Disinformation Campaign Blames USS Bonhomme Richard Fire on "Black Separatist Extremists"
Middle Eastern states or their proxies have become an important part of the daily diet of misinformation being disseminated on social media in the United States.
News media coverage of high profile events has become fodder for these entities, who seek to spread false or inaccurate information by linking their propaganda to Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Quite by accident this morning I came across an example of this sort of activity, seeking to exploit concern over a huge fire on board a Navy ship in San Diego.
Pay attention; there are layers of lies to wade through.
A Twitter user, posting as Victoria Orrick, is circulating an obviously forged letter attributed to Senator Tammy Duckworth asking for a Department of Defense investigation into a fabricated allegation purportedly from Gov. Newsom saying “Black Separatist Extremists, who had penetrated into the United States Navy” were responsible for sabotaging the USS Bonhomme Richard.
Over the course of 36 hours this misinformation was shared as a comment on the accounts of more than thirty individuals and news agencies world wide discussing the fire.
Twitter accounts involved included those of The Daily Beast, MSNBC reporter Richard Engel, former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Senator Bernie Sanders, TeamTrump(campaign account), Sean Hannity, Bill O'reilly, BBC NewsWorld, and Reuters, to name a few
Many of the original twitter posts this person was responding to were completely unrelated to the messages being sent, meaning they were placed for visibility not relevance.
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Prior to the Bonhomme postings, there were fourteen additional comments to tweets from this individual claiming Israeli Ambassador to France stated “Hebrew State” was financing the anti-regime People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) since the summer 2018. A link to LaProvnce (a real site) included in these tweets is bogus.
Twitter has now limited visibility for the Victoria Orrick account in response to complaints about misinformation being shared.
Accounting to one researcher, this Twitter account was created on May 27, followed zero other accounts and was followed by over six hundred other twitter users. A quick examination of those followers suggests they were mostly fake accounts, being maintained to spread misinformation when needed.
https://twitter.com/rastasack/status/1283057084377059337?s=20
The fact is that lots of entities are using social media to pitch their untruths to Americans.
The Washington Post reported in 2019 that Twitter and Facebook “had disabled a sprawling disinformation campaign that appeared to originate in Iran, including two accounts on Twitter that mimicked Republican congressional candidates and may have sought to push pro-Iranian political messages.”
In April, according to social media analysts at Graphika, a pro-Iranian influence operation spread disinformation over social media suggesting that the US government created the COVID-19.
Last week, The Daily Beast revealed an orchestrated campaign enabling at least 19 fake personas, acting as Middle East experts, contributing 90 opinion pieces for dozens of mostly US right-wing news outlets.
An article in Al Jazeera indicated the articles were likely part of an operation coordinated by the United Arab Emirates.
Jones said the investigation is only the "tip of the iceberg" and that the network of fake personas masquerading as experts on the Middle East is part of a "large-scale operation".
"The thrust of the articles seem to concern Iranian and Turkish expansionism and the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the world, which would suggest to me that it puts in line with certain right-wing US think-tanks or the foreign policies of the UAE or Saudi Arabia," he continued.
"If we look at all the discourse of the articles, there is a common theme running through them that would suggest it was carried out on behalf of a state by a particular entity."
Late in 2019, a huge misinformation/propaganda network linked to Saudi Arabia was taken down:
Twitter announced in a blog post Friday that it had removed more than 88,000 accounts that it said were engaged in "platform manipulation" originating in Saudi Arabia.
The accounts engaged in "spammy behavior," Twitter said, aggressively liking, retweeting, and replying to amplify messages that were favorable to the Saudi government's interests. Twitter's investigation found that the accounts originated from a Saudi social-media marketing company called Smaat, which also manages several official Saudi government accounts. It referred to the operation as "state-backed."
The tweets were primarily in Arabic, but a small portion of content targeted Western audiences, Twitter said. Those tweets advocated Saudi positions regarding sanctions in Iran and public opinion regarding Saudi government officials.
Remember, if something looks too good (or too bad!) to be true, stop and think before sharing on social media. If there isn’t a verifiable source leave it alone. Chances are if the story is real, you’ll see a more credible post shortly.
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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com