Propaganda During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Propaganda during the COVID-19 pandemic has the appearance of sophisticated organization and execution through a variety of channels including government, media, and academia.

• Jul 1, 2021 Professor Mark Crispen Miller: A Propaganda Masterpiece, Part One
• Aug 4, 2021 Professor Mark Crispen Miller: A Propaganda Masterpiece, Part Two
• Episode #22 Professor Mark Crispen Miller at Unlimited Hangout's Whitney Webb at the Propaganda in the COVID Era podcast.

• Aug 4, 2021 Dr. Piers Robinson on Asia Pacific Today warns: COVID-19 is a global propaganda operation.

• In an interview from December, 2021, journalist Sharyl Attkisson talks about a highly active propaganda industry that turns the world into a sort of Truman Show for everyone.¹⁾
  • Paid commenters to flood the federal registry with comments to make expert and public opinion appear to be other than what it is.

“Safe and effective” vaccines rolled out against swine flu in 1976 that subsequently turn out to be damaging to several hundred people, particularly with neurological disorders such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome.²⁾. The eerie similarities are hard to ignore.³⁾

• Defeat Despair and Inspire Hope
• Early Treatment failed
  • Hydroxychloroquine failed
  • Ivermectin failed
• Natural Immunity Fails
• Pandemic of the unvaccinated

Both the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom have admitted using psychological tactics to control policy perceptions during the pandemic.⁴⁾

“Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response” was published on April 30, 2020, by Bavel, Baicker et al.⁵⁾ The abstract opens by saying;

“The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behaviour with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts.”

History has seen many asymmetric technologies applied effectively to the task of propagandizing populations. Perhaps never before have so many tools been used in concert than during the pandemic.

• Dec 24, 2021 The Grayzone British intelligence hired veteran astroturfing YouTube personalities to counter critics of COVID-19 public health policy implementation suck as lockdowns.
• Tim Pool discussion: https://www.bitchute.com/video/KZOpULZPJfQ/

In a letter from the HART Group, dated January 18, 2022, they call out the Behavioral Insights Team for Ethical concerns arising from the Government’s use of covert psychological ‘nudges’⁶⁾

https://youtu.be/TYIh4MkcfJA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZp7eVJNJuw

https://twitter.com/jamesmelville/status/1461750873445568515?s=21

Coordinating the same message, as precisely as possible, effectively provokes acceptance of a false truth in those who absorb it often enough without having the opportunity, or seeing the need to investigate the epistemology of the message or the media.

• Dec 24, 2021 Professor Norman Fenton documents many instances of nearly identical messages by blue check marks from searching for “verified tested positive symptoms mild”.
• On Dec 25, Twitter user Joost Broekers points out templated fear porn claims of emergency rooms getting crushed by COVID-19.⁷⁾

• In January 2022, public health officials including Anthony Fauci and Kieran Moore admitted pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations were being systematically over-counted.⁸⁾

• Dec 11, 2021 Australian Prime Minister refers to vaccinating people like herding sheep through a gate

• Dec 1, 2021 New York Governor Kathy Hochul on twitter: “I met with members of New York's Congressional Delegation to discuss our ongoing efforts against COVID - including preparing for the Omicron variant.

We'll keep working to help New Yorkers recover from the pandemic, create good-paying jobs, & build our economy back better.”

The following is largely courtesy of Laura Dodsworth and her 2021 book, ⁹⁾. On February 1, 2022, Dodsworth was interviewed on TalkRadio (UK) about the use, and misuse, of 'nudge', both through Covid and beyond¹⁰⁾ and the potential backlash of anger as the narrative collapses.¹¹⁾

There has been a huge amount of propaganda put out during the pandemic. This has emanated from all sides, but it’s been even more of an asymmetric situation than in previous times when the dominant narrative has been clearly false, such as in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion.

This asymmetry is down to two novel factors and interlinked that have not played such a crucial role, at least in Western democracies in the recent past;

1. Behavioural psychology and the science of ‘nudge’
2. Widespread censorship

Freud’s nephew, Edward Berney, literally wrote the book, Propaganda, in 1928, in which he says,

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute and invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

More recently, in Crisis and Leviathan, the American economic historian Robert Biggs identified ‘the ratchet effect’, pointing to the temporary or emergency measures put in place by the US government during or following WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, the Nixon-Johnson years, 9/11 and the 2008 global financial crisis, all caused the government to expand, and many survive to this day. Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government measure.

In the UK, this sort of manipulation initially took the form of the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) who report into Number 10 and the Prime Minister. Their formation was first suggested in 2010, and in 2018, they released a report called 'Behavioural Government: Using Behavioural Science to Improve How Governments Make Decisions'¹²⁾ and another, more pertinent to what we’re seeing today, called 'Applying Behavioural and Social Sciences to Improving Population Health & Wellbeing in England'¹³⁾.

On March 11, 2020, David Halpern, who heads up BIT, actually said we should cocoon the elderly until herd immunity is acquired, which sounds as sensible today as it did then. However, on March 22, a BIT sub-group, the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) stated that,

…a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened; it could be that they are reassured by the low death rate in their demographic group, although levels of concern may be rising”.

The group therefore recommended that, “the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.”

This led, among other things, to the infamous “Look Into Her Eyes” billboard campaign. Here, we had a close-up shot of the eyes of a terrified individual, always wearing an oxygen mask, and the headline was followed by “…and tell her why you won’t wear a mask” or variations on that theme. It was heavily criticised, especially for suggesting to recently bereaved children that yes, they may well have killed Grandma. At the time of writing, there appears to me no images of this campaign available online.

BIT (also unofficially known as ‘the Nudge Unit’) has now morphed into a ‘social purpose limited company’ with offices in London, Manchester, Paris, New York, Singapore, Sydney, Wellington and Toronto. They ran over 750 projects in 31 countries in 2019 alone, and have trained over 20,000 civil servants around the world on the dark arts of behavioural insights.

BIT is now one of several ‘nudge units’ that work across the UK government. These include;

• Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) – part of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism – who focus on covertly engineer and effect “behavioural and attitudinal change” by funding chosen NGOs and grassroots organisations to produce supposedly grassroots multimedia campaigns.

• The Rapid Response Unit – based at Number 10, dedicated to move fast on social media to the “reclaiming of a fact-based public debate”.

• Counter Disinformation Cell – very similar to the Rapid Response Unit, both of whom work behind closed doors and are suspected to be behind much of the online censorship in the UK.

• GCHQ – the UK version of the NSA and engaged in a “cyberwar on anti-vaccine propaganda”. Technically, it’s only allowed to engage with foreign actors, not material originating from the UK.

• The 77th Brigade – part of the army engaged in ‘non-lethal’ forms of psychological warfare. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Head of Editorial (EMEA) at Twitter, Gordon MacMillan, is a part time officer with the 77th Brigade.

• Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), mentioned earlier, who focus on providing “behavioural science advice aimed at anticipating and helping people to adhere to interventions that are recommended by medical or epidemiological experts.” Initially the make-up of this group was held secret under the rubric of ‘national security’; now it’s open, we see that it includes no disaster recovery specialists, no risk management experts, and on one considering the psychology of risk.

These are just the 'nudge units' we know about operating within the UK government. It is safe to assume there are more that we don't know about, and that every government around the world has their own versions of these.

MindSpace, Psyops, and Cognitive Warfare: Winning the Battle for the Mind https://canadianpatriot.org/2021/11/19/mindspace-psyops-and-cognitive-warfare-winning-the-battle-for-the-mind/

Breaking the Spell: MindSpace, Trance Warfare, and Neuro Linguistic Programming https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/01/05/breaking-the-spell-mindspace-trance-warfare-and-neuro-linguistic/

“Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.

Bertrand Russell – The Impact of Science on Society ~ 1951

Fear of Terrorist Attack Could Trigger Mass Psychogenic Illness U//FOUO A case of mass psychogenic illness in Chechnya in 2005 and a similar incident in California in 2003 highlight an additional factor to consider in the response to terrorist attacks, particularly those involving chemical, biological, or radiological CBR weapons. The number of those suffering psychogenic illness could far exceed the number of actual casualties in a CBR event.

https://file.wikileaks.org/file/dhs-mass-psychogenic-illness-2006.pdf

Mass Formation is a term coined by Mattias Desmet, Ph.D. Mass Formation, according to Dr. Desmet requires an element of fear, which can be driven by propaganda. Dr. Robert Malone linked this concept to a form of mass psychosis in his interview with Joe Rogan in December 2020. John Mac Ghlionn wrote an opinion piece for Spectator World in which he described the phenomenon as more of a psychological paralysis induced by the media. He suggests, “But when it comes to the pandemic, and the ways in which we have come to view the dangers posed, mainstream media outlets have played a more significant role. Through the weaponization of fear, millions of Americans have been conditioned to fear the worst.”

by By David Gosselin, January 5, 2022

The first spell book to systematically lay out these insights and their application by governments was the UK Institute for Government’s 2010 MindSpace document. The UK Institute for Government describes itself as“leading think tank working to make government more effective.” In the wake of the MindSpace document and its new approach to powerful and “cost-effective” behaviour modification, the Behavioural Insights Team was established as a new psychological warfare node across the Five Eyes countries i.e. Australia, Canada, the USA, New Zealand, and Great Britain.

Notably, Cass Sunstein is considered one of the most cited legal scholars of recent times. During his stint in the Obama administration, Sunstein was at the centre of the crackdown on “conspiracy theories” and the “real risks” they posed to governments and their “antiterrorism policies.”

In a 2008 paper authored by Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, the authors write..

“…the existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be.”

They then went on to list several steps government agencies could take to counter the growing threat of conspiracy theories- https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/01/05/breaking-the-spell-mindspace-trance-warfare-and-neuro-linguistic/

“Trusted News Initiative (TNI) to combat spread of harmful vaccine disinformation and announces major research project

At a recent summit chaired by the BBC’s new Director General, Tim Davie, the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) agreed to focus on combatting the spread of harmful vaccine disinformation.

Examples include widely shared memes which link falsehoods about vaccines to freedom and individual liberties. Other posts seek to downplay the risks of coronavirus and suggest there is an ulterior motive behind the development of a vaccine.

Whilst it is important to scrutinise the science behind new Covid-19 vaccines and give voice to legitimate concerns from people wondering what a coronavirus vaccine means for them, questions about levels of immunity and whether a vaccine is appropriate for those with chronic health conditions, it is vital that audiences know they can turn to sources they trust for accurate, impartial information.

TNI partners will alert each other to disinformation which poses an immediate threat to life so content can be reviewed promptly by platforms, whilst publishers ensure they don’t unwittingly republish dangerous falsehoods.

The TNI is already working together to tackle to spread of harmful coronavirus disinformation and previously has had success running a rapid alert system during the UK 2019 General Election, Myanmar and Taiwan 2020 General Elections and the US Presidential Election.

The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) was set up last year to protect audiences and users from disinformation, particularly around moments of jeopardy, such as elections. The TNI complements existing programmes partners have in place.

The partners currently within the TNI are: AP, AFP; BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU),Facebook, Financial Times, First Draft, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, Microsoft , Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter, The Washington Post.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20201210102555/https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2020/trusted-news-initiative-vaccine-disinformation

While other billionaires’ media empires are relatively well known, the extent to which Gates’s cash underwrites the modern media landscape is not. After sorting through over 30,000 individual grants, MintPress can reveal that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has made over $300 million worth of donations to fund media projects.¹⁴⁾

Recipients of this cash include many of America’s most important news outlets, including CNN, NBC, NPR, PBS and The Atlantic. Gates also sponsors a myriad of influential foreign organizations, including the BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom; prominent European newspapers such as Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany) and El País (Spain); as well as big global broadcasters like Al-Jazeera.

The Gates Foundation money going towards media programs has been split up into a number of sections, presented in descending numerical order, and includes a link to the relevant grant on the organization’s website.

Awards Directly to Media Outlets -

NPR- $24,663,066 The Guardian (including TheGuardian.org)- $12,951,391 Cascade Public Media – $10,895,016 Public Radio International (PRI.org/TheWorld.org)- $7,719,113 The Conversation- $6,664,271 Univision- $5,924,043 Der Spiegel (Germany)- $5,437,294 Project Syndicate- $5,280,186 Education Week – $4,898,240 WETA- $4,529,400 NBCUniversal Media- $4,373,500 Nation Media Group (Kenya) – $4,073,194 Le Monde (France)- $4,014,512 Bhekisisa (South Africa) – $3,990,182 El País – $3,968,184 BBC- $3,668,657 CNN- $3,600,000 KCET- $3,520,703 Population Communications International (population.org) – $3,500,000 The Daily Telegraph – $3,446,801 Chalkbeat – $2,672,491 The Education Post- $2,639,193 Rockhopper Productions (U.K.) – $2,480,392 Corporation for Public Broadcasting – $2,430,949 UpWorthy – $2,339,023 Financial Times – $2,309,845 The 74 Media- $2,275,344 Texas Tribune- $2,317,163 Punch (Nigeria) – $2,175,675 News Deeply – $1,612,122 The Atlantic- $1,403,453 Minnesota Public Radio- $1,290,898 YR Media- $1,125,000 The New Humanitarian- $1,046,457 Sheger FM (Ethiopia) – $1,004,600 Al-Jazeera- $1,000,000 ProPublica- $1,000,000 Crosscut Public Media – $810,000 Grist Magazine- $750,000 Kurzgesagt – $570,000 Educational Broadcasting Corp – $506,504 Classical 98.1 – $500,000 PBS – $499,997 Gannett – $499,651 Mail and Guardian (South Africa)- $492,974 Inside Higher Ed.- $439,910 BusinessDay (Nigeria) – $416,900 Medium.com – $412,000 Nutopia- $350,000 Independent Television Broadcasting Inc. – $300,000 Independent Television Service, Inc. – $300,000 Caixin Media (China) – $250,000 Pacific News Service – $225,000 National Journal – $220,638 Chronicle of Higher Education – $149,994 Belle and Wissell, Co. $100,000 Media Trust – $100,000 New York Public Radio – $77,290 KUOW – Puget Sound Public Radio – $5,310

The White House has ramped up efforts in recent weeks to convince more young people to get vaccinated. On Wednesday, pop star Olivia Rodrigo visited the White House to record PSAs, and Dr. Anthony Fauci has begun doing interviews on Tik Tok.

Administration officials view misinformation as a major obstacle to reaching vaccination goals. Conspiracy theories and lies about coronavirus vaccines have proliferated among right-wing media and on social media sites like Facebook, where posts with bad information about vaccine safety spread faster than administrators can remove them.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210716211329/https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1017002907/u-s-covid-deaths-are-rising-again-experts-call-it-a-pandemic-of-the-unvaccinated

Gizmodo posted a clickbait slideshow article titled “9 Antivax Lies to Watch Out for This Holiday.¹⁵⁾ The alleged “lies” were:

1. “The vaccines are based on untested, dangerous technology.”
2. “mRNA vaccines change your DNA.”
3. “Vaccinated people are 'shedding' onto others.”
4. “The shots contain scary and/or satanic ingredients.”
5. “The vaccines are killing more people than the virus is.”
6. “Vaccines don't prevent transmission.”
7. “The need for boosters proves the vaccines are useless.”
8. “Outbreaks in highly vaccinated countries show vaccines don’t work.”
9. “Kids don’t need the vaccine.”

There's an old documentary film about political operatives title “Our Brand Is Doubt” this strategic thinking is applied to a wide variety of PR operations.

Hit piece by an old UK group with fuzzy member and funding details but top shelf political connections.

Executive Summary The Disinformation Dozen are responsible for up to 65% of anti-vaccine content The Disinformation Dozen account for up to 73% of Facebook’s anti-vaxx content Facebook is underestimating the influence of leading anti-vaxxers Up to 17% of anti-vaccine tweets feature the Disinformation Dozen Platforms must act on the Disinformation Dozen Platforms must do more to protect users from harmful misinformation

Appendix: The Disinformation Dozen 12 1 Joseph Mercola. 2 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 3 Ty & Charlene Bollinger 4 Sherri Tenpenny 5 Rizza Islam 6 Rashid Buttar 7 Erin Elizabeth 8 Sayer Ji 9 Kelly Brogan 10 Christiane Northrup 11 Ben Tappe 12 Kevin Jenkins

https://web.archive.org/web/20211203221715/https://www.counterhate.com/_files/ugd/f4d9b9_b7cedc0553604720b7137f8663366ee5.pdf

Cure changed in Merriam-Webster (find link) likely to make early treatment medicines look ineffective.

Definition of vaccine changed in January such that it includes mRNA and DNA based products.

This is Peter Doshi, deputy editor of the BMJ, questioning this change in definition and calling for some critical thinking in the whole mandate debate. The entire five-minute presentation can be seen here.

Definition of herd immunity changed by WHO.

How Cases Are Being Counted

The WHO changed their definition of an influenza pandemic. In May 2009 it read;

“An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.”

In September 2009, just before the swine flu ‘pandemic’ struck, it was changed to read;

“A disease epidemic occurs when there are more cases of that disease than normal. A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic of a disease. An influenza pandemic may occur when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity. […] Pandemics can be either mild or severe in the illness and death they cause, and the severity of a pandemic can change over the course of that pandemic.”

Surgisphere

From humble beginnings on “A” Late Show to a glorious conclusion on “The” Late Show, we hope you will enjoy this romp through every single frame of Stephen Colbert's longrunning educational segment, Well known songs adapted to pro-vaccine skits.¹⁶⁾

Irish doctors speak out.¹⁷⁾

In the UK, part of the rhetoric has been to “Protect the NHS” (by masking, distancing, staying home, getting jabbed, getting the booster, etc. etc., depending on the current version of the agenda). Behind this is the story that the hospitals here are either actually overwhelmed, on the verge of being overwhelmed, or concerned that they're about to be overwhelmed sometime in the future. This is presented as being in some way unique. And of course, it's not.

The story is a lot more complicated and involves decades of underfunding by all governments,¹⁸⁾ frequent reorganisations that bring in more managers and reduce frontline cover,¹⁹⁾ and an overall push towards privatisation.²⁰⁾

Similarly, the story of hospitals in the USA being overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases was used regularly throughout 2020 and into 2021. However, this is simply not supported by the data.²¹⁾

• Mar 23, 2021 Foundation for Economic Education: Americans are wildly misinformed about the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19, survey shows. ²²⁾