Secretive Government Unit Broke Own Rules by Flagging Opinions as ‘Disinformation’
A secretive unit that has been monitoring lockdown critics broke the Government’s own rules. The Telegraph has more.
Last week, the Telegraph disclosed that the Counter-Disinformation Unit collected social media posts that were critical of Government Covid policies, including the decision to close schools and the debate over the mass vaccination of children.
It can now be revealed that this unit ignored official Cabinet Office guidance created for civil servants and communications professionals when it classified legitimate opinions as disinformation.
A manual titled ‘Resist 2: Countering Disinformation Toolkit’ was produced by the Government Communication Service in 2021 and is intended as an aid for civil servants and communications professionals to identify misinformation – false information that is inadvertently spread – and disinformation – false information that is spread deliberately.
In a section that seeks to explain how to spot disinformation, readers are warned that opinions should not be considered as such.
Despite this instruction, it appears that social media posts where people expressed concerns about government Covid policies were monitored by the secretive unit.
The manual states: “The most common way to first notice mis- and disinformation is when you encounter messages that draw your attention and raise concerns.
“A message is a form of communication aimed at a group of recipients. It may for example take the form of a social media post, tweet, meme, or comment, or a letter, flyer, poster, or slogan.
“Is the message an opinion? Opinions are usually subjective, which means that they cannot be verifiably false. If the message is simply a statement of opinion, you should not treat it as disinformation.
“However, if the opinion is based on verifiably false, deceptive, or manipulated information that has the potential to cause harm, it may be worth investigating further.”
Molly Kingsley, a former lawyer and journalist who founded the children’s campaign group UsForThem, was one of the people who posted opinions critical of government policy and later discovered some of her posts were collected in reports sent to the CDU.
She said: “This is very sinister. It shows that they were materially extending the remit of what they were meant to be doing and weren’t following the guidelines.
“It becomes state censorship or at the very least, flagging opinions which are unpalatable for the government. This is not what is supposed to happen in a free democracy.
“The opinions I and others expressed were about ethics and morality, almost like conscientious objections. Who did they think they were to be flagging that?”
One legitimate opinion that was marked for the CDU’s attention was a tweet from journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer raising concerns about the collateral damage lockdowns can cause.
She wrote: “Another personal experience of the damage lockdown causes from a @talkradio listener. Her fiancé’s business is closed down, her father’s cancer treatment cancelled and her grandma is scared to even leave her home. This lockdown is a national tragedy way beyond Covid deaths.”
Worth reading in full.
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Delighted to see the evils of government behaviour seeping out.
I am so sorry for all of those harmed.
All political parties were equally to blame,along with public health advisers, the media and NGOs.
Remember this lesson any time such people try to global fear over anything. It is all about power and money.
Never again!
Our political system and civil service are rotten to the core anybody involved in sensorship needs to give their head a wobble. We are no longer living in a democracy, the uniparty get top down orders. The mistake was they didn’t have complete control of the Internet allowing sites like this and others to exist, people were encouraged to do no research and the search engines, google which is generally what people use deliberately steered people away from such sites. If they didn’t manage that then they were labelled as misinformation and dangerous. Computer generated models are not Science or fact they allow opinions to be drawn. Unfortunately our government drew on the opinions of corrupted scientists and did their utmost to quash anyone that wasn’t following the narrative no matter how qualified or valid. But what really makes me mad is the general population don’t give a s**t and want to move on. It won’t be long before the whole of the Internet will be corrupted and all dissent and opposing opinions will vanish. We are only Knee deep soon we will be up to our necks.
Good grief. Look at this absolute cobblers hit piece on The Light, written by Marianna Spring, so no surprises there then. All hail the one source of propaganda, ahem..truth, which is the BBC though! ”A UK conspiracy theory newspaper sharing calls for trials and executions of politicians and doctors has links with the British far-right and a German publication connected to a failed coup attempt, the BBC can reveal. The Light, which prints at least 100,000 copies a month and has more than 18,000 followers on the social media site Telegram, grew to be a focal point of the UK conspiracy theory movement with its anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown stance during the pandemic. In its pages and on its corresponding Telegram channels, the Light has shared hateful and violent rhetoric towards journalists, medics and MPs, as well as platforming far-right figures accused of antisemitism. The paper is handed out free by volunteers in dozens of towns across the country, where local leaders have accused it of inflaming division and harassment with false and misleading claims about vaccines, the financial system and climate change, amid other more mundane articles on local politics, health and wellness. Articles and content shared by the Light have… Read more »
Can you imagine the depth of their ignorance and evil. Are they afraid of the Light? I read it every month, hand out copies as well. If the tax funded, massive BBC and Fake News cannot debate an org, which is more or less a volunteer outfit, or issues in its newsletter, that is all you need to know. There can be only ‘one’.
“Articles and content shared by the Light have called for the government, doctors, nurses and journalists to be punished for “crimes against humanity” in war crime-style trials sometimes called “Nuremberg 2.0” – referring to the execution of Nazi Party members after World War Two.”
It’s almost as if the Nuremberg trials of 1945 were a bad thing and the following executions even more heinous.
The original Nuremberg trials were on the face of it about seeking justice and hanging the bastards came afterwards.
Very much a deflectionary article.
Are some people getting a sweat on?
Found copies of it in my barbers, I sat down after having my hair cut, to have a good read. This follows on from Marianna’s hit piece podcast on Shrewsbury being a hotbed for conspiracy people. Who’d have thought Salopians could be such bunch of far right conspiracy not jobs. I can’t stand this far right lable I’ve never been far right, but when you work for the communist BBC everything is to the right. She is full of s**t and as I’ve said before dangerous.
The public pay for and suck this toxic crap up as well as having it injected straight into their arms. She can have my share of the safe and effective with pleasure. That’s if she’s confident enough for the side effects to be very very rare.
The person I know personally who distributes that paper spends a lot of his spare time helping young people to achieve things in sport, for little financial or other reward beyond the satisfaction of seeing the youngsters progress and enjoy themselves. He is doing the exact opposite of inflaming divisions, unlike Marianna Spring.
Talking about government overreach, this is a timely documentary on digital controls.
Excellent documentary about digital control.
Please share amongst those that are still oblivious to the danger digital IDs and CBDCs pose to our freedom.
Full documentary here:
https://debunkproductions.com/