DisinfoDigest Volume 2, September 2020
In this DisinfoDigest we look at a recent COVID anti-mask demonstration, how the Russian Orthodox Church is used to promote COVID-related narratives, and a declaration falsely claiming that Canadian COVID protocols are illegal.
Masks and Freedom
A video featuring anti-vaxx leader, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was released on Youtube on August 29, 2020; it has attracted over 750,000 views. During the speech, Kennedy promotes his view that health officials are in cahoots with “big pharma” and that individuals like Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci are inventing COVID infection rate data in order to stoke fear and increase “big pharma” profits.
In this video, Kennedy declares that: “Governments love pandemics for the same reason they love war, because it gives them ability to impose control on the population.” He claims that, “All these big important people like Bill Gates and Tony Fauci, have been planning and thinking about this pandemic for decades, planning it so that we would all be safe when the pandemic came,” suggesting that Gates and others had some earlier knowledge of the pandemic. Kennedy accuses Gates and western governments of “inventing numbers. They have to change the definition of COVID on the death certificate, constantly, to make it look more and more dangerous. The one thing they’re good at is pumping up fear.”
Kennedy later repeats conspiracy theories about 5G technology, stating that its primary purpose is “for surveillance and data harvesting…. It’s for Bill Gates. It’s for Jeffery Zuckerberg [sic]. It’s for Bezos and all the other billionaires.”
Kennedy suggests that the government is using the pandemic to control citizens, which contributes to the erosion of trust in those governments and aligns with Kremlin narratives that seek to undermine public trust in western governments and business leaders.
COVID Disinformation and Banning Holy Communion in Toronto
In July, a post titled “Holy Communion BANNED at Churches in Toronto Canada” was published on Russian-Faith.com, a website run by Charles Bausman, who also runs a pro-Kremlin website named Russia Insider. The story claimed that government authorities had banned holy communion in Canadian churches, followed by a frightening statement that “the State is actively persecuting the Church.”
Screenshot of Russian Faith story (left) and YouTube video (right)
Fact checkers debunked the story as false, clarifying that communion had not been banned by the Archdiocese in Toronto, but modified the rituals to ensure the safety of parishioners.
Curiously, the Russian Faith story, titled, “VIDEO: Holy Communion BANNED at Churches in Toronto Canada” was published, according to the website’s own timestamp, on July 6, 2020 while the video it was referring to was posted on July 7, 2020. The video was posted by a group called Slavic Living, whose YouTube channel includes pro-Kremlin videos and Russian state media clips.
From Russian-Faith, the story spread to other Russian Orthodox websites from where it was further shared on social media. The story was repeated a few days later on a US conspiracy theory website named Big League Politics, which was then tweeted by Fox news host, Laura Ingraham. Twitter later asked Ingraham to delete the tweet for its misleading contents.
https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2020/07/laura-ingraham.jpeg?w=604
Twitter screen capture of Ingraham Tweet Photo: Snopes
The false narrative was shared hundreds of times on Facebook – in various forms. One version, shared by Toronto’s Greek City Times’ Facebook page, elicited 218 comments, many of them emotional. Individuals began arguing about the justifications for the non-existent ban. One of the many goals of foreign disinformation is to polarize communities and our society by dividing us using disinformation narratives.
It should be noted that the StopFake website published a story in 2015, about emails sent from the publisher of Russian Faith, the organization that published the initial story, and Russia-Insider publisher, Charles Bausman, about his appeal for funding from a pro-Putin oligarch, Konstantin Malofeev. Malofeev is under US sanctions because he “has engaged in, actions or polices that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine and has materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.”
Malofeev owns a far-right Russian media platform that promote pro-Kremlin narratives called Tsargrad.tv. According to expert Anton Shekhovtsov, Malofeev has also organized “homophobic conferences in Russia, assisting French far right politicians in getting Russian money, and building European far right alliances.”
Canadian Group Declares all Canadian COVID protocols “illegal”
A fringe Canadian group calling itself the “National Council of Common Law Assemblies” has declared that all Canadian COVID-related protocols, including those imposing quarantines, social distancing and wearing masks, are “illegal.”
According to CrowdTangle analytics, the claim has been shared thousands of times on Facebook including groups identifying themselves as being associated with QAnon and a pro-Kremlin Canadian group.
The statement about the legality of COVID protocols was initially posted to a group identifying itself as the “Republic of Kanata,” which a media relations representative at the Government of Canada told AFP Fact Checkers “is not a legitimate government or lawmaking body.”
Such claims can contribute to the growing polarization on the issue of COVID protocols and align with groups that seek to undermine the authority of our elected governments, officials and law enforcement.
