"MORE CENSORSHIP ON THE WAY"
Facebook Hires NATO Press Officer Ben Nimmo as Intelligence Chief
It is now difficult to distinguish where the deep state ends and the fourth
estate begins and Ben Nimmo's move from NATO to NATO-aligned think tank to
Facebook is just another example of this phenomenon.
by Alan Macleod
February 09th, 2021
Mint Press
By Alan Macleod
Ben Nimmo, a former NATO press officer and current senior fellow at the
Atlantic Council, has announced Facebook has hired him to "lead global
threat intelligence strategy against influence operations" and "emerging
threats." Nimmo specifically named Russia, Iran and China as potential
dangers to the platform.
His announcement was greeted with joy by several NATO officials but was not
met with such enthusiasm by others. "More censorship on the way as the
former NATO press officer turned Pentagon-funded 'researcher' who labeled
real people as Russian bots and peddled disinformation to link Jeremy Corbyn
to Russian active measures moves to big tech," responded investigative
journalist Max Blumenthal.
Nimmo's questionable past certainly raises questions over whether such an
official having a substantial say in what 2.8 billion Facebook users
worldwide see in their feeds is such a positive step for the free and open
exchange of information.
"Disinformation agents"
For example, in 2019, U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn revealed secret
Conservative Party documents showing negotiations the Tory government had
with the U.S. over the privatization of the National Health Service (NHS).
With just days to go before the U.K. general election, the scandal could
have toppled the government and brought into power the most radical antiwar,
anti-establishment government in the country's history. Corporate media went
into overdrive to spin the news, and Nimmo was a key part of this,
immediately announcing, without evidence, that the documents "closely
resemble.a known Russian operation." His supposedly expert conjecture
allowed the story to become "Corbyn's links to Russia" rather than "Tories
privatizing the NHS in secret." Nimmo's work helped the Conservatives to an
election victory and consigned Corbyn to the scrapheap.
This was much to the relief of Nimmo's Atlantic Council, who had branded
Corbyn the "Kremlin's Trojan Horse" - someone pushing Moscow's agenda
abroad. A British Army general was of a similar opinion, claiming that if
Corbyn were to win the election, the military would respond. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo also said that the U.S. government was "doing its best" to
prevent a radical leftist from winning power in the U.K.
Nimmo has been extremely liberal with whom he labels Russian disinformation
agents. In 2018, his research identified one Twitter user, @Ian56789, as a
"Kremlin troll." In reality, the user, Ian Shilling, was a British
pensioner, as Sky News was easily able to confirm, interviewing him on air
and asking him the patently absurd question if he was actually a Russian bot
or not. Despite clearly being a flesh and blood human, Shilling's account
was later deleted anyway.
In the past, Nimmo has also insisted that Ruslana Boshirova was an
influential Russian bot. In reality, she is an internationally known concert
pianist, as one Google search would have shown. This sort of behavior does
not augur well for those critical of Western foreign policy, who have faced
constant harassment, suspension, or outright bans from social media.
Pro-war putsch
The Atlantic Council began as an offshoot of NATO itself and maintains
extremely close connections to the military alliance. It continues to
receive major funding from Western governments and weapons contractors, and
its board of directors is filled to the brim with senior American
statespersons, such as Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Henry Kissinger.
Also appearing on the board are no fewer than seven former CIA directors and
a number of top military generals, such as Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis, Wesley
Clark, and David Petraeus.
In recent years, the council's employees have penetrated deep into big tech
and social media organizations. In 2018, it announced it had partnered with
Facebook to aid in the curation of Facebook news feeds of users worldwide,
giving it considerable power over what sort of views to highlight and which
to demote. One year previously, Jessica Ashooh left the position of the
council's Deputy Director of Middle Eastern Strategy to take the position of
Director of Policy at Reddit, the eighth-most visited website in the United
States. However, as with many intelligence agencies, it is unclear whether
one truly "leaves" the Atlantic Council.
Atlantic Council Pens Anonymously Authored Expose Calling for Regime Change
in China
The Atlantic Council has printed a 26,000-word anonymous report laying a
strategy for the US to combat China, including regime change.
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | Feb 3
It is not just Russia that is in NATO's crosshairs. Last week, the Atlantic
Council published an anonymous, 26,000-word report stating that their goal
for China was regime change and advising President Biden to draw a number of
"red lines" around it, beyond which the U.S. would respond militarily.
Meanwhile, the head of STRATCOM, Admiral Charles A. Richard, wrote that the
U.S. must prepare for a potential nuclear war with Beijing.
Greater control
The military escalation has been mirrored by an intensifying online
propaganda war, where the U.S. has attempted to isolate China economically
and stop advancing Chinese technologies such as Huawei's 5G network, mobile
phone, and semiconductor manufacturer Xiaomi, and video sharing app TikTok.
Nimmo has played his part in ramping up suspicions of nefarious Chinese
activity online, claiming the existence of a wide-ranging pro-Beijing bot
network encouraging Americans to believe that China has handled the COVID-19
pandemic far better than the United States. That Americans might have come
to that conclusion on their own appears not to have been considered.
The Real Target of the Huawei Sanctions and the Trade War
The US - China trade war isn't about soybeans, steel or Huawei. The US fears
its influence is waning due to China's global initiatives.
MintPress News | Kei Pritsker | Feb 21, 2019
There is an enormous government effort to convince its population of the
existence of (foreign) government efforts to manipulate their opinions
online. In a massive case of projection, Western governmental organizations
point the finger at their enemies, all the while securing greater access and
control over the means of communication themselves, to the point where it is
now difficult to distinguish where the deep state ends and the fourth estate
begins. Nimmo's move from NATO to NATO-aligned think tank to Facebook is
just another example of this phenomenon. Perhaps the reason Nimmo is not
looking for any Western influence operations online is that he is part of
one.
Feature photo | George Washington University School of