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Pushback with Aaron Mate

As leaks expose UK op to 'weaken' Russia, suppression of Grayzone reporting backfires

Pushback with Aaron Mate

Pushback with Aaron Maté

News

4.7594 Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2021

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate​ After The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal reported on newly leaked documents exposing a massive UK government propaganda campaign against Russia, Twitter added an unprecedented warning label that the material "may have been obtained through hacking." Although Twitter may have intended to restrict the article, the warning had the opposite effect: it quickly went viral. Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté discuss the suppression effort and the damning UK government leaks at the heart of it. After years of fear-mongering about Russian interference in Western democracies, these UK government files expose a sprawling propaganda effort that explicitly aims to "weaken" Russia. The documents reveal that this propaganda campaign has also enlisted major media outlets Reuters and the BBC, as well as the NATO member state-funded website Bellingcat. Guest: Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone and author of "The Management of Savagery."

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Pushback. I'm Erin Mate, here with Max Blumenthal, and we are doing an update to a segment that you are about to watch and that we already recorded.

0:13.3

Since we recorded, though, some major developments happens. We wanted to jump back on and update you. The original segment is about a new piece that Max put out at the gray zone.

0:21.6

It's about a new set of leaks from inside the British government that expose a massive propaganda campaign aimed at Russia involving major media outlets like the BBC Reuters as well as Bellingcat.

0:35.6

Since the story came out a few days ago, something strange happened on Twitter.

0:41.7

Just today, we learned that if you want to share the story, all of a sudden, Twitter has

0:46.6

added a new warning. It says these materials may have been obtained through hacking.

0:52.9

This is a warning that I've never seen before.

0:55.8

I think it was specifically created for this story,

0:59.4

which raises the question of why and what that means.

1:03.2

Well, joining me now is Max Blumenthal to discuss.

1:06.0

Max, when you saw this warning, first of all,

1:08.0

have you seen this kind of warning before?

1:10.7

I've never seen this warning before, and I don't think anybody else has and that's why it's

1:14.3

become a viral meme. This article is getting shared at a rate of like five times a minute,

1:20.4

maybe more by, you know, gamers who are just meming it because anytime you put the

1:26.4

link up, you could put any,

1:29.1

you could add any photo or gift or video you want. And then at the bottom of it, it says these

1:33.8

materials may have been attained through hacking. So it's, it's just absolutely hilarious. But no,

1:39.8

I've never seen it before. And now it's become clear that this was part of the policy established

1:47.1

in October in order to block people from seeing the New York Post story on Hunter Biden

1:54.3

and his corruption in Ukraine, which was also completely factual. And was the result of basically Democratic Party elites just telling Twitter

2:05.4

like this is going to help Trump win the election. You don't want that on your hand. So just

...

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