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The BFD has published three articles recently after spotting a job advertisement that Jacinda Ardern needed to be filled “at pace“.
- “The Ministry of Truth Is Hiring”
- “Government’s Kafkaesque Behaviour Epitomised with New Job in the PMO”
- “Jacinda Ardern Is Employing 1984-Style ‘Disinformation Officers”
The Labour Government seemed desperate to fill this position as the successful applicant “must be available immediately“. The ad said that they needed to be familiar with proactively searching across public-facing social platforms.
Senior Analyst – Disinformation.
We are seeking to appoint at pace a fixed term Senior Analyst whose role will be to actively monitor open-source social media channels, to triage across these channels and to case-manage issues. You will work as part of a small team in DPMC and connect in with a larger cross-government networks, working to respond to, and build resilience to, disinformation in New Zealand. You will be working in a fast-paced dynamic environment and have the opportunity to shape future capability development.
To find out what urgently needs to be sought out by checking social media, New Zealanders can refer to some other examples of what disinformation informants from around the world are currently looking out for. It is no surprise to find that Ardern follows and copies other leaders by having someone keeping an eye on social media and reporting back on anything deemed to be ‘disinformation’.
Governments want to reduce any, what they term as, hateful or politically polarising information, that flies in the face of, or is against, their agenda.
There is information that is contrary to the narrative of a government rollout of a “safe and effective” COVID-19 vaccine. The disinformation ‘hunters’ will identify this kind of information as harmful and their role is to reduce, expose, disincentivise, and finally prohibit that sort of content.
The UK MSM is leading the disinformation hunters’ pack. Marianna Spring is a BBC broadcast journalist. Spring was appointed in March 2020 and is described as the award-winning first Specialist Disinformation and Social Media reporter. Recently she wrote about anti-vaxxer demonstrators in Canada in a negative light.
Mr Trudeau called a snap election in mid-August, in the hope of gaining a majority government for his left-of-centre Liberal party.
But his campaign has been disrupted by demonstrations against Covid-19 vaccine mandates and other restrictions.
Just over a week ago, the prime minister was forced to cancel an election rally after a crowd of angry protesters ambushed the event.
BBC
Disinformation hunters have the ear of their government and the MSM, and they have influence. The Center for Countering Digital Hate in the USA and the UK (CCDH) is one such organisation. It was founded by its current CEO, Imran Ahmed. Before founding the CCDH in 2018, Imran served as a Political Advisor to Shadow Foreign Secretary, Hilary Benn MP in the UK Parliament and as Political Advisor to Alan Johnson MP, leader of the Labour Remain campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Ahmed previously co-authored the book The New Serfdom: The Triumph of Conservative Ideas and How to Defeat Them with Labour MP Angela Eagle. Imran holds an MA in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge.
The CCDH (Draft) Change pathway reveals their intent, from identifying ‘disinformation’ all the way to successful prosecution.
The below framework outlining these pathways to change is presented as a draft for feedback from the community of organisations and individuals working to address online hate. It reflects a synthesis of the field mapping, key informant interviews and survey research. Its purpose is to demonstrate common goals and objectives, while identifying strategic approaches that not all organisations may share.
The CCDH analysed more than 812,000 Facebook and Twitter vaccine-related posts and found that 65% of anti-vaccine posts came from what it called the “disinformation dozen“.
“Anti-vaccine activists on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter reach more than 59 million followers, making these the largest and most important social media platforms for anti-vaxxers,”
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Dr Kate Hannah is the lead research fellow for the Disinformation Project at Auckland University. On 5 July 2021, Hannah reported to RNZ that their role is monitoring COVID-19 disinformation. She says they are a group that came together in February 2020 to search out misleading and deceptive content on the web. Her group’s focus is on COVID-19, and she adds that they are checking for pseudo-science and monitor quantitatively how much misinformation there is. Hannah reports that the group look at how to resolve and how to reflect back to platforms, media, government, large multinationals, and regulators when they discover disinformation.
Now yet another Disinformation Hunter is being added to the mix as the PM is willing to pay for a Disinformation Analyst to keep a close eye on the New Zealand public. We have to assume that an appointee needs to be fast-tracked in the role to ensure that Ardern’s vaccine programme is not held up by pesky people who are legitimately exercising their right to question the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
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