. So do I!
Haha. No, I used to, but his writing style got too irritating and he seems to think everybody bar Sasha Latypova is controlled opposition. Comes across as a bit bitter and paranoid at times tbh. Actually I don’t even know if it’s ”he” because the Hana bit always throws me.
I suspect that as AI comes more into play, the whole exercise becomes so much easier for the powers that be.
Their attempts to shut down Prof Carl Heneghan didn’t work! Listening to him, Mike Yeadon and reading the GBD convinced me and my two grown up children to have nothing to do with the mRNA concoctions. I speak as someone who’s had an armful of everything going in my 17 years RAF service.
Mike Yeadon got me over the line as well. Didn’t touch the Bio-Weapon Counter Measure, as I now call it.
Add Dr Vernon “The Old Man in a Chair” Coleman to the mix
I agree with you Freddy.
And that’s the correct term because the CovJab is a US DOD programme; nothing to do with HHS. Federal immunity all the way.
Unfortunately Dr Mike Yeadon lets his imagination run wild.
His realism more like. If you’re sceptical of what he says do a bit of research for yourself. Catherine Austin Fitts on CBDCs; check the government websites for where they’re at with CBDCs, their partnerships with the WEF, WHO; UN Agenda 21 for how they plan to impose their tyranny; Jacob Nordangard for the sheer level of infiltration & hidden controllers of the narrative.
Mike has been ahead of the game in warning about what is to come.
Ivor Cummins is in agreement with Mike about the sheer level of tyranny which is planned for us & he remains on youtube.
You can find links to presentations by them here: https://rumble.com/user/cbkovess
Agree 100% BB.
BurlingtonBertie, how about this bit of research:
At 7.25 into this video, you can hear for yourself Dr Mike Yeadon saying:
“When I looked at the design of these alleged vaccines, I saw a deliberate intent to maim, to injure and to kill.”
And then at 14.50 into the video, he states:
“I think they plan to take digital tyrannical control and then kill most people.”
He makes these ludicrous claims without any evidence whatsoever, just pure paranoid imagination.
He makes it easy for most people to dismiss “anti-vaxxers” as “crazy conspiracy theorists”.
https://rumble.com/v2o9kvu-dr-mike-yeadon-truth-be-told-london-13.05.2023-oracle-films.html?fbclid=IwAR1A8wmcSaJGMT2xNXsTXi7-QLUtH5msQ7pwfH0Vz34YYQHJBgDH2sl_NXo
I know someone who has been researching the components of the covid bioweapons & has identified that the same components are utilised in population control injections in wild mammals & that the injection protocols are the same. That is by design.
The injections are of the same design as utilised in animal studies into the efficacy of a vaccine for coronavirus. Todd Callender sounded the alarm as a family company was involved in that research & every single animal which received the trial injection died. Todd is a highly respected lawyer.
Are you aware of SV40? It is a known cancer causing cell line which is included in these bioweapons.
The way in which the immune system is stimulated to attack itself by these bioweapon injections is causing the dysregulation of the body to keep cancerous cell growth in check, causing inflammation in musculature which is attacked by the immune system, dysregulates the blood clotting mechanism & this is what Mike identified would happen.
So to answer your point, I have done my research, I’ve heard from numerous other researchers: medics, biologists, immunologists, folk involved in pharma manufacturing & pharma research who have all identified that these injections are designed to maim, to injure & to kill.
This all fits in with Agenda 21. The bioweapon is a military product.
You are most welcome to your opinion, I’m sticking with mine until & unless information becomes available to challenge & contradict what I currently know.
https://off-guardian.org/2023/06/03/steps-to-world-rule-first-destroy-humanity/
Todd Hayen arrives at the same conclusion as I do.
“the UN is calling for a British population of 136 million by 2050. …(which will) result(s) in massive dilutions of native populations to way below 50%, causing rapid unprecedented cultural genocide.”
Froma terrific article posted over at UK Column.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/macron-and-replacement-migration-how-raising-the-pension-age-led-to-a-french-dictatorship
No, I don’t agree with that comment. Dr Mike Yeadon is a man of great experience and knowledge and I believe his interpretations of what is going on around us are usually but sadly spot on.
I follow his Telegram channel and Dr Yeadon is always bang up to date. We ignore him at our peril.
Do you think this is spot on?
“I think they plan to take digital tyrannical control and then kill most people.”
Yes.
huxleypiggles, if you really believe that “they plan to take digital tyrannical control and then kill most people”, you must be terrified.
You must be as scared as Greta Thunberg with her belief that we’re doomed because of climate change. What are you doing to try to prevent the killing of the majority of us? At least Greta is trying to do something to halt climate change!
Or do you believe that you and your loved ones are going to be among the minority whom they won’t kill?
I suspect that – like fundamentalist Christians who believe that everyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus is destined to suffer eternal torture with no hope of escape, ever, which includes their loved ones who don’t share their Christian belief – you don’t really believe it in your heart, otherwise you couldn’t be complacent about it.
Why should I be terrified? I know at least some of what is planned for humanity and I have stated as much many times here on DS. Governments worldwide have declared war on their populations and in war people die. The injections are going to kill millions via cancers and heart diseases and that is evident already and each year the mortality rates will increase.
Starvation is being implemented slowly but surely and will accelerate if the farming industry is emaciated in the ways being planned. Billy has made no secret of his intention to launch another “pandemic” and this will appear shortly after the International Health Regulations have been changed and the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty has been signed into “law.” Of course none of these measures have anything to do with depopulation in the same way that CBDC’s, Digital ID’S and 15 minute ghettos have nothing to do with population control.
I hope that clarifies my position.
I used to also think Mike Yeadon sounded a bit kooky and far-out when he was talking about things such as depopulation. Now I’m totally onboard with that hypothesis because we can see the evidence, it’s all around us, that TPTB mean us harm and are actively trying to hurt us on many levels, not just from the pharmaceutical perspective. One easy way to demonstrate this is to ask; of all the various narratives that are going on now, that we are being bombarded with, be it imminent plandemics, vaccines, Woke and the radical trans movement, the climate BS, CBDC, increased surveillance and censorship online, the WHO treaty…I’ve probably forgotten one but there’s plenty of them, is there any of these narratives/topics which has irrefutable evidence that it will directly benefit us?
Are any of these topics that are shoved in our faces constantly designed for our betterment? None of them are, it’s all phony, and that’s the point. If the intention is not to help and improve life for us then by default it means ‘their’ intention is to make our lives miserable, thus causing harm.
Damn right Mogs.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/one-ring-to-rule-them-all-the-whos-pandemic-prevention-preparedness-and-response-treaty
Perhaps this extremely in-depth article by Simon Elmer will help you to understand why I believe in the interpretations of Dr Mike Yeadon.
There’s absolutely nothing about anyone planning to kill anyone in that article, never mind planning to “kill most people”.
I neither said nor implied that there was.
Then why are you asking me to read that article? I have never expressed or implied any scepticism about anything in that article, just Dr Mike Yeadon’s crazy claim that “they plan to take digital tyrannical control and then kill most people.”
Many of us on this site have been aware of this for years, since the early days of Covid, I note the media have not picked up on the 77th brigade yet
I think today’s DT articles show that whilst we were all assuming that the 77th Brigade was at the heart of the Government’s operation, the real dirty work was being done by various newly created units reporting into the DCMS and Cabinet Office.
If anything, I’d suggest that the way that the 77 Brigade was drawn into public scrutiny was probably a blind to distract attention away from the real operations. (You can see where this is leading. The MOD would be quite happy to obfuscate “we can neither confirm nor deny….” whilst no-one would be asking searching questions to the actual departments involved.)
The Telegraph has covered 77th Brigade.
So here is the problem we have.
We already know the government has been clamping down on free information. i suppose the news is that there is now some sturdy evidence and details of it.
BUT, this activity isn’t illegal in this country the way it is in the US. The US has a constitution that says that the government can’t shut you up. The UK doesn’t. It actually has the opposite. It has laws that say the government can do what it wants in the event of an emergency.
So then, this only matters if it generates public outrage. But the problem is that it won’t. The public firstly isn’t going to hear much about it, and most of those that do are just going to shrug their shoulders as in “so what” or “there isn’t much I can do about it”.
And so ultimately these “revelations” end up being worse, because it signals to those who do this sort of thing that they can get away with it and the public couldn’t care less. It’s only going to embolden them.
Like when Snowden revealed to the US public that their government was spying on everyone and breaking multiple laws and the fall out was… nothing. Snowden trapped in Russia for the rest of his life.
I’m not saying this sort of thing shouldn’t be revealed because just turning away is even worse. What I’m saying is that when I read this sort of thing, what I see is the gas being turned one notch up on the stove with the pot of water and and the frog in it.
“there isn’t much I can do about it” – well, you can’t complain about that remark unless you can show to the contrary.
Not sure. I think it’s a cop out.
Just so as it is not forgotten, the politically motivated prosecutions of those most involved in organising the protests continues with cases still pending and those accused being found guilty for things which in other circumstances would be thrown out of court or the police/CPS not prosecuting
Assange , Snowden & even that Tranny named after a London football team are absolute Hero,s , See Julian’s treatment ! It’s how they would / Will treat All of Humanity for having the temerity to peep behind their curtain & warn others !
Heads are rolling at Twitter, because Daily Wire’s documentary ‘What is a Woman?’ got screened on there with Elon Musk’s permission and Twitter executives tried to block it. Musk ultimately had the film unblocked and tweeted the link to his 150 million followers, saying every parent should watch it. Two senior executives have been fired so far and a number of other workers have left. So there’s some sort of fightback going on…
Have you or anyone else watched it yet? I still haven’t got around to it. I also want to watch the Birthgap one I linked yesterday. Will try and watch one later tonight. Also Plandemic 3 comes out tomorrow, or soon anyway, so that’s on the list.
Yes, it’s good. It’s already had 80 million views and is being kept on Twitter for the weekend. I’m a Daily Wire subscriber, so I’ve had access to it for a year. Matt’s no firebrand. He’s a nice, quiet, unassuming guy and the some of the extreme reactions to him are shocking.
I like Daily Wire. Some of its written reporting is a bit iffy now Ben Shapiro isn’t the editor anymore, but their daily video podcast shows are great and they have loads of good people tied up with them. Theres a real mix there: Candace Owen, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, author Andrew Klavan, Gen Z representative Brett Cooper… and Jordan Peterson has a big presence on there.
Lots of good exclusive documentaries, such as What is a Woman? and Candace Owens’s The Greatest Lie Ever Sold, which is a takedown on George Floyd myths and BLM, and A Shot in the Dark – a series investigating Big Pharma and the vaccines grift. Jordan Peterson has loads of interesting material on there, ranging from psychology discussions to philosophy to examinations of the books of the Bible. Prager U has its programming on there too, including children’s shows that are 100 per cent safe from woke indoctrination.
Basically, it’s a haven of slightly old-fashioned programming (in the sense of ‘mainstream companies stopped making this stuff’ rather than anything backward-looking!) It’s not actually controversial: it’s only ‘controversial’ now because the cultural centre has moved so far to the left!
Countering the true mis & disinformation & outright unlawful medical practice still ongoing in the NHS is the indomitable Anna de Buisseret. She really is a legend.
https://twitter.com/AnnadeBuisseret/status/1664867921028435970
“The CDU was established in 2019 and was focused on the European elections before turning to focus on the pandemic.”
Oh how wonderfully, coincidentally, convenient.
The forthcoming not a pandemic “pandemic” was already known about before 2019 so in order to give CDU staff some real live training before the crap really hit the fan, the CDU was set up and allowed real-time practice allegedly monitoring European elections.
Oh really? FFS!
The entire upper echelons of the British state are now the enemy of the British people, from Mad King Charles III to the governing uniparty to the life peers to the entire Civil Service to the mainstream press.
Even on a local level, it’s bad: our council tax is massive, my home city is still basically made up of people born in the city, but we have diversity officers who are paid a fortune, while our roads are full of potholes and all the substantial public grassland areas are now overgrown up to my hips (and I’m six feet tall!)
I can only, sadly concur.
And then there was Event 201…
Indeed.
So, could the Telegraph coverage be an attack on BBC Verify too? I question whether such an operation will be viable in the aftermath of these revelations (which include the BBC’s involvement.)
Only if Joe Public baulks at being lied to by authority, rather than concluding that all is fair when far-right disinformation is threatening the planet.
I think they’ll struggle to suppress ‘disinformation’ when more and more people have VPNs these days!
More interested in the delights of Bellenders and Strictlycomeand getmeoutof here
Love the caption photo of Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) as the Hauptmann in von Donnersmarck´s wonderful film “The Lives of Others”.
It seems London is now East Berlin.
Since the start of the pandemic a lot of what the government confidently stated has been shown to be disinformation especially concerning the jabs and masks as the prior art has reasserted its truth.
We can dress it up all we want. Shy away from it. Delay the inevitable. Speak in subtle innuendo for the sake of some misguided notion of politeness.
The fact of the matter is, we are at war with the deep state, and have been for some time now.
And what is at stake is our way of life, our western liberal democratic values, and the fate of our children.
Please act with a sense of urgency.
Agreed!
Well done.
Having heard a couple of years back that most input from independent sources was being junked unread (you reported an unguarded comment from Ferguson) I was less puzzled by the DoH’s failure to even acknowledge my submissions but still irritated by the media’s similar attitude. I then discovered my email address was suddenly on a spam list which effectively stopped me sending any attachments to anyone. With the revealing of this CDU my paranoia over this is heightened; did it compromise my email? Coincidence or conspiracy?
I’m confused. Are facts or evidence misinformation or disinformation; or both?!!
Depends on whether they support the government’s narrative, or expose their lies.
It is clear much of the government’s response to Covid was counter-productive and caused much more damage than benefit. While implementing these stupid actions, the government was censoring people who were correctly criticizing them while dishing out fear factor propaganda to try to force people to be controlled by their stupidity. At the same time, encouraging the police to enforce the government’s stupid restrictions. How can we ever trust our government to act in its citizen’s interests? Now our government is carrying on the same stupidity about climate with the same fear factored ridiculous propaganda. Please people, do some accurate research and learn the truth for yourself, before our government cripples our industry and economy further in the unnecessary and crazy attempt to achieve net-zero human output of a gas that is essential for life on earth. The only way we could achieve net-zero is for every mammal on earth to stop breathing