Fediverse vs Disinformation

Just a reminder that one of the biggest promoters of the lab leak theory is Trump's former CDC director Robert Redfield.

The accusations against the virus originally escaping from a Chinese lab, while a possibility, have never been conclusively proven, and may have arisen in retaliation after the Chinese government circulated a video of Redfield as propaganda during the earliest months of the pandemic, in order to claim the U.S. was actually responsible for COVID.

Last June, Reuters released an investigative report which revealed the U.S. military had actually retaliated against the Chinese government's accusations by running a secret anti-vax campaign attempting to undermine China during the pandemic.

Tensions have since arisen regarding accusations against the NIH and involvement in "dangerous" gain-of-function research at the Chinese lab, and testimony provided by Anthony Fauci.

I am working on a 3 part series covering this information, and how it relates to recent issues surrounding the creation of an updated bird flu vaccine. The first part covers common misunderstandings related to the NIH and Gain of Function research in detail.

I am still working on the two follow ups which will cover the lab leak theory and vaccine roll out, but have not had much time to get back into writing them. I hope to have time soon, because I feel it's important to keep people informed ahead of the administration's attempts to spread new propaganda, because this all seems to be part of an elaborate public campaign that has been in the making for quite some time.

Please also keep in mind that Redfield actually wrote a public health commentary attacking "dangerous" gain-of-function research back in February, and praising Trump's planned EO to halt Gain of Function research, which was one of Trump's first announcements up on taking office. Redfield's commentary was published on the Heritage Foundation's website in February.

According to an article released today by a right wing White House press member, Trump's EO is nearing completion.

In a piece critical of Democratic Party support for Cuomo, the Atlantic‘s David Graham (3/3/25) wrote, “If, in order to curb the far left, Democrats like [Rep. Ritchie] Torres are willing to embrace an alleged sex pest who tried to cover up seniors’ deaths, is it worth it?”

The same might be asked of some in the corporate media, with the New York Times at the top of the list.

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/38410612

From Reddit to the New York Times and TMZ, there’s an ongoing effort to squash the wave of popular anger at for-profit healthcare that Luigi Mangione represents.

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Visit us @ [email protected] for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.

Visit us @ [email protected] for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.

Visit us @ [email protected] for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.

Visit us @ [email protected] for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.

If Your Time is short

• President Barack Obama in 2010 ordered federal agencies to prioritize hiring more people with disabilities. The Federal Aviation Administration incorporated such efforts into its diversity hiring program.

• These efforts remained in place throughout President Donald Trump’s first administration. The FAA under Trump expanded its effort to hire people with disabilities, announcing in 2019 a program to hire 20 people with disabilities to be air traffic controllers.

• Trump in 2018 eliminated an Obama-era assessment used in hiring air traffic controllers that scored applicants based on their work and education history and personality traits. Biden did not revive it.

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Visit us @ [email protected] for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.

Visit us @ [email protected] for all the latest news on the topics of astroturfing, propaganda and disinformation.

Quick Take

President Donald Trump said his administration blocked $50 million for condoms to be sent to Gaza through its pause on foreign aid. But it has provided no evidence that $50 million was ever directed toward condoms for Gaza. The contractor identified by the State Department said it has not used U.S. aid “to procure or distribute condoms.”

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A constant narrative evolution

The Kremlin’s take on peace has evolved over the last three years. During the early days of Russia’s full-scale war, there was no space for narratives about peace, only for an ill-advised tone of triumphalism. Then, realising the Ukrainian resolve to defend their homes would not be easily broken, the Kremlin started talking about peace while its bombs rained down on Ukrainian civilians. Moscow quickly devised ‘peace proposals’ that were merely empty PR stunts, deploying the narrative of peace to support Russia’s war, masking Moscow’s true imperial ambitions.

As the war raged on, the Kremlin’s disinformation peddlers continued to spin their twisted tale of peace, increasingly reaching out to more global audiences and depicting Russia’s war against Ukraine as a noble fight to dismantle the ‘Western hegemony’ and establish a ‘truly multipolar’ world order.

But, there was a complication in maintaining this knight-in-shining-armour image. Ukraine and its supporters interested in just and lasting peace were already working toward their goal, including building a global community to support real peace. The Kremlin then pivoted from polishing its own image to disparaging the West or any proposals for peace that were not rooted in Russian imperialist ultimatums. This dichotomy – disguising Russia’s aggression as attempts for peace and accusing the West of not being serious about peace – has now become the Kremlin’s go-to tactic to manipulate the public perception of achievable peace in Ukraine. [...]

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/1839567

Here is the link to the report: https://graphika.com/reports/chinese-state-influence

A Chinese social media operation that aims to whip up political anger in the West has called for the overthrow of a foreign government when impersonating protesters criticising flood relief efforts in Spain, online analysis outfit Graphika said.

Graphika said an operation dubbed Spamouflage, which it believed was linked to the Chinese state, posed this month as human rights group Safeguard Defenders to spread online calls for the government to be toppled in response to the catastrophic floods in October that killed 224 people.

"This is the first time we have seen Spamouflage directly calling to overthrow a foreign government," Graphika said in its latest report.

...

The report also finds:

• Chinese covert influence operations have impersonated human rights organizations critical of Beijing, almost certainly in an effort to discredit their activities and disrupt domestic political conversations in Western countries. The state-linked Spamouflage operation, for instance, has repeatedly targeted the Spain-based non-profit Safeguard Defenders and in January posed as the organization to spread online calls for the Spanish government to be overthrown in response to deadly floods in Valencia. This is the first time we have seen Spamouflage directly calling for the overthrow of a foreign government.
• Chinese state influence actors and pro-China communities continue to leverage international trade issues in their efforts to advance Beijing’s strategic interests. In recent weeks, this has included attempts to orchestrate a boycott of Japanese retail brand Uniqlo due to the company’s reported refusal to use cotton from China’s Xinjiang region, and efforts to exacerbate tensions between the U.S. and Japan over a blocked steel company merger.
• Chinese officials and state media have used social media and other online platforms to dismiss and deflect allegations of Chinese state hacking activity. After Japan accused China in January of orchestrating a years-long hacking campaign against Japanese government agencies and companies, for example, Chinese state actors spread statements dismissing the allegations as groundless and disseminated cartoons casting Tokyo as an agent of U.S. “disinformation.”
• Overt and covert Chinese state influence actors have engaged in a sustained effort to advance narratives that reinforce Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and attempt to legitimize its activities in the region. In November, these actors amplified comments by an international law scholar that appeared to support China’s position.

As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces a Senate vote to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, right-wing media are split on whether to support his nomination.

Some claim the nominee — who has a long history of undermining scientific research and promoting health misinformation — is a “bipartisan” solution for “Making America Healthy Again,” while others have highlighted his past extremism, Democratic affiliations, and pro-abortion beliefs. Some right-wing media have also covered for Kennedy’s extremism in the past, largely ignoring his vaccination views.

Kennedy has a history of pushing harmful policies and embracing extremism — and right-wing media have played cover for him [...]

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“We’re thinking in terms of 25% on Mexico and Canada because they’re allowing vast numbers of people … to come in and fentanyl to come in,” Trump told a reporter who asked about the tariffs while Trump was signing executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 20.

The following day, in a press conference from the White House, Trump again explained why he may move forward with the tariffs.

“They’ve allowed, both of them, Canada very much so, they’ve allowed millions and millions of people to come into our country that shouldn’t be here,” Trump said. “They could’ve stopped them and they didn’t. And they’ve killed 300,000 people last year, my opinion, have been destroyed by drugs, by fentanyl. The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive. The fentanyl coming through Mexico is massive.”

Trump is exaggerating the number of fentanyl-related deaths in the U.S., and his Canada and Mexico comparison is off-base, too.

In this post, we take a quick look at the numbers to give some relative perspective. [...]

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Even before Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he professed that Russia only wanted peace, if only Ukraine and Western countries would give him the peace he wants. Towards the end of 2021, he made unrealistic and unreasonable security demands whose conditions, if fulfilled, would have made NATO allies feel profoundly insecure. Just a few days before Russia’s invasion, he sent a low-level official to present Ukraine with conditions for peace that it could not possibly meet. Since then, his negotiation proposals have insisted upon the ’denazification’ of Ukraine, an impossible demand since the Kremlin considers any Ukrainian who believes in Ukraine’s sovereignty to be a Nazi.

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This evening my uncle messaged me to let me know that Moms Across America commissioned testing that found glyphosate and heavy metal contamination in Girl Scout cookies. To be fair, he did just buy some from my kid (no refunds!) and I understand the concern about food contamination, but something is off. What's the deal with Moms Across America? Why is their CEO a vaccine skeptic hoping to get hired by RFK Jr.? It seems like an organic food/anti-vax lobbying organization, but I wonder if there's more to it than that. Is she just that effective as an individual mom influencer?

Edit: the screenshot isn't uploading correctly, so I changed it to a link to the Pixelfed post I originally made.

This evening my uncle messaged me to let me know that Moms Across America commissioned testing that found glyphosate and heavy metal contamination in Girl Scout cookies. To be fair, he did just buy some from my kid (no refunds!) and I understand the concern about food contamination, but something is off. What's the deal with Moms Across America? Why is their CEO a vaccine skeptic hoping to get hired by RFK Jr.? It seems like an organic food/anti-vax lobbying organization, but I wonder if there's more to it than that. Is she just that effective as an individual mom influencer?

A new memo issued by the Trump administration directing the federal government to temporarily cease disbursing billions of dollars in funds appears to draw on arguments made by Russ Vought, the president’s selectee to run the Office of Management and Budget.

Vought was a primary architect of Project 2025, a sprawling effort organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide policy and staffing recommendations for President Donald Trump’s second term. In addition to that role, Vought is also the founder of the Center for Renewing America, a MAGA-aligned think tank that has spent over a year arguing that the president can unilaterally refuse to spend funds allocated by Congress, an authority known as the impoundment power that was severely curtailed by Congress in 1974.

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