Part III — Conspiracy Theatre
“As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed. We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the “ism” of appeasement. We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests.”
- Franklin D Roosevelt, 1941
So we’ve had a look at all the surface level stuff that was going on during the lockdowns in Melbourne and the coincidences between it all and the work of psychological warfare firm Cambridge Analytica and their parent company, Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL Group) who were behind Brexit and Donald Trump, have been involved in various other ways with the Republicans in the US and remain deeply embedded in Boris Johnsons administration. They also worked to install a whole host of right-wing leaders around the world, most notably Bolsonaro in Brazil and extensive work in India.
So we’ve seen the overt tactics used but this is only half the picture so lets take a moment to unpack what Cambridge Analyticas special sauce involves.
Their parent company SCL worked in the Iraq and Afghan wars on de-radicalization, then they branched out and turned to political work. Then they linked up with Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon, who bankrolled a new company to be set up under the SCL umbrella called Cambridge Analytica as an offshoot to work in America. Steve Bannon essentially wanted to flip the script and use it to radicalize people. Let’s not forget that Bannon went on to become Donald Trumps chief strategist.
They honed these skills working with Nigel Farage and UKIP on the Brexit campaign.
The scapegoats used as a tool for their radicalization were Muslims.
This was done through a complex network of alternative media outlets and commentators, some set up by Cambridge Analytica but also utilizing an existing network of media, thinktanks and institutions in place that are part of a broader network linked to the oil magnate and only remaining Koch Brother, Charles Koch, used to promote a range of conservative views held together by their undermining of climate science. It also utilized the extensive network of online, radio and cable TV outlets used by the more extreme religious groups such as Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Televangelists, Mormons and Scientology. The link between all these groups and the Republican Party is The Council for National Policy, who is financed by The Mercer Foundation amongst others. The Council for National Policy (CNP) is described as:
Remember how for a while there Sweden was the rape capital of the word while Germany was being invaded by Muslims as part of a broader takeover of Europe? What happened to that? Well nothing, because it was all part of an elaborate web of fake news and fear mongering for Cambridge Analytica.
But there’s plenty of other outlets on the internet, ones that are proven to be trustworthy and easily debunk this stuff. How can that possibly radicalize people? You might ask.
Because this is just fuel for the process of radicalization, the actual process happens in closed groups.
Ex-SCL data scientist turned whistleblower Chris Wylie explains this process in a talk at the Sydney Opera House, ironically while this was all in full swing. Allow me to summarize.
Initially, using the trove of Facebook data they had obtained and by cross referencing the thousands of data points they had on each person with a million personality profiles they paid people to complete, they were able to segment the population into 5 personality groups with a range of sub groups. They then set out to figure out who is susceptible to weaponized messaging and determine the traits that make them vulnerable to the messaging, determine the cognitive bias they have and exploit it by feeding them a narrative that will lead to their desired outcome. They found that the most click through came from fear based messaging to neurotic people with paranoid ideations, particularly in insecure situations.
To be successful they only need to target 20% of the population.
It is important to note that you don’t need any of this profiling if a large enough amount of people find themselves isolated and in an insecure situation all at once. This can be created.
The messaging would be worded in a specific way in order to prime the targets. An example given by Chris Wylie is “when asked a question, let’s say ‘are you happy?’ you would usually say yes. But if you’re first asked ‘have you gained weight in the last few years?’ or ‘are people from your high school more successful than you are?’ there is a higher chance of giving a different answer.
By pulling the attention to a negative, you bias the mental model of the person’s life by pulling negative information to the front of mind. This is known as priming, over time it conditions people sense of identity into something that can be weaponized. It fuels anger with its hyperbolic narratives because anger disrupts the ability to seek, rationalize and weigh information. This leads to a psychological bias called ‘affect heuristic’. Mental shortcuts that are significantly influenced by emotion. The same bias that makes you say things you regret in a fit of anger.”
Sky News has been doing this for years, but I digress.
They would start with paid advertisements on Facebook, encouraging people to follow a page through messaging tailored to resonate with their personality. Then through that page they would be introduced to the other pages on the network. Eventually the network becomes their echo chamber, it only takes 3 or 4 different page likes and all of a sudden the algorithm works away at this. This information would be supported by AI bots and sock puppet accounts sharing information and links through private messages and conversing through comments and then be lead to Facebook groups where they then become surrounded by real people like them, including their own peers, also lost in the echo chamber.
Then in the groups they are constantly fed different messaging that outrages them through a range of mediums. From posts in the group from seemingly ordinary people just like them, an onslaught of memes, video clips, articles and shared posts from their network and even down to conversations with people in the comments. This is mixed with a constant vilification of the media and only presenting their websites, pages and personalities as the trusted sources, as well as the other people in the echo chamber.
But this is where the 20% can influence the broader public.
Once they are immersed in the echo chamber they start organizing local, in person meet ups where people can talk to other people who live in the same echo chambers, feeding off each other’s paranoia. This then legitimizes it amongst themselves and it becomes more than just internet talk, people become emboldened by their ideas, it becomes a movement and it grows. It also seeps into the subconscious of those not yet in the echo chamber. Over time they can then split off and self-assemble into locally run groups to establish themselves and as a form of self-preservation should one group get shut down. This also creates the illusion of a grass roots movement and gives the people involved even more of an attachment to the cause.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, or both depending on how you look at it, Facebook and Twitter purged all Qanon related content around election time last year, followed by anti-vax content. This saw so much of this material erased from the internet. But not all of it.
There was a whole range of groups that had sprung up by September, but one in particular stood out. I would see posts ending up on my news feed shared by friends who I could see where not a part of any of these pages or groups. Sometimes memes but mostly just sharing rants from the group feigning outrage over hyperbolic talking points and spreading misinformation.
I had no idea what I was looking at when I joined the group, I new nothing about Cambridge Analytica but I was familiar with a talk by the C|T Groups meme farm Topham Guerin from after the 2019 election (who are currently working for the Tories in the UK for their covid response, which is going really well) and a talk done for the Australian Institute of International Affairs called ‘How to Lose the Information War’ outlining the similar tactics used by the Russians in Ukraine.
I knew how to identify a sock puppet account and that usually these groups would be set up and just spammed with memes fitting the intended messaging. Over time people would join through suggested groups and linking to the group in other groups and then real people start joining in with the memes and it takes on a life of it’s own.
So I decided to join this group and have a poke around.
This group is called Dictator Dan — Divulging his Deception, Disasters & Deaths. Great use of alliteration and not weird at all.
I was greeted with this pinned post regarding the upcoming council elections with crowd sourced information on how to make sure you don’t vote for any Labor candidates and the account posting that, Brodders David, appears to be our main guy in this group. A side note here — Reignite Democracy also ran candidate profiles for these council elections.
So I went all the way back to the start of the group and found exactly what was expected.
A host of memes all posted by the same guy every day with no interaction until over time the likes grow and others begin to join in. So lets have a look at them, in order, up until other people start to join in because it might give us some clues as to who this group is associated with and what their intentions are.
This is the first meme.
A Johannes Leak cartoon. These are a constant feature and I presume come straight from The Australian. However a reverse image search on this one and plenty others turn up no results so it’s hard to say where it is from. The guy posting these memes initially is not our man Brodders David, it’s David Leonard.
Also very consistent, not only posting memes into a group with no people but on his actual profile where he has no friends and nobody interacts with them.
So all the way back to the start of the group and this is the first lot of memes (starting at the bottom).
2 of the first few memes have comments. The comments are all written in a clear, concise way with capital letters in the correct places, punctuation and little spelling mistakes. Just something that stands out having been around these groups for a while.
This meme comes from the (now former) Leader of the Victorian Liberals Michael O’Brien. In fact if you image search it on Google it labels it ‘micheal o brien meme’. These are the same style that Tim Smith posts, safe to say this is the official Liberal Party format.
I’ve never actually seen them referred to as ‘The Victorian Liberal Nationals’ from opposition either.
But to be honest I haven’t been paying attention.
Comments setting the tone of the group in this next very similar meme.
Then we have Victoria Forward with some fear mongering.
You can see what the rest are about in the overview screenshot but this one in particular sums up the vibes.
The next lot.
Contrary to the narrative that continues today there was no covid spread at the Black Lives Matter protest.
So now we see more cartoons, this time from the Herald Sun, more Victoria Forward and more misinformation. Also the introduction of memes from Advance Australia and the front page of the Herald Sun, both regular features.
Although the rhetoric around the media is that they are always lying, if what it is saying aligns with their views then it is undisputable fact and gets widely shared.
Lets zoom in on the bottom right article.
Jeff Kennets frequent input this whole pandemic has been about as helpful as closing down the Fairfield infectious disease hospital.
The image above on the right is from a personal Facebook account that is a legitimate account with 500+ friends many the same age group and if it isn’t actually Mr Kennet then it must be a rabid fan that wants to be just like him. Maybe it’s Edward Bourke, It was posted in one of these groups.
Back to the group.
More Victoria Forward, Herald Sun cartoons, The Financial Review, A re-purposed Liberal Party ad from the early 90’s that was the basis of Jeff Kennets campaign amongst others.
Keep in mind, these are still being posted by David Leonard. The first 7 memes, posted over the course of 11 days, have a couple of likes on each and the suspicious comments we have already seen are the only other interactions. The next 32 memes are all posted on the same day and have no interaction at all. Then, 2 days later, another account joins in. This time with some screenshots of a comment left on a Sky News clip on Youtube.
The third screenshot gets a comment.
I believe they call these ‘breadcrumbs’
David Leonard then posts another Herald Sun cartoon the next day, another sock puppet account joins in posting a page from the Financial Review and then David Leonard goes away and Brodders David starts posting.
Say you had found yourself in an insecure situation, angry, isolated and confused with conflicting information that is always changing and never had to research anything before, would you do your own research?
If you searched ‘Buckingham seal stripped from the gate’ and clicked the first result you would end up here
The second search result takes you to a Youtube clip.
The third result is from Reuters fact check which points out that the seal hasn’t gone missing, it was damaged by a truck in October 2019 and is being repaired. The Queen is currently living at Windsor Castle where she usually resides this time of year but this year she will not return to London due to Covid and there is also work being done on the palace so the windows have been coated with a protective layer of film to protect the interior from sun damage during the works.
But Reuters is a mainstream media fact-checker so obviously it is lies to cover the agenda, providing further proof.
This idea of the police uniforms secretly changing to black which means they are now no longer there to protect us and have instead become a secret militia for the communist takeover was driven home constantly and sunk deep into the group consciousness.
The Strong Cities Network describes itself as ‘the first global network of cities working together to build cohesion and resilience to prevent violent extremism’. So yeah I mean technically they are a threat to the people running this but not for the reasons made out. I do wonder what they have been doing this whole time but whatever it is it is not what they make it out to be. I have a feeling they have just been working PR on twitter.
The three main anti lockdown/anti-Dan Andrews groups I found amongst a host of related ones similarly themed but with less followers are.
Dictator Dan — DDDD (6k followers)
Daniel Andrews Resignation (17k Followers)
End the Lockdown Australia. (4.2k Followers)
The simple, easiest way to explain these groups and the difference between them is this.
The Daily Mail
The Herald Sun
The Australian.
There are others run by the same admins that don’t appear political on the surface, but they just contain all this same stuff amongst a conversation slightly slanted toward the group theme.
A couple of examples of other groups are ‘Know Your Rights Australia’ and ‘Support Australian Businesses’
End the Lockdown Australia is run by a man from Brisbane named Tim Flynn. On the surface looking at his Facebook page he appears to be an Author, but his Linkedin page tells a different story.
You can think of this one as your respectable, nationwide news source. They make it clear that they aren’t into that conspiracy rubbish. This is for intelligent, patriotic people who just want to end the lockdowns.
Their initial few posts reflect this.
Only a few memes in and we start seeing this stuff.
Here I have selected 2 random account posting memes in the beginning.
A reverse image search on the eagle cover image shows it to come from a Qanon website.
Sam here on the right, the one with the #givedantheboot hashtag, seems like he should know better. His Linkedin page reads:
Am I reading into this too much or has he managed the full lifecycle of Data Analytics systems and set policy and strategy on information management within the defensive industry?
Um. ok.
More recently this group has tried to reign in the conspiracy posting and shared this.
Featuring prominently in all these groups and admin of a bunch of them including the largest group ‘Daniel Andrews Resignation’ (but speaks like he is admin in all the groups) with his memes being shared by other admins if not shared by him and with his own meme page is the mysterious Donald Blake.
He makes constant memes in a specific style and writes long posts that if im honest read like Dan Andrews has written them if Dan Andrews was who their conspiracy theories say he is and in opposition.
He has uploaded a couple of selfies although he is cleverly disguised.
This is obviously not his real name, presumably it is a either a sock puppet or he just turned everything private, including his friends list. I’d say it is the latter. The picture on the right was the oldest, uploaded July 24. There is a few interactions on his 2 photos however.
Let me make this clear before we go on — I am in no way suggesting any of these people are involved in this or even share his views —I will cover the surnames for this reason even though this is all publicly available information, but it’s probably a good place to get an idea of who this guy associates with. It’s also important to remember they are interacting with an account whose name and profile image is a comic book character.
Then amongst the likes on the photo we have:
Ok, wow. I was expecting some flowers, maybe a truck or 2, a sunset and hopefully a Scott but here we have a weird cross-section of business, media and politics. Notably, much of this group here is based in the Bayside area.
Oh whoops I didn’t block out some names. Not much I can do about that.
The largest group of the 3 and the one that still remains active today although it has only gained 2k followers since October last year [edit — since I wrote this a few months ago it has gained a few thousand more] is Daniel Andrews Resignation. It’s a mixture of the vibes of both groups though really it’s just a bigger DDDDDD (although the original version of that group was really something) I feel like even though we’ve seen a few memes and examples already it just doesn’t come close to capturing the mood of these groups.
Tend of thousands of angry people locked down and trapped in this echo chamber with a whole media clique everybody is tapped in to all sharing so much fear mongering and fake or misrepresented news in meme form or even just rants every day, although I suspect the many of the rants were insincere. As were many of the memes.
Oh yeah and they really love Trump. Like weirdly love Trump.
And through all this we have our core group of comrades. So here is a cross section of content from their first few months in rough chronological order. Unfortunately at the time when this was happening I didn’t know what I was looking at and by the time I knew what to look for much of the content was gone, particularly from Fanos, who for a while was tapped into this international fake conspiracy web. But this is all still there as of 30/07/21 in Dan Andrews Resignation.
And of course, throughout all of this we have this guy..
As the lockdowns went on through the months tensions were boiling and it very much appeared like there was some hard core genuine outrage against Daniel Andrews and the lockdowns. There certainly was some genuine outrage even though the polls had barely moved, but this messaging cut through eventually and just became reality for many people.
Twitter was crazy for a while there. It was bad before, but the chorus of the #thisisnotjournalism crowd was getting louder and rightly so. This crowd at it’s core was referring to the misleading or outright false, un-redacted headlines that were fueling this outrage. Seeing the journalists asking the same stupid questions day in day out pandering to these people and then painting the people calling them as out as die hard Dan Andrews fans, or Dan-Stans.
This let no civil discourse happen between strangers with opposing viewpoints on the only medium they had to communicate at the time.
And the important thing to remember here is that most people weren’t caught up in this, but the loudest messaging seeps through and nobody really knew what to think.
Now, maybe I just got lucky and this is pure co-incidence but also I couldn’t be on twitter all the time (it was nuts) so I was only checking in every now and then and at this point, mid to end of October, months into Lockdown and coming in to the US election you couldn’t say anything positive about Dan Andrews without someone jumping in with ’800 DEAD!’ and the like. I took some screens of the accounts I was coming across and they looked like this.
You get the picture.
To quote Lt. Gen Michael T. Flynn, who was in the Trump administration and the board of advisers for Cambridge Analytica, but went down for lying in the enquiry into Russian Interference until Trump pardoned him in 2020 and went on to make frequent appearances in the Qanon world.
He then went on to take the ‘Digital Soldiers Oath’ himself with all the Qanon people.
What is that you ask? Where We Go One We Go All or WWG1WGA. Swearing yourself in to fight their digital war.
The Wikipedia entry for Qanon has changed, but there was a small period of time around the same time all this stuff was going on where it said this:
What I found weird was how this was either ignored or embraced by the media. If anyone saw Sky or Fox News immediately following the election they would have seen them showing the viral clips going around of people claiming they are filming people messing with the mail in votes in various ways, this was clearly the work of these people. Trump clearly knew this was going to happen, he was saying it for months. I can’t find clips of them showing the videos anymore, but you can still find Sky News citing this stuff.
We know it was false because there has been so much scrutiny around the election that has turned up nothing.
There was also this which was reported and never mentioned again.
But I guess after Trump lost the election they all just snapped back to reality and got on with their lives..
You ever see those posts that pop up every now and then asking for experiences with the Vaccine or Covid or anything really and it is just flooded with second hand accounts of horrible reactions to vaccines? Usually, if you dig hard enough through the onslaught of comments you find something like this
Yeah, I think they have their own Digital Warfare type thing going on to fuel this anti-vax stuff.
Now speaking of Digital Warfare, the problem with taking this chosen route to work with, radicalization, Qanon, Trump, Bannon type stuff, on top of all the other problems, is that as it goes on you start running into this..
Then if we peep at this guys friends.
Hmm..
There is another group that has been central to this anti-lockdown conspiracy theory sentiment, it was deleted from Facebook around the same time as DDDDDD.
Although I had been led to this page and joined it, I thought it was just a crappy page spouting unintelligible Covid conspiracy nonsense run by some idiot and didn’t capture any of it.
I’m in his telegram group too but have never even paid attention to anything he posts.
Never underestimate an idiot though, because he now claims to be central to this movement and to the Sydney protests. (Update: He was arrested after sneaking in to NSW from QLD and and is in custody) We can plot him on the timeline by looking at his Linkedin page.
Raph Fernandez and Zak Galloway appeal to the spiritual side of the community. Zak appears to cater to the religious crowd, as does Fanos with the Greek Orthodox crowd. Raph considers himself a spiritual guru, nuff said.
Raph and Fanos are the admins of a group called ’99% Victoria’ with just under 10,000 members.
I say Fanos, but when he was booted from Facebook he ceased to be admin and his Dad or Brother took over, not exactly sure what relation he is.
Riccardo Bosi and Joel Jammal have been doing stuff together since 2019. Joel was part of the Christian Democratic Party and Bosi was part of Cory Bernadys Australian Conservatives but they both left and started doing some YouTube stuff together. They started their podcast ‘The Arc’ on August 29 with The Arc E1 — Mandatory Vaccines, Lockdown Extensions & Freedom Protests AUS. They parted way around but still closely affiliated, Joel did a bunch of video stuff with Craig Kelly and Bosi is concentrating on his political party Australia One which he launched in October 2019 and running on a platform of stopping pedophiles, protecting free speech, no mandatory vaccines, anti-abortion and aggressively anti China.
He markets it as a ‘not right or left party’ but what he means is ‘extreme religious right’. He caters to the One Nation crowd and the Religious crowd, but his party gets a lot of recommendations in these groups. Somewhat concerning is that his party Australia One has retreated from mainstream social media and is mostly now just doing videos on his own on Rumble, away from view.
Although Riccardo Bosi himself doesn’t appear to be directly connected to this core Victorian group, his little sidekick with the perfectly manicured eyebrow Joel Jammal certainly mentions speaking with Monica Smit and all the things they are doing on his podcast quite often. But Bosi seems to also be linked in with the far left conspiracy people. I haven’t deep dived on the whole wellness crowd but I think we can comfortably say in Australia it revolves around Pete Evans.
There is an English guy based in Bali named Sacha Stone, he is one of your David Wolfe like characters with a ‘Wellness Center’ type thing in Ubud.
He started this organization called — wait for it — *drumroll* — RECLAIM your lives. Part of something called the Urban Global Health Alliance. They describe themselves as -
Urban Global Health Alliance will partner with communities to empower and engage on the issues of Health & Wellness. Urban Global Health Alliance recognizes that in an increasingly urbanized world, health issues present new challenges that go far beyond the health sector and require action at the global, national, community, and individual levels.
Urban Global Health Alliance can rally stakeholders from diverse backgrounds and interests to help mount political pressure on issues that are important to every city dweller. Health is valued universally as an essential prerequisite for a fulfilling and productive life, Urban Global Health Alliance wants to help safeguard these rights. We partner with parents, religious, community leaders, and other advocacy groups to create step-by-step strategies and resources to help leaders stay engaged. We will bring together municipal authorities and decision-makers across multiple sectors with the aim of promoting intersectoral action to reduce urban health inequities.
They released this Covid-19 white paper from their New Earth University on June 21, 2020, outlining the ‘Covid Scam’, and then proceeded to act as a connecting point between all these different little cliques all around the world.
In October they held a big 4 hour live stream event spanning 3 countries, USA, UK and Australia called ‘The Line in the Sand’.
This expert panel featured both Riccardo Bosi and Pete Evans.
This guy has also done a live stream with Fanos and an Australian vegan activist called Renee Mechelle that to be honest is so ridiculous with what he says the whole time that there is no way any sane person could sit there honestly promoting a cause and not question the legitimacy of the platform.
Here’s the thing though, digging around a bit on Sacha Stone we find his real name is Simon Jean-Paul Sacha Adams. He was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and his father is a man named Sir Walter Adams. There is an article in the New York Times announcing his passing in 1970. The end of the article states this -
Sir Walter was a Rockefeller Fellow in the United States and was organizing secretary of the Second International Congress of the History of Science and Technology.
From 1933 to 1938 he helped place refugee European educators in jobs while he was secretary of the Academic Assistance Council.
In World War II he was deputy head of the British Political Warfare Mission in Washington, 1942 to 1944, and deputy director of the Political Intelligence Department, in 1945.
So just to summarize here we have retired Australian Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Riccardo Bosi and celebrity chef Pete Evans both central to pushing the same pro-Trump, anti-COVID rhetoric and conspiracy theories to different sides of the political spectrum featured on a group conference between the USA, UK and AU to talk about Covid being a scam hosted by the son of a former inaugural deputy director of the British political intelligence department operating under a pseudonym for an organization called ‘Reclaim your lives’, that later went on to host another former cooking show contestant to talk about the same stuff, who then is connected to a former reality TV star who runs Reignite Democracy who at it’s foundation has connections to the Liberals.
Yep, shit’s getting weird alright.
So if we plot the information we have gathered so far on a timeline, it looks like this.
March 16 — State of Emergency first declared in Victoria, mirrored Aus wide.
April — There was a meeting to plan End the Lockdowns Australia
May 26 — Avi Interviews Fanos on his website
May 31 — Lockdowns are lifted
May 31 — Victoria Forward gets more active
May 31 — Daniel Andrews Resignation was created.
Jun 15 — Adam Somyurek scandal is exposed.
July 19 — We enter full blown lockdown again.
July 25 — Donald Blake is created. Most likely an existing account made completely private, but he seems to be very well connected and received with enthusiasm.
July 26 — Donald Blake joins Daniel Andrews Resignation, is made admin.
July 27 — After covering the Covid crisis near-daily on his personal website, Avi makes his last post.
August 1 — Real Rukshan posts his first video
August 4 — Mel Ann appears on Dan Andrews resignation, launches Digital Warfare
August 4 — Monica Smit appears on Dan Andrews resignation and Reignite Democracy is Launched to hold an online protest.
August 6 — Monica Shares first Morgan C Jonas clip with the group
August 13 — Morgan C Jonas appears on Dan Andrews Resignation
August 13 — DDDDDD group kicks in to action
Some time in August — Australians vs the Agenda is created.
August 29 — The Arc with Riccardo Bosi and Joel Jammal launches
September 4 — Avi joins Rebel News
Remember, this is all just a series of co-incidences. These are just angry people who are passionate about a cause. It happened at the same time because that is when we were in lockdown. Bosi was in NSW but that was just a fluke.
It would look entirely different if it was being organized behind the scenes, wouldn’t it?
