Call me old-fashioned, but if I follow a hunch down a rabbit hole and it leads to a dead end, I let it go. However, this, it turns out, is not how journalism is done at Britain’s major TV news organisations. Last week, both the BBC and ITV reported on the same non-story: that no evidence was found of Reform U.K. using ‘bots’ to influence its social media reach ahead of the July 4th General Election. Nonetheless, the stories these outlets published left readers with the clear impression that something nefarious had been exposed. After all, academics were suspicious of the challenger party’s social media reach and the polling bounce it had had since Nigel Farage returned as leader.
“Are fake accounts swaying voters towards Reform U.K.?”, asked BBC ‘disinformation correspondent’ Marianna Spring. Apparently without any sense of irony, Spring built her own bot farm – 24 mobile telephones, each of which is loaded with social media accounts of a fictional profile, which Spring uses to “like, follow and watch relevant content”. Spring used these accounts to contact other social media accounts which had committed the egregious sin of sharing Reform U.K. videos or imploring others to “Vote Reform!” to establish their authenticity as social media users, their motivations and their relationship with the party. A few reply. Most ignore her.
Spring finds little evidence from their replies for anything more than suspicion – “hallmarks of inauthentic accounts” – and Reform denies that its campaign includes such an initiative. Spiring admits that despite identifying 50 suspicious accounts, “they could still have been genuine”. Nonetheless, Spring’s fig leaf is that this is “one more piece of evidence” that “social media users and anonymous accounts have the ability to shape the online conversation just as effectively as the content coming from the political parties themselves”.
So why the focus on Reform?
Just the day after Spring’s report, Digital Video Producer at ITV News George Hancorn claimed to expose the “suspicious accounts ‘with Nigerian following’ being used to push pro-Reform U.K. content”. His own fake social media account bot farm, developed with “cybersecurity experts at Cardiff University” had “noticed a collection of accounts with ‘unusual behaviour’ on TikTok”. What was this behaviour? Apparently, the experts’ super-senses were triggered by “how many comments included the phrases ‘Vote Reform’ or ‘Reform U.K.’ being posted on repeat”.
ITV and the Cardiff’s ‘experts’ analysed the comments on 14 videos they posted to their own fake social media accounts. Of these 14 videos, two featured Reform spokespeople. But four per cent of 7,766 comments posted in reply to all 14 videos were comments such as “Vote Reform” or “Reform U.K.”, which “far outstripped other comments openly supporting other parties”. If that strikes you as what American cop shows would call “probable cause” for investigating election interference, notice that four per cent of 7,766 is just 310, and ITV offered no analysis of the remaining 7,456 comments. From the authors of these 310 comments, ITV’s experts determined that “more than half” of the 14 accounts they analysed (note the 14 accounts were not the source of the 14 videos and the recurrence of the number 14 is apparently coincidence) “could potentially be ‘bots’”. The 14 accounts were contacted, and three replied, but only to decline further conversations. “The responses from some of these accounts show they are being run by Reform supporters, while others are still unproven and could well be inauthentic,” conclude Hancorn and his ‘experts’.
In other words, there exists no evidence of anything nefarious. Yet both the BBC’s and ITV’s so-called ‘investigations’ – published within a day of each other – continued to heavily insinuate that social media was nonetheless being manipulated in Reform’s favour. “Make no mistake. These are highly professional coordinated campaigns,” said “cybersecurity expert” Tom Kirkham to Hancorn, who went on to claim that the “coordinated campaign” meant “TikTok’s algorithm had been influenced by the weight of comments”.
If stories about an election being manipulated are run by national broadcasters on the basis of 310 TikTok comments then British democracy clearly has bigger problems than a bit of social media monkey business. Moreover, if mere suspicions of a “coordinated campaign” of pro-Reform comments on social media are worthy of investigation, what should we make of a manifestly anti-Reform coordinated campaign on conventional news media? Can it be mere coincidence that two national broadcasters produced such studies, based on thin air, within 24 hours of each other? Furthermore, if there are concerns that bot farms are pushing out pro-Reform comments, might there be an equivalently grubby outfit, perhaps based in Cardiff rather than Nigeria, producing vapid analyses of social media, to the opposite effect?
It’s a rhetorical question, of course. The good faith of the unnamed ‘experts’ at Cardiff University and the newsrooms that have hired them can hardly be taken for granted. As I pointed out recently, the recruitment of academics into political debates, not so much to inform them as cackhandedly manage PR in relation to major policy agendas, has poisoned the relationship between the public and Westminster. That degradation arises from two things. First, psychological manipulation, as per ‘nudge’ theory, is grossly condescending and anti-democratic, and likely to be met with public cynicism. Second, what such academics offer is invariably cod science, advanced by chancers, who spot the opportunity for their careers and political causes.
Similarly, reinforcing the established political narrative with analysis of social media has become big business for second-rate academic institutions and AI exploiters. Whereas in the 2000s and early 2010s social media was credited with the rise of seemingly progressive so-called ‘colour revolutions’ and the election of Barack Obama, things took a different turn in 2016 when the U.K. electorate voted to leave the European Union and Americans put Donald Trump in the White House. Since then, official paranoia about the potential of unauthorised and uncontrolled public discussion has sought the counsel of experts in Big Data, machine-learning and other new techniques to find ways to alternately harness, prohibit and mitigate the power of social media in the establishment’s interest – to prevent democracy making the wrong decisions.
One such outfit is the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). Established in 2006 ostensibly to track the rise of online jihadism, following the death of its founder Lord George Weidenfeld, the ISD began to track a broader range of dangers to society, such as anti-wind farm campaigners, using large donations from European governments (including the U.K.) and the usual ‘philanthropic’ foundations, such as those funded by Bill Gates, Christopher Hohn and George Soros. The ISD, now with a budget of approximately £5 million a year, produces glossy reports linking vaccine scepticism and climate change denial to the emergence of the online “far Right”, “conspiracy theories” and “hate”. In coordination with other beneficiaries of green billionaire largesse these function largely to support strategic policy agendas such as ‘online harms’ legislation, recently seen moving through legislatures in the USA, EU, U.K. and Canada.
The ISD has close working relationships with both the BBC World Service (and BBC Verify) and Cardiff University. The anonymous experts cited in the ITV report likely hailed from one of the University’s new departments in this new space, such as the Hate Lab or the Digital Media and Society Research Group. Both of these are Cardiff organisations that, like the ISD, claim to track the unfolding of online nastiness in real time. The former, for example, claims that coronavirus had become a “justification for extremism on the internet”. The latter opaquely claims to “explore the uses of digital media within a range of social, political and cultural contexts”. These research projects may sound bland, or even reasonable enough, until we take a closer look at the content and the motivation. The mission of tracking online ‘hate’, for example, soon becomes a spooky watchlist when the category of ‘hate’ is broadened to include support for Brexit and demands for the regulation of social media to prevent it. As the following segment of an ITV documentary featuring Hate Lab research shows, academics can supply national news broadcasters with extremely partial accounts of ‘hate’ – because only Remainers face online harassment – to create a moral panic requiring clampdowns.
BBC Verify is the state-funded broadcaster’s escalation in the misinformation domain, coalescing formerly disparate parts of the network from places such as BBC News, BBC World Service and BBC Media Action (being the ‘NGO’ wing of the BBC and a beneficiary of philanthropic and Government grants rather than licence fee extortion). BBC Verify brings together 60 journalists to ‘fact-check’, debunk and counter claims that the vast team believes pose a threat to the integrity of the democratic process. The ISD’s influence on the direction of this new outfit has been evident since before it was formally convened. The ISD’s work featured heavily throughout Spring’s and other BBC fact-checkers’ reports before BBC Verify appeared, including the ISD’s research, which claimed that Covid pandemic conspiracy theorists were “pivoting” towards climate change denial conspiracy theories and “peddling falsehoods about climate change”.
It would not be quite so alarming were it not for these organisations’ extremely poor grasp of the debates and issues in question. To say that their work is sloppy would be generous. Often, for example, it is obvious to anyone with knowledge of the controversies in question that the reporters have done little more than contact the ISD or an academic with known biases on a subject for an opinion, to purportedly ‘debunk’ a claim, rather than explore the issue with journalistic objectivity. BBC Verify’s work, despite its bloated staff, is sloppy to the point of being false, partial to the point of being deeply ideological and hypocritical. Its own ‘fact checking’ is littered with errors.
Despite the institutional prestige offered by fancy-pants ‘institutes’ and research organisations, the product is always the same: smear and innuendo, rather than facts developed through careful research. With their own bot farms, conspiracy theories, spam-like trolling and rush to acquire ‘clout’ with clickbait and bullshit, the organisations working in the ‘misinformation’ and ‘election interference’ domains have become precisely what they set out to expose. National broadcasters, think tanks and academic research organisations have lowered themselves to the level of Russian or Nigerian troll farms, merely to shore up an establishment that is unwilling or unable to engage in debate about its favoured policy agenda with outsiders and challengers such as Reform and the hoi polloi. It is this network of bullshit that is the threat to democracy.
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Reform is over the target, bomb doors open.
It has the establishment well and truly rattled.
Keep fighting.
The flak’ll get a lot worse, but Nigel is made of pretty strong stuff. Most folks capable of a modicum of critical thought can see straight through these hatchet jobs. I noted the vax-promoting, yesterday’s man Andrew Neil taking a pop at Reform in yesterday’s D Mail. All so transparent.
We, the Reform Supporters, and we the Sceptics are made of far stronger stuff than the arses we face. How many of you reading this succumbed and took Death Jabs? Be honest about it, I doubt there are many of us. I knew it was a lie and would not back down.
Wimpy Kiernocchio or Sunak are not going to silence me and the MSM are a joke.
I didn’t!
If enough people stop buying the rag they may sing a different tune.
Beautifully put………
It’s like those American political adverts:
“Nobody’s saying Candidate X is a pedophile
But how do we really know?”
If it was in the US there is probably a study on the very subject.
What a simpering idiot that woman is. Pictured holding up a pair of mobile phones as though that’s what a social media ‘bot’ actually is. If having two (or multiple) phones makes you a ‘bot’ in her opinion then her opinion is worthless.
Besides which: it is good personal security practise to have multiple social media (and email) accounts separate from those used for business (like banking) so you don’t lose everything
ifwhen one is compromised… and no, I don’t mean ‘hacked’ – it’s usually insider information and good old-fashioned extortion which compromises an organisation.She is a deep state tool, this idea will have originated from the CIA/NSA who manipulate our elections.
Was she made by Kiernocchio’s Dad’s Tool making company?
I avoid Online Banking for that very reason. But with Banks disappearing and ‘Hubs’ everywhere, nobody can know what is coming regarding CBDCs etc. People’s savings could be vapourised in a heartbeat. Then comes the ‘Reset’.
A ‘Bot’ Fly is a parasite who larvae burrows under the skin of it’s mammalian host. Seems familiar.
You see the absolute rancid filth that the conservative party is, they are allying themselves with human excrement like Spring rather than accepting conservative ideas from Reform. This is how far UK politics has been hijacked by the US 3 letter agencies, who routinely rig the narrative in UK elections.
Funniest part of La Spring’s “report” was when she had made contact with one of the genuine pro Reform posters and elicited their phone number but “for some reason, my phone calls were not answered”. You’d think she’d have twigged the reason for that by now – it must happen to her daily – but apparently not: cue puzzled look to camera, implying “suspicious, no?” Genuinely starting to wonder if “Marianna” is actually a comedy spoof persona, along the lines of Titania or Philomena. They’re all women’s names ending in ‘a’ – suspicious, no?
…and of course the whole method of her “investigation”: I was suspicious of potentially fake accounts promoting Reform. Fake accounts are not permitted by the providers’ terms of use. So I created a bunch of fake accounts…
Or Tataina Mcgrath!
Off-T
https://off-guardian.org/2024/06/18/how-and-why-bird-flu-is-about-to-enter-the-mass-testing-phase/
Kit Knightly with the latest updates on the coming Scamdemic.
And we will shortly have compulsory registration “under new rules” of every single poultry bird kept in this country (previously only for flocks of 50+ birds). It’s almost as if….
As a former poultry farmer I do not think that is feasible. Flocks of tens of thousands of broiler chickens simply cannot be accounted for individually.
Off-T
https://off-guardian.org/2024/06/18/how-and-why-bird-flu-is-about-to-enter-the-mass-testing-phase/
Kit Knightly with the latest updates on the coming Scamdemic.
“Honestly, it’s like watching a movie where they signpost the “surprise” twist ending inside the first five minutes, and then you have to sit through two interminable hours of what the writers clearly consider to be subtle foreshadowing.
It’s getting to the point I just want them to do the bloody pandemic and get it over with.”
Listening to Five Live talking about the amnesty for Lockdown rule breakers, the Sheeple would go through it all again.
Vote Reform. Vote Reform. Vote Reform. Vote Reform. Vote Reform.
Wow! I’m a bot!
At least I know I am a bot with an occasionally working Carrot and a couple of old mini cauliflowers. IKier is a basic flat pack wardrobe so that makes me feel quite good as a bot.
Spitting Image material! As is Marianna.
The disgusting political establishment in conjunction with the climate activist media and big business feeding at the government renewables subsidy trough are a powerful enemy. But an enemy of who? They all play the planet saving nice guys saving us from a climate apocalypse where billions will die, and millions of climate refugees will flee the storms and floods to safety in Europe. Thousands of turbines must replace all the reliable fossil fuels and our heat pumps and smart meters are all required to ward of the “climate emergency” for which no empirical evidence exists. The media tops up with a daily dose of scaremongering about a worsening climate crisis where there is none according to real world data, and the one Political Party spoiling the climate change fraud party are Reform, so they must be bludgeoned out of existence by any means possible. Just as Truss was whisked away out of the back door in the back of Morris Minor, so too Reform must fall and the ends justify the means according to Liberal Progressive tyranny.
I am totally split. As an intelligent engineer/scientist there is little I believe about the climate scare, nor for that matter about the dangers of Covid ( I’ve had it -unvaccinated at age 79, slight symptoms). However, I work part time in fulfilling a perceived need for equipment to meet the Net Zero narrative. I benefit handsomely since experienced engineers are a dying breed in this country.
The Tories, and in particular Boris Johnson, to whom I directed a missive in March 2020 suggesting he ignored the apocalyptic forecasts of Ferguson, et al have only themselves to blame for their total wipeout.
My forecast, which is probably as good as any other, but will be unlikely to live to see, is that 2050 will have much the same weather as 2024, in the same way that 2024 has much the same weather as 1999. Whether the political system will be the same is another matter.
Does it give anyone else a nice warm Ready Brek Advert Glow to know they are all scared shitless of us?
Well I’m enjoying watching various Tory Grandees lose their cool and lecture “the peasants” about their duty to vote for the bastards who have ruined their lives … only to be met with an Agincourt Salute and another percentage rise for Reform.
” BBC Verify’s work, despite its bloated staff, is sloppy to the point of being false, partial to the point of being deeply ideological and hypocritical. Its own ‘fact checking’ is littered with errors.”
Of course it is, because these people are not objective, they are campaigners.
The thought of being smeared by a bot makes me giggle.
Ol’ chipmunk cheeks. Plenty of room for a few nuts in there.
Mariana Spring is an expert in misinformation only by the fact that her duplicitous lying got her in the door. This smug little head girl is a liar and a fraud. It took real journalistic integrity for the BBC Russia correspondent she lied about working with, to expose her. She shouldn’t be there but she is a regime asset. As for the Cardiff “experts” they too are only expert in following the cake crumbs of the official government research funding. Wait till Reform poll well and Trump gets back to the White House, they will go into overdrive. But it’s futile. Resisting democracy and dissent is useless.
Reform scare them, because Reform might destroy the Tory party and win the election after this one by proposing an actually conservative alternative to the other main parties, all of them left wing, which the Tories have not done for ages.
If anyone has a well-co-ordinated campaign, it’s not the Tories.
Thank heavens that the Daily Sceptic verifies the verifiers.
It seems clear that university funds and resources are being used for partisan political campaigns.
I am not a bot.
I think we all know the answer to that question.
Judging from the amount of new commentators on the DT site since the General Election was called, CCHQ has invested in an army of online commentators or bots.
They’re not having the desired effect.
Just like MAGA in the USA. Reform UK ignore the Fake News and are doubly determined to vote for what’s right.
Psssst, don’t mention the 77th Brigade.
I have yet to hear anything from BBC verify which is true! It is a source of serious lies and deceit.
They’re running scared to be sure.
Meanwhile displaying their utter contempt for the judgment, perception awareness and intelligence of their viewers.
Incredible, unbelievable, but there it is.
Surely they can’t keep this charade up for much longer! Surely…
Trouble is I’ve been thinking that for the last four and a bit years.
One of Ben Pile’s best pieces!
Never forget that the eggregious and mendacious BBC, long before the appointment of Spring, was exclusively invested in the “Global Warming” hoax, exemplified by their response to Climategate, to Miliband’s Climate Change Act and by Horrorbin’s 28-gate scam.
Directly wiping out their Charter obligation to honest discussion of different viewpoints, 28-gate ensured that ONLY “Climate Change” and “Ruinable Energy” Agit Prop could be broadcast.
Blow up the BBC (and ITV) and salt the debris. Vote AGAINST the Uniparty and FOR Reform, the only hope for resistance!
Will OFCOM be looking into this pile of poo from the two national tripe casters? If they do they will no doubt conclude that Reform are corrupt and cannot be allowed airtime.
Defund the BBC.
That BBC unit should be renamed to BBC Falsify.