WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: The strange online misinformation campaign against Chris Hipkins
This election will be influenced in part by social media and the manner in which social media can be falsified and manipulated requires us all to be mindful of what we see this election in our social media feeds.
Take the strangle online misinformation campaign being waged against Leader of the Labour Party, Chris Hipkins.
A recent AAP (Australian Associated Press) report highlighted an ongoing campaign of misinformation aimed at Chippy.
The foreign-run disinformation campaign is spreading false stories about Hipkins like he is suing TVNZ or that he is having a feud with Donald Trump or that Netflix have given him a new show.
The Facebook page spreading this is called ‘Pozitif Yolculuk’ which means ‘positive journey’ in Turkish, but Meta’s page transparency data shows it is run from Vietnam and Canada.
So we have false news being spread by one of our Political Leaders looking like it’s Turkish but run out of Vietnam and Canada?
This is a level of purposeful deceit that is deeply worrying and emblematic of the dangers of a social media landscape with few filters.
It is a reminder of how important relying on trusted media sources and institutions really is and an important lesson in challenging the content you see.
Always ask who is reporting the story and whether that Media is objectively reputable.
When you have content sent to you from friends or whanau, engage with them and question the source in a way that doesn’t belittle them. We can all get sucked into stories because we can be very trusting in a social media envionrment built to manufacture trust.
Believing everything we read is of no benefit to any citizen.
Smells like Atlas Network to me. In 2008, ACT Party leader David Seymour attended the Atlas Network “think tank MBA” program, a training course focused on free-market public policy and organizational strategy. Apparently before entering New Zealand parliament, Seymour worked for conservative think tanks in Canada that shared ideological alignments with the Atlas Network
Canadian free-market think tanks affiliated with the Atlas Network—such as the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the Fraser Institute—have been studied by researchers for promoting aggressive market fundamentalism, climate change skepticism, and polarizing narratives that critics argue parallel online political trolling tactics.
Several prominent Canadian free-market think tanks are affiliated with the Atlas Network, a U.S.-based umbrella organization founded in 1981 by British entrepreneur Antony Fisher to connect global free-market organizations.
Too many NZers are very shallow and selfish and yet if we went to war who would they send.
You do not need to tell lies about Hipkins to show he would be a bad leader you just need to listen to his answers when questioned .He has nothing to offer that is new.
You certainly have nothing new to offer, has Winston told you to go home yet?
very true…
These scurrilous people, clearly run from within NZ, were successful in ruining Ardern’s NZ political career so of course will try it on Hipkins. Is our media on to this and refuting this spiteful misinformation and if not why not? How can NZ have a fair election with this ugly lying cr&p swirling around? Important to find the source and perpetrators and out them.
It has wealth and corruption written all over it. New Zealanders want a FAIR election! Who in hell would want this current inept lot back in? Beats me!