The Spanish connection of a huge disinformation campaign in the british elections

In 1983, a letter from a course in scientific american appeared in a small newspaper of Delhi, in India, called the Patriot. It was titled "aids may invade Ind

The Spanish connection of a huge disinformation campaign in the british elections

In 1983, a letter from a course in scientific american appeared in a small newspaper of Delhi, in India, called the Patriot. It was titled "aids may invade India" and bore the subtitle: "The mysterious disease, caused by experiments in EE UU". The text gave details on how an experiment to create biological weapons in a laboratory military of Maryland had gone wrong. That piece was picked up by a scientific journal soviet, jumped to african newspapers and grew up to arrive four years after the television news night chief of the united States.

This frame was named the Operation Infektion and today is known as one of the successes of legendary intelligence of the soviet union. Who has not heard of and doubt even today about the origin of the aids virus?

In June, an investigation by the Forensic Laboratory Digital of the Atlantic Council called for an operation attributed to Russia that it had analyzed "Secondary Infektion". "The operation was strongly reminiscent of Operation Infektion-soviet era", said the Atlantic Council in its report.

"The operation was strongly reminiscent of Operation Infektion soviet-era"

The operation used social networks and popular sites and remote to combine the publication of misinformation by different parts of the world. One of those parties was in Spain. Such "Antonio Diaz" had hung a apparent information entitled "Brexit as the new stage of struggle for an Ireland unified" on Reddit, a social network for sharing information very popular in the united States. The text was a confusing gibberish where the IRA was going to join "extremist muslims" to fight the United Kingdom. There seemed nothing very elaborate.

But now, thanks to one of the great controversies in the election campaign in britain, it has been known that "Antonio Diaz" I was not alone. When in may, Facebook reported that it had removed 16 accounts attributed to Russia, which were the germ of the report "Secondary Infektion", a few suspected that other accounts were going to survive to try to spread some classified documents of the british Government on trade negotiations with the united States.

The document emerged on Reddit in the United Kingdom in October and no one seemed to make much case. Then jumped to the websites of austria, hence users of Twitter are what were sent to politicians and journalists in your country and Germany. Then tried the same thing in the Uk. Were all alleged Russian agents trying to get someone echoed that filtration. And they got it. The leader-labor party called a press conference to accuse the Government of Boris Johnson have sold the public health british to the united States.

As in the Us elections of 2016, the russians are filtered with a filtration in the middle of the campaign. Days after being linked to these accounts with the June report of the Atlantic Council, Reddit uncovered a plot much larger accounts linked to the Russian. There were at least seven other alleged users of Reddit Spanish: Bella Gara, Victoria Sanchez, Franco Vaz, Star, Torres, Jaime Ibañez, Laura Ferrojo and Claudia Lopez.

they had All tried out luck with a information: they appeared, published his text on some channels of Reddit and were left in limbo. Maybe for one day to relive, and to filter something or post more fake news. The accounts published on the Brexit, the kurds or the Ukraine. None had seemingly no success.

Obviously none of these accounts belongs to a real citizen

Except for one, which had something: Laura Ferrojo, which two years ago hung up in channels of Spain, Catalonia and Barcelona this alleged news: "The EU shows its support to the Catalan separatists". Hence got responses from people telling him that that was a lie. The piece is worked in seem to be legal: "It has been known that the Government of Carles Puidgemont has obtained the support of the European Union", he said.

Even quoted protagonists less well-known with a role at the time: "This is what the secretary of State to the Territorial Administrations Roberto Bermudez de Castro has written in the letter addressed to vice-president of the Government Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría. "...according to our representatives in the European Parliament, the EU leaders will offer their collaboration to Catalonia and agree to recognize the legitimacy of the referendum".

Evidently, none of these accounts belongs to a real citizen. No managed to get out of the dark online. But they give an idea of the tentacles of the intelligence services of other countries who wish to nourish doubts to citizens of other countries whose channels today, with social networks have multiplied. "We suspect the intelligence Russian because the level of sophistication is unimaginable," says Kanishk Karan, a researcher at the Atlantic Council's

The election campaign british has lived through the days of chaos because that information is apparently simple. As a photo where a boy was lying on the floor of a hospital for lack of beds, and where the director of the center apologized. That information on the simple principle became a tempest of doubts because it started to circulate a version repeated hundreds of times where it was said that a family member of a nurse said that the mother had faked the picture to make some kind of revenue. That photo marked the end of the campaign. No one knows who planted the doubts. But beyond ease, misinformation finds new pathways.

Date Of Update: 26 December 2019, 06:01
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