As the Australian Federal Police sound the alarm bells about an increase in foreign interference in the lead-up to this year’s election, there’s new evidence about the foreign involvement in the promotion of the anti-vaccine, anti-government Convoy to Canberra protests and, simultaneously, the involvement of Australians in protests in Canada.
Last week Crikey reported that Facebook groups being used to organise and promote the Convoy to Canberra protests were being run by what appeared to be fake or international users, including an account using an AI-generated face and an account run from Bangladesh.
Since then, another Facebook group for the Canberra event has changed hands from an anonymous “Freedom Convoy 2022 Truckers” account to a seemingly real Facebook account belonging to be a Bangladeshi teacher, Md Saiful Islam, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, another convoy Facebook account group previously linked by Crikey to a Bangladeshi Facebook account has been removed. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has been asked for comment.
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Why are Bangladeshi accounts involved?
Late last week, reporters at Grid, a US online publication, were able to link a Bangladeshi digital marketing firm to the two biggest Facebook groups related to the Canadian Freedom convoy. They confirmed with the founder of the firm, Jakir Saikot, that he was behind the “Freedom Convoy 2022” and “Convoy to Ottawa 2022” groups, which had more than 170,000 members between them.
“In an interview with Grid after this story first published, Ahasan said Saikot told him he charged the equivalent of $23 per day to promote Facebook pages with hundreds of thousands of followers, and indicated that he worked with organisers of the protests in Canada on the Freedom Convoy Facebook groups,” they wrote.
Harvard Shorenstein Centre director Joan Donovan explained to NBC News that there’s a thriving industry of people seeing “Nick” accounts, which are real-seeming Facebook accounts that run high-profile, engaged groups.
Their customers buy these accounts for everything from promoting scam links, merchandise, or even executing a foreign influence campaign.
“When we see really effective disinformation campaigns, it’s when financial and political motives align,” she said.
Crikey has been unable to link either Bangladeshi Facebook accounts to any organised efforts. Despite being run by seemingly international accounts, these Convoy to Canberra Facebook groups appear to be filled with Australian protesters and supporters, some of whom have even noticed the international administrators behind the groups.
Australians funding the Canadian protests
New data has emerged that also shows how Australians are contributing to international protests.
Christian fundraising website GiveSendGo emerged as an alternative platform to GoFundMe after the latter site froze and then refunded millions of dollars in donations intended for the Canadian convoy protests.
On Monday Australian time, GiveSendGo’s website was hacked and a dataset containing the private details of those who had donated more than US$8.3 million to the protest was released online.
Crikey’s analysis of this data reveals that 588 donors contributing US$33,734 identified themselves as residing in Australia. This makes Australians the fourth biggest contributors to the Canadian convoy fundraiser after the US, Canada, and the UK.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned last week about the impact of “foreign money to fund this illegal activity”. He has since declared a state of emergency citing “illegal obstruction” by protesters who have been “occupying streets, harassing people, breaking the law”.
This donation data shows how Australians are playing their part in funding and participating in global misinformation movements undermining faith in vaccines and governments.
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This whole anti-vax, conspiracy theory thing gets weirder, more complex and more bizarre by the day. I confess, I cannot even begin to understand what is going on here?
an ever decreasing minority
The very small contingent of anti-vax protestors are being drawn in by professional agitators from Conspiracy groups.
These anti vaxxers believe they are part of a worldwide ant-vax movement, where in reality it is just giving a voice to all sorts of conspiracy theorists. Everything from QAnon, Anti-Vax, Anti-Vax Mandates, sovereign citizens, anti Government, etc.
These protestors are disrespectful an unpatriotic
They consistently and constantly dishonour our flag and Nation by displaying it upside and flying the flags of other nations above our flag
True patriots understand the protocols for our flag
More work needed to be satire.
I post only facts..to bring people’s attention to these unpatriotic disrespectful right wing fascists
As a Ken Behren I just found them a bloody nuisance.
I take it that the international signal for a distress or hostage situation is the flag flown upside down. Surely this is apparent to those numpty heads.
The flying the Red Ensign upside down means that the vessel has been taken by mutineers or pirates and can be fired upon at will. Oh, for a paintball gun.
No it is not. Read the Australian Flag Protocol
In Australian national flag protocols, the government says Australians should never to fly the flag upside down. “As one of Australia’s most important symbols, the flag should be used with respect and dignity,” the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet says.
Australian National Flag protocols – Prime Minister and Cabinethttps://www.pmc.gov.au › government › australian-nati…
Do not fly the flag upside down, even as a signal of distress. Do not allow the flag to fall or lie on the ground or be used as a cover
RR – given the constantly morphing official positions (just within the OECD rather than farther flung entities) it’s worth considering that the ‘Authorities’ are lying.
In the most benevolent view this is done in ignorance, for fear that the public would panic were it known that They know nothing about what is going on.
Never mind that when – not if – the truth finally comes to light the mob will certainly panic but it will be mixed with rage at being treated like mushrooms for the last couple of years.
Just a small example – remember how ‘an accidental underdose vaccination‘ in the UK led to the discovery that a double jab was necessary “for full protection”.
Then a third, purely a booster (sic!) you may be assured, to mitigate severity – NB not immunity.
Until it becomes compulsory for a fourth, fifth, monthly, weekly… in the water supply?
Is it the lizard people who I should be paying more attention to Epi?
Compared to Scummo, some saurians seem siblings.
Yawn. Another day, another conspiracy theory. How is it the ‘globalists’ haven’t taken over the world yet? This s*** has been around for a long, long time. Every generation produces more credulous people who can’t be bothered with history.
The trouble is, that force and coercion increases resistance. It matters less about what people believe and more about what force and coercion is considered acceptable in a free society. There is ALWAYS a non conflict answer. But you have to be looking for it to find it and our governments sure aren’t looking for it.
Those minuses make me laugh. Are you telling me that you consider force and coercion is acceptable in our society?
From the Aust. Bureau of Statistics this month:
From March 2020 until now, 273k deaths in Australia. Of these 0.09% or 2,639 are Covid related. Of the 0.09%, 92% have serious underlying health conditions with an average of 3 conditions per person, some of which included obesity and diabetes. Median age of Covid deaths – male 81 and female 86 – both above average life expectancy.
So instead of the ‘authorities’ promoting healthy living to reduce rates of obesity, diabetes and heart conditions in the vulnerable groups, ‘they’ embarked on a fear campaign and told us we were ALL at the same level of risk and the only way out was the wholesale roll-out of an ‘vaccine’ (cough), that neither stops infection or transmission and requires regular (are we up to monthly yet?) ‘updates’.
’It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled’.
Yeah these pseudo-Greek names are the preferred fake ID’s of operators from nternet Research Agency, the Kremlin-supporting misinformation operation run out of St Petersburg by Putin allay and oligarch Yevgeny Prighozin.
They seem to pop up every month or so, and then disappear as quickly….. I’m sure your Russians also have much in common with US Koch Networks, Fox etc. in sowing the seeds of confusion…..
Bolshoye Spasibo – whilst Awaiting for Approval.
Doing the bidding of radical right libertarian nativist corporate donors, with a Kochian aversion to climate/Covid science, regulation etc. masquerading as ‘conservative’ to help the GOP, Tories or LNP?
Chance for Dubbo Sturmbahnfurer to blame Labour and Chinese again, Then ban them for subverting Australian (LNP) values.
My favourite part of the conspiracy group lifecycle is when they finally realise that they are the shadowy cabal.
As them ole hippies used to say – before they went extinct – ‘never trust anyone over 30’.
When the survivors turned into breadheads it should have been “we are the people your parents warned you about!” but too late, they’d already begun to infiltrate the System.