The '77th Brigade'

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The '77th Brigade'

#1 Post by admin2 » Thu Feb 02, 2023 9:23 am

A potentially alarming item from Dr Campbell concerning the '77th Brigade', a UK military unit.



The need to control disinformation is indisputable, and part of the established process of propaganda and the need to monitor the so-called 'social media', but the danger is when boundaries are pushed and relevant information is monitored and possibly suppressed. My view is that we should all be able to discuss things in a calm and measured way, without any 'Drama queen' behaviour, even when these discussions question the 'official' narrative.

It is my intention to have this important discussion on this thread on the matter, but I will not tolerate excessively alarmist posts. Any which fall into this category will be removed and the poster 'invited' to re-submit in a more measured and adult fashion.

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Re: The '77th Brigade'

#2 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Feb 02, 2023 10:34 am

For a basic frame of reference.

CLAIMS that a British Army unit monitored and recorded UK citizens’ social media output for Covid disinformation are being investigated, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said.

Big Brother Watch claimed that soldiers from the Army’s 77th Brigade collated tweets from British citizens about Covid-19 at the start of the pandemic and passed them to the Cabinet Office as part of wider cross-Government efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19.

An investigation by the civil liberties campaign group said a whistleblower had claimed that troops were used to “spy” on the British public.

In April 2020, the UK’s former chief of the defence staff General Sir Nick Carter revealed that the secretive 77th Brigade was involved in countering coronavirus misinformation online.

Ministers have also said the 77th Brigade was involved in assisting a wider Government effort to counter disinformation and misinformation about Covid-19.


Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Wallace said the unit’s counter-disinformation capabilities have been used to assess UK disinformation trends, but added that the 77th Brigade was intended to act against hostile actors overseas.

He added: “It is not to be involved in regulating, policing or even reporting opinion that it may or may not agree with.”

Conservative former cabinet minister David Davis (above), who, according to Big Brother Watch, was monitored as part of a cross-Government group, called for the issue to be reviewed, and Wallace issued an assurance that he had already instructed for it to be looked into.

He told the Commons: “Colleagues may have read reports this weekend about activity conducted by the Army’s counter-disinformation unit in 77th Brigade.

“Online disinformation from foreign state actors is a serious threat to the United Kingdom, which is why during the pandemic we brought together expertise from … across Government to monitor disinformation about Covid.

“77th Brigade is a hybrid unit of regular and reserve personnel that was established in 2015. It delivers information activities as part of broader military effects against hostile state actors and violent extremist organisations based outside the UK.

“It uses publicly available data, including material shared on social media platforms, to assess UK disinformation trends. It is not to be involved in regulating, policing or even reporting opinion that it may or may not agree with.”

Davis said in the Commons: “I know him well enough that when he tells us that he gave clear instructions and guidelines to the Brigade to only operate foreign powers and extremists, he was telling the exact truth.

“Will he however review the issue and ensure that his guidelines have been followed in all cases?”

Wallace said: “Yes, I have, and I have already instructed that we look into not only the story, but indeed my instructions that I personally issued after a visit were carried out.”

A Government spokesman told the Telegraph: “Online disinformation is a serious threat to the UK, which is why during the pandemic we brought together expertise from across Government to monitor disinformation about Covid.

“These units used publicly available data, including material shared on social media platforms, to assess UK disinformation trends and narratives.

“They did not target individuals or take any action that could impact anyone’s ability to discuss and debate issues freely.”
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23286 ... dia-posts/

The fact the we are open to surveillance and manipulation all the time, from both state actors e.g. GCHQ, MI (5&6) and others like UK.GOV etc. and commercial entities, think Google, Facebook (and its minions), Microsoft et al ad infinitum, should worry us just as much as the possibility that the state may be using some cockamamee military outfit to do the same. Our embrace of intrusive, and overweening technology, has been a Faustian pact.
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Re: The '77th Brigade'

#3 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Feb 02, 2023 10:46 am

A prescient film in the 1984 genre. The possibility of a far worse dystopia is never far away given the technology available today.



We may one day have good cause to think that people like Edward Snowden might actually be martyrs to the cause of real freedom?

Big Brother Watch
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Re: The '77th Brigade'

#4 Post by admin2 » Thu Feb 02, 2023 12:55 pm

Please note this is not a thread about barkingmad. Posts deleted.

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Re: The '77th Brigade'

#5 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Feb 02, 2023 1:34 pm

I wonder who came up with the 77th Brigade name? Sounds more like something out of North Korea than something from a so-called liberal democracy!

https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/form ... 7-brigade/

77th Brigade.JPG

If they are being used to monitor the British public then it does beg a whole slew of questions about their surveillance and propaganda roles etc. and there are some profound questions to be answered here! Let us never forget that democracy is dead when an overreaching government regards its populace as the "enemy!"
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Thoughtcrime...

#6 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Feb 02, 2023 1:48 pm

Thoughtcrime is a word coined by George Orwell in his 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It describes a person's politically unorthodox thoughts, such as beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc (English Socialism), the dominant ideology of Oceania. In the official language of Newspeak, the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of the Party controls the speech, the actions, and the thoughts of the citizens of Oceania. In contemporary English usage, the word thoughtcrime describes beliefs that are contrary to accepted norms of society, and is used to describe theological concepts, such as disbelief and idolatry, and the rejection of an ideology.[


Thought Police
In the story of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Thinkpol (Thought Police) are responsible for the detection and elimination of thoughtcrime, and for the social control of the populations of Oceania, by way of audio-visual surveillance and offender profiling. Such psychological monitoring allows the Thought Police to detect, arrest, and kill thought criminals, citizens whose independence (intellectual, mental, and moral) challenges the political orthodoxy of Ingsoc (English Socialism) and thus the legitimate government authority of the Party. In the detection of thoughtcrime—and to overcome the physical impossibility of simultaneously policing every citizen of Oceania—the Thinkpol spy upon the populace through ubiquitous two-way telescreens, and so can monitor any person's body language, reflexive speech, and facial expressions
- Wiki

Today the ability to "simultaneously police every citizen" is a far more tractable task given the available technology!
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Re: The '77th Brigade'

#7 Post by TheGreenAnger » Thu Feb 02, 2023 3:34 pm

The Big Brother Watch report on the 77th Brigade can be found here:

https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-conte ... 290123.pdf

This seems apposite in multiple scenarios:
The solution often offered to tackle the scourge of “misinformation” is censorship, in one form or another. From de-ranking certain content to taking down posts or directing people
to approved information sources, the antidote to misinformation has been posed as giving those with power the ability to control speech further. In doing so, enormous power over
the public’s freedom of expression has been seized in a swift and silent coup – first by Big Tech corporations, then by governments, and increasingly, by a convergence of the two.
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Re: The '77th Brigade'

#8 Post by Boac » Fri Feb 03, 2023 8:46 am

The establishment of an 'Electronic warfare' unit in the UK and elsewhere is old news. I think the 77th has been in 'business' for over 5, possibly 7 years since the UK declared it (officially) needed to fight disinformation and would form a military unit to do so, so nothing new. This possibly post-dates the the “Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group” (JTRIG) at GCHQ in the UK which is certainly over 10 years old.

I'm sure we can all agree on the need to counter disinformation in whatever form, and it is up to all of us to apply commonsense (where available) and think carefully about what we are being told. There has been a lot of disinformation from both sides in the latest Corona virus history.

Sadly the evidence of the 'trust' a lot of the voting public in the UK have had in politicians' promises shows a concerning lack of commonsense. One has to hope that outfits like the 77th are not being employed to bolster the image of such politicians.

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Re: The '77th Brigade'

#9 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Feb 03, 2023 9:36 am

Boac wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 8:46 am
The establishment of an 'Electronic warfare' unit in the UK and elsewhere is old news. I think the 77th has been in 'business' for over 5, possibly 7 years since the UK declared it (officially) needed to fight disinformation and would form a military unit to do so, so nothing new. This possibly post-dates the the “Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group” (JTRIG) at GCHQ in the UK which is certainly over 10 years old.

I need to counter disinformation in whatever form, and it is up to all of us to apply commonsense (where available) and think carefully about what we are being told. There has been a lot of disinformation from both sides in the latest Corona virus history.

Sadly the evidence of the 'trust' a lot of the voting public in the UK have had in politicians' promises shows a concerning lack of commonsense. One has to hope that outfits like the 77th are not being employed to bolster the image of such politicians.
+1

Can only agree with you.

I suspect that it is highly likely that this unit is being misused but that remains to be proven.

Edited to say the fact the government is trying to quash an agglomeration of theories, the majority of them lunatic, and misinformation is by the by. The underlying principles of good democratic governance should remain paramount.
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