Woke media outfit is secret counter-terror programme

[jimmer]

Well this is quite a surprise!

A social media network for young people that has been launched around the term “woke” is actually a covert British government counterterrorism programme, security officials have admitted.

A Facebook page and Instagram feed with the name This Is Woke describes itself as the work of a “media/news company” that is engaging “in critical discussions around Muslim identity, tradition and reform”.

In fact, it was created by a media company on behalf of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) at the UK Home Office.

The OSCT is refusing to disclose information about the network, however, and will not explain the reason it was created, claiming that to do so would “prejudice the national security of the UK”.

Full story: REVEALED: The 'woke' media outfit that's actually a UK counterterror programme

 

[danny la rouge]

“online, we can never know who the source is”, says Woke.

That’s called hiding in plain sight.

I’m glad I’m not on Facebook or Insta.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

I know it marks me out as a proper oldiewonk but fuck me I hate the term "woke"

 

[ska invita]

Incredible .... I love the Obama Woke insta pic
...my brain is struggling to compute government departments secretly promoting pictures of head scarves with Nike swooshes on them.

From the article:
This Is Woke is just a small part of the material that is being produced in the UK under the direction of RICU: in other internal documents, the unit says it is working “at an industrial scale and pace”.

Past projects include a website, Facebook page, Twitter feed and leafleting campaign called Help for Syria, that appeared to be a charitable venture but was in fact a “strategic communications platform” intended to influence conversations among young British Muslims and reduce any desire to travel to Syria.

Former Home Office officials say RICU has also been working to influence the arts in the UK, and government lawyers have moved to block the disclosure of material that would show the role it has played in the production of supposedly independent radio shows.

As well as producing campaigns directed at Muslim audiences in the UK, Breakthrough/Zinc has been helping RICU with projects that are aimed at Muslims in France, Belgium, North Africa and the Middle East, Kenya, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

 

[8ball]

I know it marks me out as a proper oldiewonk but fuck me I hate the term "woke"

That's a bit fussy for someone who uses the word "oldiewonk".

 

[8ball]

It's very... bland, isn't it?

Though I did enjoy this:

 

[Mrs Miggins]

That's a bit fussy for someone who uses the word "oldiewonk".

Fair comment

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Wouldn't it be funny if the last few years of loony woke politics was just a giant, covert psyops program, run by various competing state actors seeking to destabilise each others' political landscapes?

Well I'd find it amusing anyway.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

The only people who've used "woke" unironically in the last few years have been Telegraph columnists, right wing comedians and reactionary fakes.

 

[LDC]

Wouldn't it be funny if the last few years of loony woke politics was just a giant, covert psyops program, run by various competing state actors seeking to destabilise each others' political landscapes?

Well I'd find it amusing anyway.

Have you seen Russia Today's output?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Have you seen Russia Today's output?

Alas I haven't. I've always assumed it was mainly wall-to-wall topless bear wrestling, in which Putin wins every time.

 

[8ball]

The only people who've used "woke" unironically in the last few years have been Telegraph columnists, right wing comedians and reactionary fakes.

 

[JimW]

Alas I haven't. I've always assumed it was mainly wall-to-wall topless bear wrestling, in which Putin wins every time.

It's actually harder to get the bears to wear tops which is why they do it that way.

 

[spanglechick]

The only people who've used "woke" unironically in the last few years have been Telegraph columnists, right wing comedians and reactionary fakes.

And earnest teenagers, I’m afraid.

 

[likesfish]

I worked with a fan of rt who. Belived imperial Japan had saved us from international communism that had been funded by the us???

 

[kebabking]

And earnest teenagers, I’m afraid.

Indeed, I can confirm that teenagers are using it entirely seriously.

 

[Poi E]

I worked with a fan of rt who. Belived imperial Japan had saved us from international communism that had been funded by the us???

Imperial Japan took a fucking pasting. What they on about?

 

[Gaia]

I worked with a fan of rt who. Belived imperial Japan had saved us from international communism that had been funded by the us???

RT is why I avoid Fuckbook, JC fans believe it to be the bastion of truth, because it says nice things about the Anointed One, the BBC is evil because, well, it doesn't. Don't misunderstand me, I'm fully aware the Beeb isn't perfect, but at least it shows Corbyn for who - and what - he is. "You hate Jeremy, ergo you're a Tory", it's pathetic and infantile.

 

[likesfish]

Imperial Japan took a fucking pasting. What they on about?

I have no idea! whole thing was moonbat the cia funding international communism because the jews told them too.

Bloke was probably an anti semite but his ideas were nonsense even the nazis bullshit was coherant bullshit

 

[DaveCinzano]

I missed this thread first time round.

Zinc has recently been in the news again:

Far right hijack coronavirus crisis to push agenda and boost support

Extremists using crisis to promote themselves as supporters of the community and spread fake information

www.theguardian.com

 

[tim]

I know it marks me out as a proper oldiewonk but fuck me I hate the term "woke"

Don't feel sorry feel proud. It's only used by cunts, like the one below.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Some refs:

The [UK National Security Strategy] also explains that under CONTEST’s purview, the government established a Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU), staffed and directed by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the FCO, and the Home Office. The purpose of RICU is to ‘communicate effectively to reduce the risk of terrorism’, primarily by ‘exposing the weaknesses of violent extremist ideologies and supporting credible alternatives’ (NSS 2009: 14).

Emily Lindsay Jackson, Broadening national security and protecting crowded places - Performing the United Kingdom’s War on Terror, 2007-2010, Department of Geography, Durham University, September 2011, p145.

Indeed, the government also [in addition to OSCT] established a Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) within the Home Office, with one of its key functions being to help the various arms of national and local government avoid ‘aggressive rhetoric’ and use language that encourages the positive involvement of Muslim communities. RICU has been one of a number of aspects of the Prevent strategy that have drawn inspiration from policy approaches previously used by the state during the Northern Ireland armed conflict, as acknowledged by a ‘senior civil servant’ quoted by the Times in 2004: ‘We did the same in Northern Ireland in the 1980’s when, as well as deploying police and troops on the streets, we had a massive programme of investment in the local community, raising living standards. We also set about bridge-building with the Catholic community’.

Paul Thomas, Failing to Prevent? Responding to the Threat of Violent Extremism, Bloomsbury Academic, 2012, p85.

It is part of the job of RICU to get that message through outlets, which can and will be read by our target audience...RICU’s job in challenging ideology is important for the whole Prevent Strategy and it is done in this country and overseas.

Charles Farr (DG of OSCT) giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee on 29 October 2011, as cited in Roots of violent radicalisation - Volume I, The Stationery Office, 6 February 2012 at Ev 60.

[How have] ‘community groups’ with relatively tiny budgets...been able to produce slick websites, videos and campaigns[?]...As already explained, RICU delivers its counter-narratives through its ‘network of grass roots Muslim Voices’ and engages PR companies to help them produce multi-media. During the course of our research, one media company appeared time and time again in respect to our investigations into numerous ‘community’ organisations: Breakthrough Media.

Based on the material we have gathered, Breakthrough Media Network Limited appears to be the government’s go-to creative media agency for its “counter-narratives”. Furthermore, Breakthrough’s relationship with the Home Office and its community partners appear to be protected under the Official Secrets Act in order to hide such relationships.

Ben Hayes & Asim Quresh, “WE ARE COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT”: The Home Office, Breakthrough Media and the PREVENT Counter Narrative Industry, CAGE, 2016.

Outlining how the EAU collects from (or shares with) private sector sources information about targets, and RICU outsources propaganda efforts in relation to this to private sector actors:
Asim Qureshi, BLACKLISTED: The secretive Home Office Unit silencing voices of dissent, CAGE, 2017.

In 2010, reports indicated that existing or projected activities within RICU included expansion into digital communications and social media, the development and dissemination of documentary materials on British Islam to overseas audiences, the maintenance of links with conventional media outlets to inform and advise on reporting that will impact on the counter-terrorism agenda, communications support and capacity building. The traditional activities of RICU have recently been supplemented with a more targeted focus on the direct challenge of extremist narratives online through the ‘road-testing’ of ‘innovative approaches to counter-ideological messages’.

Rachel Briggs & Sebastien Feve, Review of Programs to Counter Narratives of Violent Extremism, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2013, p32.

Miscellaneous:

Tomáš Tengely-Evans, ‘Revealed - how spy cops are waging a new Cold War against Muslims’, Socialist Worker no.2503,10 May 2016.

Simon Hooper, ‘Job advert offers glimpse into secretive work of Home Office 'propaganda' unit’, Middle East Eye, 23 February 2018.

Ian Cobain, ‘How a book on Cold War propaganda inspired British counter-terror campaign’, Middle East Eye, 21 November 2018.

Research Communications and Information Unit, Counter Terrorism Communications Guidance, Home Office website, 4 September 2007.

 

[equationgirl]

Just one or two references DaveCinzano ?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Just one or two references DaveCinzano ?

Just sorta lying around yknow

 

[equationgirl]

Just sorta lying around yknow

Yeah, I know nice work compiling the list.

 

[JimW]

Old DaveCinzano shooting his mouth off with nothing to back it up again, I see

 

[dylanredefined]

Well this is quite a surprise!

Full story: REVEALED: The 'woke' media outfit that's actually a UK counterterror programme

So its not turning teenagers into ninjas to fight terrorists?.
I need to consume a higher standard of media.

 

[DaveCinzano]

So its not turning teenagers into ninjas to fight terrorists?.

I bet one of these guys could have done something with the premise...