GCHQ – Photo by Defence Images
Earlier today we referred to a disturbing report in The Times about GCHQ targeting ‘anti-vaccine propaganda by hostile states (link) and said that this report, being paywalled, would receive our ‘From Behind the Paywall’ treatment. Here it is. The title and subtitle are programmatic: “GCHQ in cyberwar on anti-vaccine propaganda – Spies tackle disinformation linked to Russia” (link, paywalled). The authors are Lucy Fisher, Defence Editor and Chris Smyth, Whitehall Editor.
They use various ‘sources’, nameless as always, sources which are located in ‘government’ and Whitehall. Here’s what can best be described as ‘official’ reason for this work – why now, and why we’re only now told about it is anybody’s guess …:
“The government regards tackling false information about inoculation as a rising priority as the prospect of a reliable vaccine against the coronavirus draws closer. A government source said: “GCHQ has been told to take out antivaxers online and on social media. There are ways they have used to monitor and disrupt terrorist propaganda.”
These tactics are understood to focus on taking down hostile state-linked content and disrupting the operations of the cyberactors responsible for it, including encrypting their data so they cannot access it and blocking their communications with each other. The British government confirmed in 2018 that it had an offensive cyberarsenal to take on Isis.” (link, paywalled)
The reason for this sudden interest is astonishing. It’s as if nothing must be allowed to disturb our ‘faith in vaccine’, especially not ‘Russia’. Here’s another ‘Whitehall source’, trying to reassure us peasants that GCHQ is ‘only’ after Russia, not us cranks:
“Russia is behind a high proportion of disinformation about the coronavirus, according to another Whitehall source who emphasised that GCHQ was able to gain permission to tackle disinformation that originated only from state adversaries. It is not legally permitted to disrupt online content written by ordinary citizens. “You wouldn’t get authorisation to go after cranks. People have a right to say batshit stuff online,” the source said.” (link, paywalled)
So it’s all good, innit – but the game is given away in this segment:
“Managing threats from hostile nations is one of GCHQ’s core missions. However, the ease with which it can tackle state-led disinformation varies depending on the geographic location of the servers on which that content is based. It is understood that Britain cannot attack websites based in the United States or the other Five Eyes nations — Australia, Canada and New Zealand — where it must instead defer to partner agencies.
Another option open to British officials is to contact servers and social media platforms directly to inform them that they are hosting hostile state propaganda. Robust free speech rights in America make it difficult to force companies to take action, however.
“The real problem is what you do about the social media platforms,” a British security source said. “All the stuff that’s out there legitimately. That’s much more difficult in the West. It is a civil liberties issue.” (link, paywalled)
Ah! It’s about ‘civil liberties’, is it? Hm … I’m confident they’ll find a way even when they cannot rely on those helpful moderators of social media platforms or indeed their CEOs who have the power of removing tweets from President Trump because of ‘community rulz’. So we have the choice of being ‘cranks’ to whom nobody in the Westminster Cabal needs to listen – not that they’d stoop so low even as they use those social media themselves to ‘do’ politics! And there’s more – the Armed Forces are involved:
“In addition to GCHQ’s efforts, a secretive army unit specialising in information warfare is involved in countering fake narratives about the coronavirus.”
General Sir Nick Carter, the chief of the defence staff, has publicly confirmed that 77 Brigade is “helping to quash rumours about misinformation but also to counter disinformation”. The Berkshire-based unit, established in 2015, has been working with a rapid response team based in the Cabinet Office to tackle damaging narratives, including fake cures and conspiracy theories about the source of the virus.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has also highlighted Russia’s role in mounting misinformation campaigns during the pandemic.” (link, paywalled)
Now we know why anything that doesn’t fit “The Narrative” about covid can be disregarded and discarded by the covid authorities as ‘fake’, as ‘conspiracy’. It’s because it’s instigated by Russia. After all, ‘they’ have proof – but do pay attention to the last sentence in this segment:
“The US State Department published a report this summer on Russian state disinformation and propaganda that identified numerous fake narratives about a coronavirus vaccine that had been sown by Kremlin-aligned proxies.
Russia was jointly accused this summer by Britain, the US and Canada of trying to hack western coronavirus vaccine research. Attempts were identified in Britain by the National Cyber Security Centre, an operational division of GCHQ, which had pre-emptively erected a digital shield around British pharmaceutical laboratories and research institutions. The Russian government denied the allegation.
British ministers have declared it “almost certain” that Russian actors tried to influence last year’s general election by amplifying online “illicitly acquired” documents on UK-US trade talks.” (link, paywalled)
Oh dear! So Putin didn’t want the socialist Corbyn in No10? Odd, that – a socialist government would surely have given him more influence here, no? This argument by ‘British Ministers’ – who after all won the election – is also strange because it either means they regret that they’d won, or that they hope to resurrect the ‘Russia’ cry in order to justify this latest state intrusion into what we can and cannot read, never mind write about . Note also that at last year’s GE there was no covid and thus there were no covid conspiracists around. Next, there’s a juicy little titibit:
“Last month Sir Mark Sedwill, the former cabinet secretary, confirmed that Britain had carried out covert attacks on Russian leaders and their interests. He told Times Radio: “We will use different techniques. We need to play to our strengths and focus our attention on their vulnerabilities.” (link, paywalled)
He would certainly know! The GCHQ brush-off comes as a matter of course:
“GCHQ declined to confirm or deny its involvement in an offensive cyber-operation tackling anti-vaccine disinformation.” (link, paywalled)
At the end of that article the authors give a summary of who all those baddies are. The very strange thing is that this was compiled by the US government, under President Trump who, according to the global MSM these past four years, was put in place thanks to Putin. I’ll quote it here so “we” know what to avoid, ok yah?
“The Kremlin’s army of conspiracy theorists – The US State Department has identified a series of websites and organisations aligned to the Kremlin pushing false narratives about coronavirus vaccines. — South Front: A disinformation website that focuses on military and security issues. In March it published an article headlined: “The fight for a cure: one gigantic western pharma rip-off.” It suggested that vaccines were unnecessary and were pushed for profit motives. Another said that vaccines could contain “a brain debilitating agent, or a gene that renders women infertile”. — News Front: Claims to provide an “alternative source of information” for western audiences. In March it posted an article claiming that Covid-19 vaccines were a fraud spearheaded by Bill Gates and “Big Pharma” and said it was “a matter of luck” for patients which substances were injected into them. — Geopolitica.ru: The Russian ultra-nationalist platform said in April that vaccines were a plot by Bill Gates and Microsoft to control humans by inserting microchips into them. —Source: Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem, a report by the US State Department’s global engagement centre, August 2020.” (link, paywalled)
I’ll finish by paraphrasing a quote by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who said that one must be silent about that whereof one cannot speak. Even if we wouldn’t go to those sites in the first place, by denying us the opportunity to read what we want government in the form of GCHQ is depriving us of information. When we can only read what government agencies permit us to see because of a one-sided focus on one ‘designated’ enemy while leaving aside another, much more pernicious one, we are forced to accept government propaganda willy-nilly.
I couldn’t possibly comment on thoughts about a certain ‘benefactor’ perhaps having an interest in steering public discourse, nor about a certain country in whose interest it is to keep any thoughts about origins of covid and treatment of the same out of the public discourse.
I do note in concluding that a certain former top Whitehall Mandarin has said in public that we’re actually doing the same as those bad Russians, only, of course, so much better …
Photo by Defence Images 
Thank you Helena. As for Ludwig keeping quiet.. it was illegal then . See dedication od the tractatus
If no one under the age of 60 dies without the help of another disease, why bother to vaccinate them ?
As a microbiologist I have spent a LOT of time evaluating an enormous amount of bat sh*t about SARS NCoV-2, often at the request of puzzled people who have forwarded items posted on various forms of social media to me. Worst was a US person interviewing 2 Brits for over an hour – said Brits had published a book claiming there were no such things as viruses, diseases were not caused by microbes (head in hands in despair!) My good friend Tomaz did his best to explain that 5G was not the bogey man claimed, I witheringly countered the claim that Wuhan citizens had coronovirus secretly injected in their routine flu jabs, to be later activated by 5G – explaining how that just couldn’t happen, even if 5G could cause ill health. Yes, there was the Bill Gates as demon, planning to microchip us in our vaccines (that one’s stil going) and discredited scientists popping up with all sorts of odd theories. Not to mention those who just claimed the virus itself was a hoax – some of whom found out the hard way that it isn’t!
The problem with the anti lockdown movement is that it is riddled with those who bring their anti-vaxx or Covid is a hoax banners and cheer David Icke. Nastiest anti vaxxer trick I have seen is the claim – guaranteed to upset pro-lifers which is why they make it – that vaccines contain cells from aborted foetuses. No they don’t! Not a single bacterial vaccine and, whilst viral vaccines have to be grown in cells, a) they are purified out at harvest and b) only some are grown in MRC-5 cells, which did originate from an aborted foetus – no clue if it was a termination or a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) – but the cells have been propagated in labs since the 1960s.
This leaves those of us who oppose the current lockdown, and consider the first a consequence of the Gvt’s failure to take the correct action at the start – like those S. Asian countries that managed it – with a dilemma. For us, masks, distancing – and most of all building ventilation control – is all part of ‘living with the virus’. As is vaccination once we are happy it is safe! Voluntary of course, it should be our choice – it should always be our free choice.
Should we be free to read and believe BS? Well it happens every day. Every time Prince Charles or Attenborough open their mouths and spout the myth that we are frying our planet. No one is censoring them.
Thank you Helena for an explanation I can understand. Unfortunately, whilst the Government, all Governments, keep taking advice from the lunatic fringe, the real facts can’t get out and conspiracy theories abound. They are responsible for their own misfortune.
Please Lisa – and our misfortune!
So may I ask, will you take a vaccine when one becomes available? I freely admit to being a lockdown sceptic but would v much an objective opinion from a source, Ind D, that I’ve always trusted. Thank you.
Not strictly relevant, only sort of relevant to this article.
Unlike what many people think, the British military is not being cut, it is being transformed :
It was certainly cut by Cameron but the greatest threat is Boris giving over control to the EU even when we have left.
By God’s grace they will fail for the same reason the Soviet Union failed and was supplanted by a Christian nation. Russia. With nearly 71% of the population identifying as Orthodox Christian.
More on Russia that may be kind of relevant. Also gets into what’s likely next with a Biden presidency. (More war.)
Kremlin insists Putin does NOT have Parkinson’s, but BIG changes in Russia may be coming
Thank you Viv. This is horrifying. Is it ‘The Times’ that has been corrupted by big pharma? Or is it G.C.H.Q.?
Or maybe the Covid Dictatorship Junta? The last mentioned could see a vaccine as the only possible escape from the total mess they have put us in.
The first sign of a totalitarian state emerging is the censoring of information and free speech, valid or not. We need to be allowed to judge for ourselves and there is sufficient information about to support our disbelief of that which we are told by government.
I wonder if the Gates’ and various globalist organisations which have been pushing their unproven analysis in support of particular agendas will be censored?
Of course not. So-called “conspiracy theory” is looking more like conspiracy fact by the day, something I wrote about on here back in January 2017… Maybe an update is warranted.
Re an update is warranted – Yes please Jack Thomas. I agree that conspiracy theory looks more and more like fact. So yes – Update us.