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April 18, 2024 Yanis Varoufakis talks about being banned in Germany for supporting the Palestinian cause, and then about the transformation he analyzes in his new book, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism

‘Resistance Street’ film premieres in London this week – but not in Unite buildings, against the wishes of Unite officers and reps

The Unite union has continued its trend under general secretary Sharon Graham of banning left-wing films and books by blocking showings on its premises of a new documentary by Richard David – despite its equalities directors first offering maximum help.

‘On Resistance Street’ trailer

The film was shot over a two year period in England, Belfast and New York and features renowned musicians, bands, writers and commentators looking at the role music plays in the fight against Fascism and racism. Siobhan Endean, Unite’s equalities director, initially responded to David’s approach:

Thank you for your email that you sent to our Executive Council. My role is working in the field of equalities within unite and I would be very keen to help you as much as I can. You asked for an email address for our general secretary it is [redacted]  I would also be very grateful if you could share a link to your film, and I will see what can be done to support the film.

However, within a short time this willingness to help was withdrawn, prompting the film’s creators to write directly to Sharon Graham:

Dear Sharon,
I am writing to you as the writer-director of the new British feature-length documentary ‘ON RESISTANCE STREET’, which received its sold-out international premiere in Belfast, at the Queen’s Film Theatre on October 19th 2023.

The film was a two year independent production, shot in England, Belfast and New York. It is an in-depth examination of the role which music has played historically in the fight against Fascism, racism, bigotry and Right Wing ideology.

As such it contains contributions from a wide array of musicians, Trade Union leaders, activists, authors, historians and commentators. These include members of The Sex Pistols, Steel Pulse, Aswad, Stiff Little Fingers, The Levellers, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, The Defects and The Outcasts. There are also contributions from contemporary British artists such as the East London based Grime Star Lady Shocker, who performs individually but is also a founder member of the
ground-breaking ‘Female All-stars’ Grime collective.

Other contributors include: Matt Wrack FBU Leader, Weyman Bennett, national co-ordinator of ‘Stand Up to Racism’, Chris Salewicz, biographer of Joe Strummer and Bob Marley, Anti-Fascist author and historian Rick Blackman, feminist historian and author Louise Raw, Clash ‘Rude Boy’ movie star Ray Gange, leading female Black Lives Matter activist Chantelle Lunt, Terri Hooley, founder of ‘Good Vibrations Records in Belfast, Mexico City Trade Union leader Fernando Luna, New York State Union organiser Dan Gniewekei and others.

The film also shows as to how a new Trade Union, was created in Mexico City, with between 3-400 members, this after a year of online video call consultations, between British, American and Mexican members of an online Clash fans group named ‘Clash Fans Against The Right’. The members involved were full-time Union officers in their own countries. That group was founded by myself and Robin Banks, in direct response to Boris Johnson’s ludicrous and deeply cynical claim that The Clash were one of his ”Two favourite bands”, that obscene announcement contained inside an official Conservative Party political broadcast in November 2019.

That social media group has since evolved into a real life Anti-Racism organisation named ‘Resistance Street’, which has staged live music events in London, Liverpool, New York and Belfast over the last two years. These events also featured many political speakers including Trade Union leaders like Matt Wrack. In its third section, ‘On Resistance Street’ traces that evolution and shows how social media can be harnessed and utilised powerfully on behalf of the Left, when people pool their intellectual and creative strengths.

The film was produced by myself and Robin, the lifelong friend of The Clash’s Mick Jones, who was immortalised in the band’s song ”Stay Free”. A song written by Mick himself and about their friendship. Robin and I were both friends of the late Joe Strummer, whose lyrics and quotes appear at various stages of the film.

This letter is sent in direct conjunction with a recent proposal which originated via friends of mine who are Unite Officers and Shop Stewards in Southampton, the city in which UK production was based. This followed another sold-out Southern regional premiere screening at Solent University Film Theatre on November 17th. The proposal was that there would be a special screening of the film for Unite members, Anti-Racism activists and other members of Trade Unions at the Unite-The Union HQ in Southampton.

I have personally attended previous Anti-Racism documentary screenings at the HQ, which were well supported and successfully received, audience-wise. Secondly, it was proposed that following that initial event, this could act as springboard for a series of special screenings in Unite HQ’s across the country.

Both Robin and myself were only too delighted at this proposal, given it had always been our hope that special political screenings could materialise via agreements with Trade Unions.

Many people who have seen ORS, have commented on its in-depth educational value. The film not only chronicles music’s role in this battle as stated, but charts the entire drift towards the political Right in America, Europe and Britain, as we confront the present. As such, the ascendancy of Trump, the Brexit campaign and the British and European Far Right are all documented, with emphasis on the now alarming authoritarian stances of the current Conservative government in Britain.

We emphasise that given our own political convictions formed over a lifetime, we were absolutely perfectly happy to see this screening and the proposed series across the country, take place with us making not a single PENNY of profit from it all.

We have now been informed that this proposal is not possible, in direct relation to a relatively recent motion passed by the Unite-The Union National Executive.

As you are well aware, that motion has forbidden the screening of any documentary films in Unite-The Union buildings, unless they are specifically to do with working conditions, wage disputes and industrial relations.

The officers and Shop Stewards concerned were truly shocked by this motion. So are we. Firstly, such films are few and far between and are only likely to be made if they were commissioned by Unions individually or the TUC.

Secondly and more importantly, this decision was taken without consultation of your regional political education officers, general membership or indeed the Unite-The Union Community section. As such, we believe this amounts to a Stalinist-style decision and one which stands directly at odds with the overall principles and history of Anti-Fascism and Anti-Racism in Britain.

It is a decision which consequently denies workers/members the opportunity to watch a film like this inside a recognised Union environment. It is a decision which raises serious questions concerning your Union’s commitment to Anti-Racism in general and which constitutes a gross act of cultural censorship.

Working class cultural activism and creativity should be an absolutely integral part of any genuine political education programmes. Particularly when it is based inside energies challenging racism in Britain.

The Shop Stewards and officers all voiced that belief and it is one we share and endorse completely. We are of course aware of the furore caused via screenings or potential screenings of the Jeremy Corbyn film ‘The Big Lie’.

We shall not comment further on that, other than to say until we hear differently, we have to assume that this motion was passed as a knee-jerk, supposedly politically expedient reaction, to all that. If you are of the view that there are other bona-fide reasons behind the motion, we would very much like to hear what they are.

In light of all this, we are now requesting the following:

• That your National Executive convenes to formally re-assess this decision.

• That in doing so, the Executive democratically consults fully with your regional political education officers and only reaches a final decision after such consultations.

If this does not happen, we believe it makes an utter mockery of their supposed role and programmes. We also believe strongly that there should be further extended consultations with appropriate representatives of Unite The Union-In The Community, this also on a regional basis.

It is our conviction that the current decision cuts right to the heart of supposed ‘democracy’, as related to fundamental ethics and principles of Trade Unionism within ‘Unite-The Union’. We believe this decision should be reversed. We believe that these matters will attract widespread attention and public interest within the public domain. With that in mind, we request a formal response from yourself at the earliest possible point.

In Solidarity.
Richard David
Robin Banks

The pair received a response from Sarah Carpenter, Unite’s newly-promoted (without proper process, according to union insiders) ‘Executive head of operations’. The reply, while anodyne in its language, confirmed that Unite has no intention of reversing its ban – and did not address any of the makers’ concerns about the political motivations behind it:

Dear Richard and Robin,

Thank you for your letter which you sent to the General Secretary on 18 December. The GS is currently involved in industrial disputes and has asked me to respond.

Your letter rightly refers to a decision made by the union’s Executive Committee (made up of lay members, elected democratically by and from the wider membership), which was debated and agreed by them at their meeting in September 2023. This decision was ‘That Unite should not use its premises or resources to show or promote any external films or other content that does not relate to our industrial agenda to support the pay, terms and conditions of our members and/or support existing Unite policies. In this context the Union should be especially careful to avoid appearing to endorse any material which causes unnecessary offence to members.’

This would mean that we cannot show any films unless there is a clear link to our industrial agenda. The film you have produced looks fascinating and I am pleased to see that you have found venues where this can be shown. However, from the information you have sent I do not see that there is a link to our industrial agenda, and so we are not able to use Unite premises or resources to show or promote this film.

Carpenter has been accused, acting on Sharon Graham’s behalf, of threatening a soon-to-retire regional official with the loss of his pension bonus if he did not cool his support for the people of Palestine against Israel’s genocide – and of cancelling showings and readings of films and books showing the pro-Israel lobby’s sabotage of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party and exposing abuse by Starmer’s Labour toward left-wing party members.

Sharon Graham has been alleged by Unite insiders to have:

• banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
• banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
• placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
• told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians

Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a March meeting of the union’s elected executive.

Apart from the issue of Gaza, her tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse.

‘On Resistance Street’ will receive its London premiere at The Gate Picturehouse Cinema in Notting Hill on
Wednesday April 17th. That will be followed by a short theatrical run across Britain. The film will then feature in a wide number of national and international Film festivals.

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A report from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) outlines how the government agency has been encouraging governments, tech platforms, establishment media outlets and advertisers to work together to censor huge swaths of the Internet. The 97-page “disinformation primer,” obtained by conservative firm America First Legal under the Freedom of Information Act, purports to be fighting fake news. However, much of the organization’s focus appears to be on preventing individuals from finding information online that challenges official narratives and leads to increased questioning of the system more generally.

The document calls for regulating video games and online message boards, steering individuals away from alternative media and back towards more elite-friendly sites, and for governments to work with advertisers to cripple organizations that refuse to toe official lines financially. Furthermore, it highlights government-backed fact-checking groups like Bellingcat, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council as leaders in the fight against disinformation, despite the fact that those groups have close connections to the national security state, which is an overwhelming conflict of interest.

The news that a government agency is promoting such a program is worrying enough. However, we shall also see how USAID itself has promoted fake news to push for regime change abroad.

Misinformation – and Inconvenient Facts

USAID’s primer identifies three kinds of information that it wishes to combat. In addition to misinformation (false information spread by those who believe it to be true) and disinformation (false information proliferated with intent to deceive), it states that “malinformation” is also a serious threat. Malinformation is speech that is factually correct but has been deemed misleading or taken out of context. Under this broad definition, any reporting or arguments, no matter their accuracy, could potentially be throttled online if it is deemed unhelpful or inconvenient to USAID and its interests.

While the report spends much time condemning enemy nations – particularly Russia and China – USAID appears much more concerned with clamping down on independent media and open spaces where alternative information and opinions can be found. As they write:

Discussions on disinformation and misinformation often revolve around assumptions of state actors driving the issue. However, problematic information more regularly originates from networks of alternative sites and anonymous individuals who have created their own ‘alt media’ online spaces.”

The report identifies platforms like Reddit, Discord and 4Chan as “conspiracy websites” that can help groups create “populist expertise” to develop alternative opinions and challenge official U.S. government narratives. These, alongside gaming websites, must be challenged and marginalized.

While wishing to stop disinformation is, in principle, a noble goal, the past decade has seen U.S. government agencies work hand-in-glove with Silicon Valley corporations to throttle the reach of alternative media that scrutinize and challenge their power and prop up establishment outlets that bolster Washington’s ambitions. All of this has been done under the banner of fighting fake news. MintPress News has been under constant attack from these groups, particularly since the 2016 election. This is hinted at in the report, which bemoans that “Because traditional information systems are failing, some opinion leaders are casting doubt on the media.”

Ruining Those Who Go Against Us

Chief among the methods USAID outlines to suppress independent media is what it calls “advertiser outreach” – in effect, threatening advertisers into cutting ties with marginal or niche websites. “In order to disrupt the funding and financial incentive to disinform, attention has also turned to the advertising industry, particularly with online advertising,” the report explains. “Cutting this financial support found in the ad-tech space” would, it continues,

[O]bstruct disinformation actors from spreading messaging online. Efforts have been made to inform advertisers of their risks, such as the threat to brand safety by being placed next to objectionable content, through conducting research and assessments of online media content.”

Additionally, USAID states it hopes to “redirect funding to higher-quality news domains, improve regulatory and market environments, and support innovative and sustainable models for increasing revenues and reach.” In other words, it wants to use its power to move consumers away from alternative media and back into legacy news outlets that have seen a massive cratering in public trust precisely because viewers have been exposed to online content that highlights how poorly they cover the news. The report takes as a given that the establishment press are standard-bearers for truth rather than gigantic, multibillion-dollar international empires with long histories of publishing demonstrably false or biased stories.

Another recommended method is to “psychologically inoculate” the population, “prebunking” disinformation before it arises by predicting it and taking steps against it before it occurs. This might include “discrediting the brand, the credibility and reputation of those making false allegations” – a line that might suggest launching attacks against whomever USAID deems bad actors.

The report also suggests tracking users who view mis-, dis- or malinformation and redirecting them to curated YouTube videos debunking or arguing against those positions.

The Election That Broke The System

The Internet and social media were not always the powerful political and social force they are today. But by the 2008 and 2012 elections, they had grown influential enough to prove decisive. Barack Obama’s team skillfully microtargeted voters on Facebook and other sites, helping him to two successive terms in the White House.

However, by 2016, the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis left tens of millions of Americans angry and desperate. Populist forces from both the left and the right arose to challenge the political consensus. While the Democrats were able to successfully neutralize any left-wing challengers, Donald Trump managed to take over the Republican Party and score an unlikely electoral victory despite virtually the entire establishment media endorsing his opponent.

Trump’s success alarmed the establishment in Washington, which quickly identified social and alternative media as the key driving force behind Trump’s victory. The Internet, they decided, was far too powerful to be left alone. It was no longer a fringe space but a major driving force in shaping public imagination and debate.

In the wake of the 2016 election, a huge campaign against the scourge of fake news was launched, as platforms like Google, Facebook and YouTube changed their algorithms in order to demote “marginal” content and promote authoritative sources. The upshot of this, however, was that high-quality alternative news sites saw their traffic decimated overnight, and establishment media like CNN and NBC News, which had been failing in the online arena, were promoted to the top of the search results.

One example of this was the case of PropOrNot, a shadowy group that claimed to have used sophisticated analytical software to identify hundreds of websites that were “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda.” Included on the list were WikiLeaks and (then) Trump-supporting websites like The Drudge Report, libertarian vehicles like Antiwar.com and The Ron Paul Institute, and a host of more left-aligned outlets such as Truthout and The Black Agenda Report. MintPress News was also included. Therefore, while PropOrNot’s list did include many fake news websites, it also represented a blacklist of dozens of sites critical of the establishment Beltway.

PropOrNot’s findings were heralded and signal-boosted the world over by establishment media, keen to see their rivals censored. The mounting pressure led Google and other platforms to drastically alter their algorithms to suppress alternative media. Almost overnight, MintPress News lost around 90% of its Google search traffic and over 99% of its reach on Facebook.

However, it was not just radical alternative media that were punished. Democracy Now! saw its Google search traffic fall by 36%, and The Intercept fell by 19%. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in an interview that his platform intentionally throttled traffic to liberal news outlet Mother Jones explicitly because of its mildly left-of-center outlook.

It is now known that PropOrNot was not a neutral, independent organization but was very likely the creation of Michael Weiss, a nonresident senior fellow at NATO think tank the Atlantic Council. Thus, the whole hysteria about (foreign) government interference in elections was sparked by a quasi-governmental organization itself.

Since 2016, social media platforms have moved increasingly closer to the U.S. national security state. MintPress News investigations have uncovered how hundreds of former agents from the C.I.A., F.B.I. and the State Department now work in key positions at Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter, helping to shape those companies’ content policies. Some USAID officials have made the jump to social media as well. Mike Bradow, for example, left his job as deputy director of policy at USAID in 2020 to become a misinformation policy manager at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The Home of Coups and Disinformation

The revelations about how a government agency wishes to push such a radical censorship agenda are alarming enough. Worse still, USAID itself has a long track record of promoting disinformation in order to advance U.S. interests.

In 2021, the organization was behind an attempted Color Revolution (a pro-U.S. insurrection) in Cuba. USAID has long interfered in Cuban politics, devising a myriad of schemes, including infiltrating the country’s hip-hop scene and attempting to organize it as a revolutionary, anti-government force.

Eleven years earlier, USAID secretly created a Cuban social media app called Zunzuneo. None of the app’s tens of thousands of users were aware that the U.S. government had secretly designed and marketed it to them. The idea was to create a great service that would take over Cuba and slowly start feeding the population regime-change propaganda and directing them to protests and “smart mobs” aimed at triggering the overthrow of the government.

USAID was also intimately involved in the 2002 coup d’etat in Venezuela, which saw the temporary overthrow of democratically-elected president Hugo Chavez and his replacement with a pro-U.S. dictator. Since then, USAID has consistently attempted to subvert Venezuelan democracy, including by funding self-declared president Juan Guaidó. The organization was even at the center of a disastrous 2019 stunt where U.S.-backed figures attempted to drive trucks full of USAID “aid” into the country, only to light the cargo on fire themselves and blame the government. Few in Venezuela or abroad fell for their performance.

Strange Friends and Worrying Enemies

The report sets its sights on gamers and online video games, calling for them to be regulated in the same manner as social media platforms. Extremists, they note, can spread false information on gaming platforms such as Twitch, which “enable users to coordinate to grow followers and spread content to large social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.” “In this way, platforms that cater to very niche and small audiences have significant influence,” they explain.

It also warns that satire can be a major source of misinformation. While this is potentially true, the past decade has seen notable satirists that critique power and the status quo, such as Lee Camp, chased off multiple platforms, suggesting that certain types of satire might pique the ire of censors far more than others.

Perhaps almost as worrying as what USAID designates as problematic areas in need of regulation is whom it identifies as the “good guys” in the fight against false information. One of them is the Atlantic Council, the Defense Department-funded think tank with no fewer than seven former heads of the C.I.A. on its board. The Atlantic Council was founded as a NATO offshoot project and still acts as the organization’s intellectual headquarters. Yet USAID describes them simply as a “nonpartisan organization that galvanizes U.S. leadership and engagement in the world, with allies and partners, to shape solutions to global challenges,” lauding them for their “international work” and their “democratic defense against disinformation.”

Other groups identified as leading the fight against disinformation are Graphika and Bellingcat, two more groups that purport to be independent fact-checkers. However, as MintPress has previously detailed, they are quietly funded by the U.S. government and serve as mouthpieces for Washington, disseminating reports attacking official enemies and casting Western nations as leading the fight against misinformation.

In addition to this, the report mentions the German Marshall Fund’s Hamilton 2.0 dashboard as a useful tool, despite the fact that the previous Hamilton dashboard was very publicly exposed as useless in identifying Russian bots and fake information. As the Twitter Files revealed, Twitter/X’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, complained that the Hamilton dashboard caught barely any Russian bots and that virtually any conservative American, Canadian or British person was liable to be labeled as such. Roth dismissed the Hamilton dashboard as complete “bullshit.”

While the Hamilton dashboard was ineffective at identifying genuine sources of fake news, it certainly did provide some form of intellectual justification for suppressing large numbers of people who challenged the establishment status quo from social media. And that is a microcosm of the larger fact-checking and anti-fake news industry as a whole. Trust in media and public institutions, more generally, has been crumbling for decades. But the response from Washington has not been to attempt to win back the public’s support. Rather, it has attempted to stamp out any alternative ideas or means of communication in order to maintain its grip on power. The release of this report into the public domain and the revelations about how USAID understands misinformation and wishes to deal with it will likely do nothing to repair public confidence in the government. In fact, it is clear to see why they did not want this released in the first place.

Feature photo | An Agency for International Development flag flies in front of USAID headquarters in Washington, D.C. Graeme Sloan | Sipa via AP

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

The post USAID’s Disinformation Primer: Global Censorship in the Name of Democracy appeared first on MintPress News.