Historian and U.K. analyst Mark Curtis checks out the Twitter accounts of journalists whose names have been associated with the Integrity Initiative, a British “counter disinformation” program.
By
Mark Curtis
Part
4 - Need for further research
There
are some key points to be made about this analysis.
First,
some of the tweets made by these individuals on Corbyn and Assange,
not all of which are included here, are fair comment, even if, in my
view, they are usually wrong. But others go beyond this, inferring
that Corbyn (and Assange) are in effect agents of Russia and/or are
willingly and knowingly amplifying Russia’s agenda, as little more
than “tools” – with no evidence provided (understandably, since
there is none). There is also sometimes the association of Corbyn
with former communists. These areas are held to constitute smearing.
Second,
it is not known and certainly not proven that these tweets are
associated with the Integrity Initiative. Little is known of
the internal workings of the Initiative. It is possible that some of
the individuals may have been chosen by the Integrity Initiative
to be associated with it precisely because of their pre-existing
criticism of Russia or their willingness to accuse figures such as
Corbyn with association with Russia. While I am not suggesting that
these individuals’ tweets are necessarily linked to their role in
the Integrity Initiative, there does appear to be something of
a pattern among these people of smearing both Corbyn and Assange.
Third,
and equally important, this is not a full analysis of these
individuals’ outputs: it is limited to their tweets. Neither is it
a full analysis of the false linking to Russia by individuals
associated with the Integrity Initiative: several other
journalists and figures named in the documents are not analysed here.
Again, further research is needed.
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