ShoesVille
When last we discussed the story of how the bogus US-funded Ukrainian Bioweapons Labs story went mainstream, we went through the immediate proximal origin story which was generated by a single conspiratorial Twitter account the day that Mr. Putin's forces began their war of aggression.
Essentially, the poster pushed the conspiracy story that the real reason for the war was because Mr. Putin wished to target such Labs in Ukraine.
Within a day the Twitter account concerned had been suspended and it's claims were thoroughly debunked.
So.
Why didn't the lie die then and there?
Well, pretty much immediately, Mr. Jones and the gang swung into action (no link on purpose):
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...Within hours of (the) initial tweet, InfoWars, a conspiracy site run by Alex Jones, published a story promoting the biolab conspiracy, crediting @WarClandestine for uncovering what it dubbed the “ulterior motive theory.” QAnon forums and Telegram channels also began to share the theory. Meanwhile, the hashtag #USBiolabs began trending on Twitter and TikTok, where posts promoting the conspiracy racked up tens of thousands of likes...
Snopes has more on this period, including a description of how various hashtag conspiracists managed to tie themselves into further knots because of, you guessed it, COVID-19:
...Conspiracy theories are very often built on top of one another. The claim that the U.S. is operating biolabs in Ukraine, for example, is built on the false notion that the United States (or, according to similar theories, China) intentionally started the COVID-19 pandemic with a human-made bioweapon. Once you buy into that rumor, you can be sold the next: that Russia is invading Ukraine to stop the next pandemic...
On social media, a number of people responded to a #usbiolabs thread with false claims about Russia attacking Ukraine to stop a “Covid-2” bioweapon from being released...
And then, with the brush fire already lit, the state actor-driven flame-fanning soon began:
...On February 26, the state-owned Russian news outlet Sputnik posted on Telegram what it claimed were "some of the documents on US biolabs in Ukraine." The post included what appeared to be a basic fact sheet about a regional laboratory of veterinary medicine based in Luhansk...
This was followed by more furious flame fanning the very next day:
...On February 27th – just three days after his thread was posted – the Russian Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina posted on Facebook endorsing the theory, accusing the United States of stuffing “Ukraine with biolaboratories, which – quite possibly – were used to study methods for the destruction of the Russian people at the genetic level.”...
Which led the original Twitter poster, who by then had a new account, to crow:
...“My hypothesis was correct!... Russian air strikes in Ukraine have nothing to do with Ukraine, but rather AMERICAN ASSETS in Ukraine! It means this “war” is MUCH bigger than Ukraine. It’s a skirmish with the United States of America.”...
And how did this now fully blazing 'hypothesis' reach the floor of the US Senate less than two weeks later?
Stay tuned for Volume 4....
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Meanwhile....If the state-prop shoe fits...fake film frame it.
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2 comments:
Geez Ross, you’re going all investigative reporting on us. I like it. Some good stuff here that I was unaware of.
As well, in your screen shot of Infowars, at the right is an In Case You Missed It list. The four you can see are right out of the web attack dog song book and probably why I keep hearing these things on other comment boards. That website must be where all too many people go to get their misinformation and/or attack orders and then fan out across the web and spread the hyped up, boiled down, wilful or honest ignorance.
It still amazes me that people actually believe the b.s. being put out by some of these Jones types. Do they actually sit down and ever think about things?
The Russia bio lab things is just over the top. If some one believed that then there should only be strategic bombing no schools, hospitals, or a whole town or torture and shootings of civilizations or rape. but just believing the bio lab thing is beyond reason.
People really ought to give some thought to the things they read and hear on media.
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