The BeaconWhen Russia invaded Ukraine last month many were shocked, not least of whom some commentators who didn’t think Vladimir Putin would go that far. 
Others, though, knew what was coming and predicted it years ago. Putin, unable to countenance any kind of independence in the former Soviet states, would eventually act. And act he did, with the result being a massive invasion of Ukraine in what could be the early days of a Third World War.

But there’s another war going on at the same time: An Information War.

Social media has been flooded with both disinformation and misinformation. It’s easy for uncertainty to seep into situations such as war and for stories to go viral before it’s revealed that it’s not the entire truth. Then there are scenarios in which bad actors intentionally spread lies or mistruths in order to paint one side as evil and the other as righteous. Or, in the case of the war in Ukraine, to portray the dictatorial Putin as a hero doing battle against nefarious forces of the West.

Continue reading @ The Beacon.

As Conspiracy Theories Reign Vladimir Putin Has Become A Hero In The Irish Online Extremist Ecosphere

The BeaconWhen Russia invaded Ukraine last month many were shocked, not least of whom some commentators who didn’t think Vladimir Putin would go that far. 
Others, though, knew what was coming and predicted it years ago. Putin, unable to countenance any kind of independence in the former Soviet states, would eventually act. And act he did, with the result being a massive invasion of Ukraine in what could be the early days of a Third World War.

But there’s another war going on at the same time: An Information War.

Social media has been flooded with both disinformation and misinformation. It’s easy for uncertainty to seep into situations such as war and for stories to go viral before it’s revealed that it’s not the entire truth. Then there are scenarios in which bad actors intentionally spread lies or mistruths in order to paint one side as evil and the other as righteous. Or, in the case of the war in Ukraine, to portray the dictatorial Putin as a hero doing battle against nefarious forces of the West.

Continue reading @ The Beacon.

13 comments:

  1. The post in question declared that “Covid and Putin are not a threat to your freedom; people like Schwab, Gates & Trudeau are”. It also stressed that the war was created because the “pandemic narrative began losing steam” and that Putin is “the latest bogeyman in the globalists’ crosshairs”.



    Basically that is the long and short of it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Frankie

      What has made you drill down into the rabbit hole of such nonsense?

      With every atrocity that we see on our tv screens, in Ukraine you come across less as an independent free spirit more by a contemptible apologist for Putin and his far right supporters in Ireland and across Europe.

      Delete
  2. Barry,

    What has made you drill down into the rabbit hole of such nonsense?

    As in how did I become a 'conspiracy theorist'? In the early 1990's I read a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Around the same time a French Algerian friend gave me an English/Arabic copy of the Quran to read and over breakfast I'd chat to the mother of my oldest wee girl who is Jewish. I soon came the conclusion that religion is bullshit and I stopped buying into not only 'the big three' but all other religions. But I still bought into the official narrative of most things like the wars in Iraq, 9/11, the conflict, that's until September 2006 and I discovered the online magazine The Blanket. In 2012 I explained to DaithiD on TPQ how I discovered it....

    When I discovered The Blanket, it was like getting bitched slapped and then coming to your senses and realising that everything you knew up to that point was lies. I'd heard about Brendan Hughes, Tommy McKearney etc.. from the 1980 hunger strike. And in front of me on a 'puter screen the very same people were openly questioning the leadership of the PRM. It was a Brendan Hughes piece that caught my eye. I was actually Googling a story about Scap and clicked a link that had Brendan Hughes name and I went WTF. I printed as much as I could that night and the following Thursday evening I cleared my diary and went to the same place and abused the printer and started to get a more honest account of the conflict. At one stage I had well over 1,000 A4 sheets of paper that were telling me a very different story to the one in the newspapers & on the news.

    And I went down the rabbit hole of the conflict for about a year. I kept cross referencing what I was reading on The Blanket to what I was told to believe. Apart from discovering how politically astute former prisoners' (and others) writing on The Blanket were, they also gave a more honest account about how it started and how it will be wound up than the Armani suit brigade gave. And I came away with a very different take on things than the official narrative was telling me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Also around 2006-07 I started to watch and listen to what David Icke, Alex Jones and others were talking about (secret societies, 9/11, 7/7 the central banking system and how corrupt it really is). And once again I started to do my own research and when I tested the narrative of 9/11 the official story soon fell apart. Frank O'Brien wrote an excellent piece for TPQ in 2015 called 9/11 ~ Truth Or Consequences, worth a read thats all I can say.

    When i went down the rabbit hole of The Omagh bombing I came up at 7/7 (Same MO, for the same reasons and some of the same actors). I also came a cross a report about a conversation the FBI had with MI6 and the war on terror (the convo was in 1996, I have linked it on TPQ a few years ago, I can go into the vortex and find it for you)

    When I looked at secret societies I found out that world leaders, heads of state, european royalty do in fact go to a secluded grove in north California at least once a year and dress in satanic gowns and preform a mock human sacrifice to an old Babylonian god called Moloch. That is the same Moloch referenced in the Clinton/Podesta emails that both you and CNN don't want me to read. Basically Barry, I don't but into the official story just because someone says I should believe it. I will check it out myself and make my own mind up on what I have read.....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Frankie

    The Blanket was a genuine, path-breaking free enquiry project buttressed by a solid evidence basis.

    The work of Alex Jones (do you buy into his theory that the Sandy Hall school massacre was staged for example), David Icke (do you buy into his theories of the Lizard People), Charles Allen and others do not stand up to any test of evidential scrutiny or falsifiability because they are not intended.

    They are the modern version of the Learned Protocols of Zion and deserve the same quarantine as it and 9/11 truther accounts; the Syrian White Knights false flag lies and, of course, anti-vaccination, Great Replacement and Great Reset disinformation narratives.

    The Ukraine war started not because the 21st century Hitler (of the blitzkrieg not of the Holocaust) attacked a neighbouring, independent and democratic country with the intention of erasing its statehood and identity; not because it was in "crosshairs of the globalists"; an immediately recognisable antisemitic reference (not that that probably bothers you).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alex Jones did admit that he was wrong about Sandy Hook and that he had had a nervous breakdown at the time he made that claim though.

      Icke is batshit crazy regardless.

      The problem with conspiracy theories is that we have been lied to many times in the past, so much so it's hard to wade through the muck and see what is real sometimes.

      Delete
    2. I have listened to nothing from Icke since he announced he was the Godhead. It is hard enough to find reliable sources in the maze of narratives out there without having to consider the thoroughly discredited.

      Delete
    3. Barry,
      The Blanket was a genuine, path-breaking free enquiry project buttressed by a solid evidence basis.

      If you think like that then why do you call for Quiller's to be silenced?

      Delete
  5. I remember when Alex Jones was a somewhat excitable, but seemingly good-natured, truth-seeker.

    Like many who end up prominent on the alt-right, he could have been described as a sort-of liberal, but whose inherent narcissism and corruptible nature saw them swing to the hard-right, where grifters can get rich.

    The immaturity and narcissism of the alt-right was laid bare in the depressing documentary by Louis Theroux lately. Young, inadequate men, who step out of their computer rooms and fall apart when given difficult questions. One particularly tragic figure described how playing games online is the "new golf-course."

    Another of their number was reduced to playing racially offensive music and annoying people of colour on the street for donations of a few dollars.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Conspiracy theories gain much of their credibility from the actual lies and suppression of truth that the rich and powerful so often resort to in order to cover their guilty or incompetent asses, or make big money on.

    I am greatly frustrated by so many decent people who have went down those rabbit holes, shutting themselves of from the realities and smearing any of their valid criticisms in the eyes of the ordinary man.

    But I do so sympathize with them in their anger over the manipulation of truth by the elites. I share that anger.

    However, they muddy the waters for sober investigation of the facts. If we get the chance to fully investigate the responses of our governments to the Covid pandemic, we will have to climb over the accusations from the rabbit holes that the people who led the American War of Independence, and the people behind 9/11 are the same organization that produced Covid and infected the world in order to condition the citizens to tolerate total control.

    If the choice for the ordinary citizen is believing that, or the alternative that Big Pharma did not lead the politicians to suppress very cheap antiviral treatments and wait for very expensive alternatives and vaccines - it will take a lot of pressure of the politicians.

    I have firsthand experience with good and intelligent people swallowing the conspiracy nuttery. They begin with a healthy suspicion of the rich and powerful. Would these latter lie to use in order to advance their wealth and power? I think that cannot be disputed. Not all of them are lying oppressors, but not enough to steer society honestly. So good people think the moon-landings were faked; that 9/11 was an inside job; that Covid was planned to enable lockdowns and vaccine mandates, in preparation for the NWO to take control.

    The simpler explanations are dismissed, as it does not fit the NWO conspiracy that excites the mind with insider knowledge and sees the governments as willing tools of the NWO.

    What simpler explanations? That man's technology and risk-taking really did put men on the moon. Simpler especially as it does not require a large number of good people to be lying about it. Same for 9/11. And Covid - all the latter required was incompetence and cover-up of the incompetence, and unwillingness to challenge important governments about the facts. Then lots more incompetence by the leaders of nations in dealing with the virus. Added to that the possibility of making large amounts of money for Big Pharma and other political donors.

    Now the NWO has supposedly provoked Putin to invade Ukraine. Is the aim to stimulate the EU to seek superpower status, or is it to break him and destabilize Russia?

    What about Putin just wanting to write his name in history before he dies, as the leader who restored the mythical Russian entity, and reckoned the West were pussies? He tested that with the nuclear threat he made before the invasion, and saw the response was as he hoped. That it may lead to an anxious EU doubting American guarantees and so seeking its own deterrent, is just the way of the world.

    No need for conspiracies outside of normal prideful and corrupt politics and big business.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wolfie - there is much in this - your point about the pricing by Biug Pharma is well made. But it defies logic when you say "However, they muddy the waters for sober investigation of the facts" and at the same time maintain that the earth is 6000 years old. There is no facts supporting that opinion, merely faith.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The same evidence exist for both old earth and young earth interpretations. Young earth has scientific explanations that fit well, as do Old earth - and both have difficulties with bits that don't seem to fit.

    Run the scientific arguments past an open mind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wolfie - the evidence exists but none of it supports a 6000 year old earth. Young Earth is faith and nothing scientific about it, just pseudo-science ridiculed by believers and non-believers alike.

      And I think this is where your critique of muddying the waters for sober investigation of the facts falls apart. People should be free to believe what they want but when they make spurious claims on behalf of what they believe, they are open to ridicule. And when people try to describe young earth as science , it is fraudulent. As Isaac Aszimov pointed out, there are some people so dishonest they actually want that guff taught in the schools as science.

      But we have been over this a hundred times. I think for such a clever guy you leave yourself a hostage to fortune and see your otherwise logical arguments fall by the wayside, is not the most prudent thing to be doing.

      Delete