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Food supply disruptions are another front for Russia’s hypocrisy


When the Dutch government announced a plan in June to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70%, farmers protest erupted, said the move would take effect, forcing them to shut down business. They blocked highway traffic with their tractors, dumped manure on the roads and burned haystacks.

The protests have been widely covered by conservative media in the United States, with outlets like Breitbart and Fox News describing how farmers have staged their own versions this year. “Free convoy“Of Canadian truckers who have protested against coronavirus vaccine mandates and other Covid-19 policies.

But beneath the headlines, in some of the internet’s darkest corners, disinformation researchers and State Department officials who watch online propaganda have treated the Dutch protests as introduces a disturbing new conspiracy theory: Western nations are attempting to impose mass starvation and subjugate them, by limiting and hoarding the world’s food supply. And the new environmental regulations in the Netherlands, according to conspiracy theorists, are part of a broader conspiracy by liberal policymakers to use climate change as a ploy to gain control of the agricultural sector.

Most versions of this disinformation campaign refer to “globalists,” a term that online dissidents often use as shorthand for Jews. Other versions link it to an alleged conspiracy by environmentalists to force people to eat insects instead of meat, a stream of misinformation that has been noticed in recent months.

Information experts agree that there is a key driver for these falsehoods: Russia. Propaganda from the Kremlin, they say, has spilled into right-wing social media chat rooms and sometimes into mainstream conservative media such as Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program.

US officials say Russia is trying to downplay its responsibility for disrupting the world’s food supply through its invasion of Ukraine. And they warn that these conspiracy theories will only find a more receptive audience as Russia’s invasion continues to put pressure on global food and energy markets and, as expected, will drive up prices. both increase during the winter.

What is most worrying, some experts say, is how the spread of lies about food insecurity could become even more extreme than some insidious conspiracy theories. circulating about vaccines, voter fraud, and the “deep state” of evil officials.

“When it comes to food supplies, conspiracies become real,” said Joel Finkelstein, co-founder of the Institute for Cyber ​​Infection, which tracks hate and extremism on social media. . “If you lose an election, you can win it back. Vaccines, you’ll get sick, but you’ll probably be fine. “

“But when it comes to food,” continued Mr. Finkelstein, “it is a matter of choosing who lives and who dies. And the threat of political violence becomes perfectly legitimate in the minds of certain people. “

During the summer, the Network Contagion Research Institute noticed a spike in extremist activity related to the Dutch protests on Twitter, Telegram and 4chan, the message boards that conspiracy theories spread largely unchecked. In a reportThe institute said many of the people who spread false reports about deliberately manipulating the food supply were followers of QAnon, the fringe movement that believes a child-trafficking group is running the world.

In a post cited in the report, a QAnon supporter with more than 250,000 followers on Telegram wrote: “Never believe that anything will be missing for a moment. Dish. Water. Oil. They make and produce these shortages.”

The report notes that the use of “surname” in many of these conspiracies “usually codes for the ‘elite’, and in some cases, the Jewish community.”

Sometimes these ideas make their way to more brick-and-mortar stores.

In July, Mr. Carlson hosted a Dutch right-wing philosopher in his show to discuss the uprising in the Netherlands. Mr. Carlson told his audience in a segment that portrayed farmers as heroes. “You are seeing this in the developing world thanks to climate activism and the war in Ukraine.”

Mr. Carlson added, “We should worry about the big things. And the food supply is the biggest.”

Leah Bray, power coordinator of the Center for Global Engagement, a division of the State Department that specializes in tracking misinformation and misinformation, said both in peacetime and now in wartime, Russia all use “information manipulation as a weapon to bring about desired political ends”. “

These efforts, the center said in a recent report, so far concentrated in the Middle East and Africa, where food shortages are most severe. And, the report adds, conspiracy theories have spread through Kremlin-controlled state outlets such as RT Arabic and RT en Fran.cais, as well as through Chinese state media.

Bray said she is particularly concerned that Russia will manipulate similar emotions this winter, when energy insecurity will almost certainly increase. The aim of the Russians, she added, is to pit Western nations against each other in a blame game of who is responsible for the shortfall.

“Russia will use these tactics more widely to seek to undermine Western unity,” Bray said.

With the invasion of Ukraine causing a Europe-wide energy crisis, the European Union Recommended mandatory power cuts, among other measures.

If these ideas are slow to take over in the United States, experts warn, it’s not a sign that they won’t be expanding their reach any time soon.

Denver Riggleman, a former intelligence adviser and staff member of the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, who worked with the Cyber ​​Infection Research Institute. “Then all of a sudden – boom. And that’s what I think we’re looking at here. “



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