Middle East Eye‘s Ian Cobain has published an exclusive titled “Twitter executive for Middle East is British Army ‘psyops’ soldier”, exposing the fact that Twitter’s senior editorial executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa also works for an actual, literal propaganda unit in the British military called the 77th Brigade. Which is mighty interesting, considering the fact that Twitter constantly suspends accounts from non-empire-aligned nations based on the allegation that they are engaging in propaganda.
“The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit,” Cobain writes. “Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company’s UK office six years ago, has for several years also served with the 77th Brigade, a unit formed in 2015 in order to develop ‘non-lethal’ ways of waging war. The 77th Brigade uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as podcasts, data analysis and audience research to wage what the head of the UK military, General Nick Carter, describes as ‘information warfare’.”
https://twitter.com/IanCobain/status/1178590025128251392?s=20
MacMillan’s presence in a government psyops unit was not a secret; until Middle East Eye began raising questions on the matter, it was right there on his LinkedIn profile. This is not something that anyone considering him for promotion was likely to have been unaware of. According to his (now-edited) LinkedIn page, MacMillan has been in his current position as Head of Editorial EMEA since July 2016. According to Middle East Eye, MacMillan was already a captain in the 77th Brigade by the end of 2016. His current rank there is being hidden behind a wall of government secrecy.
When questioned by Middle East Eye about MacMillan’s work in the British Army’s online propaganda program, Twitter hilariously responded, “Twitter is an open, neutral and rigorously independent platform. We actively encourage all our employees to pursue external interests in line with our commitment to healthy corporate social responsibility, and we will continue to do so.”
That’s very nice of Twitter, isn’t it? They encourage their employees to pursue wholesome external interests, whether that be tennis, volunteering at a soup kitchen, or moonlighting at a military program explicitly devoted to online psychological warfare. You know, just everyday socially responsible pastime stuff.
The fact that Twitter not only employs known propagandists but actively promotes them to executive positions is a very large and inconvenient plot hole in their “open, neutral and rigorously independent platform” story. Especially since, as I documented recently, the mass purges of foreign Twitter accounts we’ve been seeing more and more of lately always exclusively target governments and groups which are not in alignment with the interests of the US-centralized power alliance of which the UK is a part. We’ve seen mass suspensions of accounts from Cuba, China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and the Catalan independence movement on allegations of “coordinated influence operations” and “covert, manipulative behaviors”, yet Twitter currently employs a high-level executive for whom coordinated influence operations and covert, manipulative behaviors on behalf of the British government are a known vocation.
“On September 20 Twitter deleted a large number of accounts, including in MacMillan’s area of responsibility. How many of those were designated by the British state?” asks Moon of Alabama of this new report.
How many indeed?
Have You Noticed How Social Media Purges Always Align With The US Empire?
"There is no legitimate reason to go on pretending that these plutocratic Silicon Valley institutions are meaningfully separate from the US government."https://t.co/Jdsj1JMWPB
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 12, 2019
This is just one more item on the ever-growing mountain of evidence that these giant, immensely influential social media platforms we’ve all been herded into are nothing other than state propaganda for the digital age. True, they operate in a way which disregards the official lines that are drawn between government power and corporate power and the lines that are drawn between nations, but then, so do our rulers. We are living in a globe-spanning corporate oligarchic empire, and these government-aligned Silicon Valley giants are a major part of that empire’s propaganda engine.
The real power of that empire and that oligarchy lies in their invisibile and unacknowledged nature. Officially we all live in separate, sovereign nations run by democratically elected officials; unofficially we live in a massive transnational empire ruled by a loose alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies where military propagandists are employed by social media monopolies to manipulate public narratives. The official mask exists only on the level of narrative, while the unofficial reality is what’s actually happening. Yet whenever you try to publicly discuss the threat that is being posed by oligarchic narrative control online, you get told by establishment loyalists and libertarians that Twitter is just a simple private business running things in a way that is entirely separate from government censorship and state propaganda.
All we clear-eyed rebels can do is keep documenting the evidence of what’s going on and pointing to it as loudly as we can. So once again for the people in the back: Twitter employs literal government propagandists as high-level executives while purging accounts from unabsorbed governments for circulating unauthorized narratives. This is a fact. Remember it.
__________________________
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
30 responses to “Twitter Suspends Accounts For Propaganda, Has Literal Propagandist As High-Level Executive”
Propagandists hate competition.
Boy OH! Boy, there are so many paranoid people on this site, what are you afraid of? Fear is a tower we fall off of, and then we hit the bottom, and begin once again our long climb up-ward…… Never give -up keep climbing, arriving at the Top is worth it, unless you have to leave dead bodies behind you, that Sir’s is unforgivable. I make my way in this world due to my willingness to give as much back as possible, This world makes my life possible, why would I not Love It??? Not one, Not one man, woman or child shall go to bed hungry, that is my vow, I will give every penny I have to make that happen, This is the world I live in…..
We expect low-life garbage people to act like that, but when people like us, who get shit on every day break ranks to become a shitter for those garbage people then we really do have a problem if we don’t think of them in the same way that we would someone who just killed our new born child in the most hideous fashion.
Hey, brother you have a lot of Hate trapped inside you, you are missing, I think, the whole point of Ms. Johnstones articles, she is trying to teach us HOW to Love one and the Other, instead of making War, how about peace? I could not go to sleep with so much hate trapped inside me, I had to get pills, and then I found this beautiful post which let me let the Hate go to Hell, where it belonged, and so now I sleep care-free, that must be worth some-thing, Just saying…..
I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I only read the first sentence of the article. In my defense, the first sentence was all that was really necessary. It’s kind of like reading:
* The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos.
* The New York Times’ largest shareholder is Mexican mega-billionaire Carlos Slim.
* The Huffington Post is owned by Verizon.
* John Oliver works for AT&T.
* Trevor Noah works for Viacom, which is controlled by the same shareholder who controls CBS.
* Stephen Colbert works for CBS, which is controlled by the same shareholder who controls Viacom.
* Outside of election cycles, ~70% of US cable-news ad revenues come from direct-to-consumer prescription-drug ads.
* French newspaper of record Le Figaro is owned by Dassault Industries, a major French defense contractor.
* French newspaper of record Le Monde is now owned by two billionaires and one multi-millionaire.
* France’s erstwhile socialist newspaper, Libération, is now owned by a billionaire.
There’s just not a whole lot more you really need to add.
Congratulations Caitlin, you’ve been mentioned in a smear piece by Bellingcat. Consider it a badge of honour,
What are all these comments about? The ‘Twitter Verse’ That is bulls–t is all in time and all we have got is this present moment, there is beside it “History.” And the future, unknowable. What is it about the song: “It’s All Right Now.” That we failed to understand? Here I am, a human Being, and all I have right now, is moment to type out these words, this is it, this moment, make the best use of it, that is all I have to say, right Now!
All I have is time, until time runs out on me, and then what? Nobody wants to come back and talk about it. We are Dead to You, that is all we have to say. Maybe now we live in this Garden of Eden place, where all of us love one and the other and greed is cured, and the lust for power is no more…..That’s the place I live in Now, so it is not some place I have to “GO” It is here, right now…..I am trying to explain this to my friends out there, It is so simple: As you give, so, shall you receive. The things I give to do not expect “Rewards.” I just give what I have to give, I pray for a world where no Man, Woman, or child goes to bed with an empty belly, where human beings have learned how to tell the Truth, always, and not lie, and cheat, and steal from each other, because they discovered the path to peace was to treat all men as equals. So I have had my say, this is what I think…..
Today three articles etched themselves into my old brain and made a significant impressions upon me. Please peruse these:
https://www.fff.org/2019/10/02/what-if-the-president-is-a-threat-to-national-security/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/10/02/restoring-democracy-around-the-world-boltons-failure-in-plain-sight/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/10/02/america-trumps-father-aspirational-fascism-reigned-in-new-york/
You wasted your time and ours.
Right now the blues are playing for me, I love the Blues, I wish I could be B.B. King, the BBC is playing the Blues instead of that soul-killing News, Is that great news or what????/
““Twitter is an open, neutral and rigorously independent platform. We actively encourage all our employees to pursue external interests in line with our commitment to healthy corporate social responsibility, and we will continue to do so.”
Classic corporate MBA speak. Very similar to DNC hack Tom Perez bullshitter speak. One read this stuff and thinks what the hell did I just read. Does this say anything? Wasn’t Hitler rigorously independent? How does Twitter censorship equate w being open and neutral? The key unelaborated bit is what Twitter considers to be “healthy corporate social responsibility”. It can be anything they choose it to be. It might even be reinforcing the elite political narrative needed to properly socialize the population. In other words it may be anti free speech.
You can bet wisely that the United States National Security Agency has people inside Twitter, Facebook, etc.,etc. monitoring everyone worth monitoring. ” Big Brother Is Everywhere “!
“But Caitlin,” I thought about halfway through, “How do we know it’s not awesome that Twitter employed someone with information war expertise, in order to use that specialized knowledge for the benefit of Twitter users and the general welfare?”
Then I thought, “that must be why Twitter’s official response was to imply his other job was just a hobby.”
Hey, I answered my own “But Caitlin” this time. 🙂
Ok, so here I am, wanting to gift a ‘comment’ I wonder how one day you are lifting our hearts and minds into heaven, and the next day be railing on petty little people, none of whom will outlive us? Where is where I am at, I live in a place supplied with water by a barrel and a hose, which comes out of a spring up above us. In fifty years of use this spring has faithfully slacked our thirst, washed our clothes, bathed us on a cold winter’s night. It ran dry this year. Our rain failed to come and refill the aquifer for us. So here is how the Magic of this Universe works, for those who care to listen: I realized, that long ago, this spring water was a special blessing, A gift of the Earth, for the people of this Earth.~~~~~So, when you know that Mother Earth Listens to your prayers, and if they are prayers for good, she answers them, ONE must have faith in the kindness and Love of Mother Earth, I prayed to Mother Earth, and my spring began to run again. I just said in my prayer: Mother Earth, for the last fifty years you have been faithful to us, and we really appreciated that, Every day, I remembered to say Thank You, for blessing us with this beautiful water, and every day I try to remember to thank the Sun for shinning for us, such a Sacrifice it makes to give us light and warmth…..So the gist of this is, if you have faith, and believe in magic, you will discover that it is all surrounding you…..
“Twitter is an open, neutral and rigorously independent platform. We actively encourage all our employees to pursue external interests in line with our commitment to healthy corporate social responsibility, and we will continue to do so.”
_______________________________________________
Presumably this was written by Gordon MacMillan– he’s worth every penny they’re paying him.
And what’s the problem? Everybody should have a hobby!
You’re reading this because you’re either an intellectually curious truth-seeker, or an NSA/CIA/FBI/Mossad/GCHQ/MI6/MI5 tumor upon humanity. If you realize NBC/CNN/NYT/PBS/NPR/BBC/ABC are compromised, don’t forget to include Majority Report, emptywheel, Pod Save America, David Pakman, Young Turks, The Intercept, and Democracy Now in that list. Have a nice day!
The true rulers of this world are those behind 9/11.
I have always suspected the billionaires class from Wall Street and Silicon Valley to have been behind this sad event.
And I think this sad event was the beginning of the Return of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus, which return according to prophecies is very near and I would say could be any day now.
I pray the Rosary to hasten the Return of Jesus because I am totally fed up and I have really seen enough bullshit.
I learned (or relearned) something the other day.
—
Robert Mueller (FBI director immediately before and after 9/11) (September 4, 2001 – September 4, 2013) is **still** withholding the name of a government official(s) of Saudi Arabia known to have supported the 9/11 hijackers.
—
The vast majority of Americans, at the time of our 2003 invasion of Iraq believed Saddam was involved in 9/11. All along the FBI is hiding the role of the Saudi government.
—
And they are **still** withholding the Saudi government official’s name.
From a post recently viewed at MoA:
—
https://www.portman.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senate-passes-major-portman-murphy-counter-propaganda-bill-part-ndaa
—
December 08, 2016
—
Senate Passes Major Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill as Part of NDAA
Portman/Murphy Bill Promotes Coordinated Strategy to Defend America,
Allies Against Propaganda and Disinformation from Russia, China & Others
The first priority is developing a whole-of-government strategy for countering
foreign propaganda and disinformation. The bill would increase the authority,
resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors
like Russia and China in addition to violent extremists. The Center will be
led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation
of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors,
the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies. The Center will
develop, integrate, and synchronize whole-of-government initiatives to expose
and counter foreign disinformation operations and proactively advance fact-based
narratives that support U.S. allies and interests.
Second, the legislation seeks to leverage expertise from outside government to
create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options. The legislation
establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and
contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies,
media organizations, and other experts outside the U.S. government with experience
in identifying and analyzing the latest trends in foreign government disinformation
techniques. This fund will complement and support the Center’s role by integrating
capabilities and expertise available outside the U.S. government into the
strategy-making process. It will also empower a decentralized network of private
sector experts and integrate their expertise into the strategy-making process.
Especially note these important lines from above article:
—
proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests.
—
The legislation establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and
contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies,
media organizations
__
Anything to maintain control of the narrative. So much for media freedom. So much for freedom of speech. George Orwell got it so right. The jack booted goosesteps are getting louder.
“This is just one more item on the ever-growing mountain of evidence that these giant, immensely influential social media platforms we’ve all been herded into are nothing other than state propaganda for the digital age”.
Although some of us have declined to be “herded”; I for one have never had a social media account other than LinkedIn (which I never visit and keep up out of inertia mostly) and Facebook (I opened an account, immediately realised I didn’t want it, but of course was unable to delete it fully – so it lives on as a ghost).
Occasionally I see reports of some tweet, always because someone has copied it into a Web page.
It’s the same with social media, Microsoft, and the USA in general: just don’t.
German translation: https://medium.com/@frankdubian/twitter-suspendiert-konten-f%C3%BCr-propaganda-hat-selbst-propagandisten-als-hochrangige-f%C3%BChrungskraft-5df71bedce81
there has been no bright line between the government and the corporate for 40 years or longer. the government serves the financial / corporate overlords, across the national borders, across religioous, racial or sexual lines. there’s no line that separates CIA, the limitary, the silly-con valley, Hollywood, MSM, FED, academia etc etc, of course not. yes, naming names is important, but a surprise it is not.
Dear Caitlin,
Reading your comment on Twitter’s EMEA senior editor didn’t surprise me until further on I was reminded, that these huge background alliances seem to be going in the direction of the powers before WW1. Secret treaties and alliances that only become clear once war is declared, huge complicated forces military and otherwise waiting to be mobilised, that could be hard to turn off with the confused governments we have in the West and the opposed autocrats, interests and forces everywhere else. There are just too many triggers waiting out there. What are the chances of alerting our populaces to the possibility, when most can’t get their heads around impeaching the President, Brexit and climate change; not to mention the day to day learning to live with other cultures that are desperate to come to the West for quality of life but want us to be more like where they came from. Also the steady fall in real standards of living, especially wages and education. When you look at what Australia accomplished in two centuries and what happened to tribal areas like Africa, the Middle East and similar, the diverse influences now being promoted, particularly to our young people, don’t seem to be constructive.
By the way, I find I’m not drawn to your readings as much as you writings. Nothing wrong with you, perhaps I’m just an old fart with a document orientated background.
Regards, Richard.
Nice exposé, C J.
Great info! Someday you will find out that the US is actually the face of the British Empire. We haven’t been free since 1871. So this doesn’t surprise me in the least bit I am grateful to you for bringing it to the surface. Don’t trust Wikipedia. Look where they are based. Peace.
Such an important story…thank you for bringing to the attention of your readers.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/09/eternally-vigilant.html
Sun Yat Sen was one of the great historical figures of the 20th century, but we Americans never heard much about him.
His acolytes were lesser and more egotistical, Mao and Chiang Kai-shek.
Eleni sent this article with some quotes from Master Sun about the British Empire, considering it as a whole entity, not considering where the core will-to-power might lie, which directed that empire.
Where does that will-to-power reside now?
It seems mobile and transnational, like money, come to think of it…
“The British are as cunning as the fox and as changeable as the weather and they are not ashamed of themselves… Britain seeks friendship only with those which can render her services, and when her friends are too weak to be of any use to her, they must be sacrificed in her interests. Britain’s tender regard for her friends is like the delicate care usually shown by farmers in the rearing of silkworms; after all the silk has been drawn from the cocoons, they are destroyed by fire or used as food for fish. The present friends of Britain are no more than silkworms.”
“The key policy of England is to attack the strongest enemy with the help of the weaker countries and join the weakened enemy in checking the growth of a 3rd country. The British foreign policy has remained basically unchanged for two centuries.”
“When England befriends another country, the purpose is not to maintain a cordial friendship for the sake of friendship but to utilize that country as a tool to fight a third country. When an enemy has been shorn of his power, he is turned into a friend, and the friend who has become strong, into an enemy. England always remains in a commanding position; she makes other countries fight her wars and she herself reaps the fruits of victory.”
https://theduran.com/sun-yat-sens-advice-to-young-revolutionaries-dont-be-imperial-stooges/