It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
"Breaking: A MAGA fan in Iowa accidentally burned down his house today trying to burn a gay pride flag," says text in a screenshot of an X post shared June 11, 2024 on Threads with the caption: "Happy Pride Month."
Another Threads post shared the same screenshot with the caption: "Stupid, homophobic and homeless is no way to go through life." Image
Screenshot of a Threads post taken June 18, 2024 Image
Screenshot of a Threads post taken June 18, 2024
Similar posts have circulated on Instagram, garnering tens of thousands of interactions.
The posts come in the middle of Pride Month, during which US agencies warn the LGBTQ community faces an increased risk of attacks.
Comments on the posts -- including users writing "karma" -- suggest some people believe the claims are true. Others use the posts to criticize supporters of "MAGA," a reference to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again."
However, the story about a flag burning gone wrong is unfounded.
The X post in the screenshot was originally published June 11 by The Halfway Post, which says it shares comedy and satire (archived here).
The account also links to a Medium page for Dash MacIntyre, a self-proclaimed "political satirist" who runs the X page (archived here). Image
Screenshot of an X account taken June 18, 2024
Keyword searches for recent house fires in Iowa found articles debunking the post, but no official reports from local media or emergency responders.
More of AFP's reporting on misinformation about the LGBTQ community is available here.
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Arakan Army treatment of Rohingya minority poses challenge to Myanmar opposition
The Rakhine force, the most effective rebel army fighting the junta, vents its grievances on the battlefield.
A commentary by Zachary Abuza 2024.06.08
Illustration by Amanda Weisbrod/RFA; Images by Adobe Stock
Evidence of Arakan Army culpability in mass arson attacks on Rohingya homes in western Myanmar's Buthidaung township – where satellite imagery has confirmed that more than 400 homes were burnt to the ground – poses a serious challenge to the anti-junta opposition.
While such attacks have ceased since the Arakan Army captured the majority Rohingya town, the rebels' double-speak both weakens the prospects of an inclusive federal democracy, and is very shortsighted for the ethnic army’s leadership.
As it is said, the truth is the first casualty in war, and so far here’s what we know happened: On May 18, the Arakan Army captured the last remaining four light infantry battalions and two border guard police camps in Buthidaung, following a multi-month siege. Immediately, over 400 homes in Rohingya residential neighborhoods were set ablaze.
There is a chance of course that some of the fires were set by the retreating junta military, who had waged a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya in 2017-18. The military seems determined to stoke inter-communal tensions as it retreats from northern Rakhine state, and “false flag” operations are part of the military’s modus operandi.
In a bizarre irony, the army has been conscripting Rohingya men into its depleted ranks to fight the Arakan Army, while at the same time, relying on radical groups, such as the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA), operating in the refugee camps in Bangladesh to recruit fighters.
Despite the military’s own culpability in ethnic cleansing, they are trying to paint themselves as defenders of the Rohingya community, as the Arakan Army settles old scores. If the Arakan Army continues such attacks, they are making an alliance between the military and radical Rohingya groups including ARSA and the RSO, inevitable.
Flames from burning homes in Buthidaung in Rakhine state, are seen above the treetops in this image provided by a Rohingya refugee, May 17, 2024. (Image from video via AP)
While this is not surprising, it is exceptionally short-sighted in its thinking and undermines the effort to defeat Myanmar’s military and establish a federal democracy.
This should not come as a surprise. The Arakan Army’s position on the Rohingya has been two faced. Its leader, Tun Mrat Naing, has a decade-long track record of referring to them as “Bengalis”, parroting the Myanmar military’s own term for the Rohingya.
The arson attacks have also increased tensions between the Arakan Army leadership and the National Unity Government (NUG).
Following the military coup in February 2021, the Arakan Army made a very important, if not surprising, statement in support of the NUG position that the Rohingya were a persecuted minority who were entitled to full citizenship, and that the one million refugees in Bangladesh should be repatriated.
More intransigent after military gains
But with military gains since the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched its offensive on October 27, 2023, the Arakan Army has become far more intransigent. Its leadership has signaled this change to their constituents, whether in social media or simply by greenlighting attacks by local units.
The Arakan Army’s military gains are significant. They now claim to have seized 180 military camps and taken full control of eight of Rakhine’s 17 townships. While they have not moved on the state capital of Sittwe or the Chinese special economic zone in Kyaukphyu, they are controlling the roads in and out of them.
Should the Arakan Army complete their capture of Maungdaw, they will have driven the military out of the entire northern region of Rakhine.
While the ethnic Rakhine army has stated their intention to liberate the entire state, for now they are trying to control the three main entry points into the northern part of the state in order to consolidate their power.
The military has scant deployments in southern Rakhine, meaning that the Arakan Army’s takeover of the entire state is not unthinkable.
Arakan Army troops pose in Buthidaung, Myanmar, in an image posted to social media May 18, 2024. (AA Info Desk via VKontakte)
The Arakan Army has proven itself to be amongst the most effective fighting forces among the ethnic armed organizations. Their battlefield advances have spread the military thin and not allowed the junta to redeploy troops to Kachin, Kayah or northern Shan states, where regime forces have suffered serious setbacks.
Likewise, in eastern Myanmar, though opposition forces had to give up the border town of Myawaddy, the military has not been able to regain full control of the key Asia Highway.
In short, military success has given the Arakan Army the opportunity to advance their short-term and parochial political interests at the expense of the national agenda to defeat the military.
The Arakan Army’s stated commitments to the anti junta opposition’s long-term political goals, as stated by the NUG, should always be taken with a grain of salt.
They are the only ethnic army that has flirted with independence, and their authoritarian leanings show they are hostile to democracy and any political system that would force them to share power.
Prejudice with huge implications
The United League of Arakan, the AA’s political arm, issued a statement on May 20 that denied any culpability for the Rohingya village torchings, apportioning the blame solely on the military. Its statements since then have been largely dismissive and continue to deny the attacks, while criticizing media reporting on civilian casualties.
But evidence of their culpability is mounting, underscoring the reality that the Arakan Army does not like the Rohingya population, nor does it want to see large-scale resettlement from Bangladesh. The Arakan Army’s politics capitalize on Rakhine Buddhist prejudice against the Muslim community.
The Arakan Army leadership is under intense pressure to renounce any violence towards the Rohingya. But the reality is that many of their troops were involved in the communal violence against them. This is simply a return to their default setting.
The Arakan Army’s position has larger implications.
While they might have moved on from the 2017 ethnic cleansing, the international community, including the United States, has not. Earmarked in the recent $121 million in U.S. support for Myanmar, are still funds to support the quest for accountability for abuses against Rohingya.
The continued persecution of the Rohingya will undermine future international aid and support for Myanmar’s opposition in general, and cyclone-ravaged Rakhine in particular.
What is so frustrating is that Arakan Army chief Tun Mrat Naing is arguably the most charismatic and competent of the ethnic army leaders in Myanmar.
Major General Tun Myat Naing, right, commander-in-chief of the Arakan Army, attends a dinner commemorating peace-building efforts, in Pangkham in Myanmar's eastern Shan state, April 16, 2019. (RFA)
Were he to better coordinate his efforts with the NUG and wholeheartedly endorse their political aims, he would be a commanding figure in a post-conflict Myanmar.
His parochialism augers poorly for a post-conflict Myanmar and puts the NUG in a very awkward position.
The NUG’s statement in response to the mid-May arson attacks was exceedingly diplomatic, never referencing the Arakan Army and largely pinning the blame on the junta military for stoking communal violence.
But behind the scenes the frustration is clearly mounting.
With such heavy strategic implications to this sectarianism, the Arakan Army has to get its priorities straight and prove themselves as responsible stakeholders.
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic
Chris Bing and Joel Shectman Fri, June 14, 2024
LONG READ
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.
The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.
Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.
“COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!” one typical tweet from July 2020 read in Tagalog. The words were next to a photo of a syringe beside a Chinese flag and a soaring chart of infections. Another post read: “From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.”
After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.
The U.S. military’s anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined. Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China’s vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China’s shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law.
The military program started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Biden’s presidency, Reuters found – even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon had been trafficking in COVID misinformation. The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review, Reuters found.
The U.S. military is prohibited from targeting Americans with propaganda, and Reuters found no evidence the Pentagon’s influence operation did so.
Spokespeople for Trump and Biden did not respond to requests for comment about the clandestine program.
A senior Defense Department official acknowledged the U.S. military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage China’s vaccine in the developing world, but the official declined to provide details.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said the U.S. military “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the U.S., allies, and partners.” She also noted that China had started a “disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19.”
In an email, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it has long maintained the U.S. government manipulates social media and spreads misinformation.
Manila’s embassy in Washington did not respond to Reuters inquiries, including whether it had been aware of the Pentagon operation. A spokesperson for the Philippines Department of Health, however, said the “findings by Reuters deserve to be investigated and heard by the appropriate authorities of the involved countries.” Some aide workers in the Philippines, when told of the U.S. military propaganda effort by Reuters, expressed outrage.
Briefed on the Pentagon’s secret anti-vax campaign by Reuters, some American public health experts also condemned the program, saying it put civilians in jeopardy for potential geopolitical gain. An operation meant to win hearts and minds endangered lives, they said.
“I don’t think it’s defensible,” said Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. “I’m extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the U.S. government would do that,” said Lucey, a former military physician who assisted in the response to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
The effort to stoke fear about Chinese inoculations risked undermining overall public trust in government health initiatives, including U.S.-made vaccines that became available later, Lucey and others said. Although the Chinese vaccines were found to be less effective than the American-led shots by Pfizer and Moderna, all were approved by the World Health Organization. Sinovac did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Academic research published recently has shown that, when individuals develop skepticism toward a single vaccine, those doubts often lead to uncertainty about other inoculations. Lucey and other health experts say they saw such a scenario play out in Pakistan, where the Central Intelligence Agency used a fake hepatitis vaccination program in Abbottabad as cover to hunt for Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Discovery of the ruse led to a backlash against an unrelated polio vaccination campaign, including attacks on healthcare workers, contributing to the reemergence of the deadly disease in the country.
“It should have been in our interest to get as much vaccine in people’s arms as possible,” said Greg Treverton, former chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, which coordinates the analysis and strategy of Washington’s many spy agencies. What the Pentagon did, Treverton said, “crosses a line.” 'We were desperate'
Together, the phony accounts used by the military had tens of thousands of followers during the program. Reuters could not determine how widely the anti-vax material and other Pentagon-planted disinformation was viewed, or to what extent the posts may have caused COVID deaths by dissuading people from getting vaccinated.
In the wake of the U.S. propaganda efforts, however, then-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte had grown so dismayed by how few Filipinos were willing to be inoculated that he threatened to arrest people who refused vaccinations.
“You choose, vaccine or I will have you jailed,” a masked Duterte said in a televised address in June 2021. “There is a crisis in this country … I’m just exasperated by Filipinos not heeding the government.”
When he addressed the vaccination issue, the Philippines had among the worst inoculation rates in Southeast Asia. Only 2.1 million of its 114 million citizens were fully vaccinated – far short of the government’s target of 70 million. By the time Duterte spoke, COVID cases exceeded 1.3 million, and almost 24,000 Filipinos had died from the virus. The difficulty in vaccinating the population contributed to the worst death rate in the region.
A spokesperson for Duterte did not make the former president available for an interview.
Some Filipino healthcare professionals and former officials contacted by Reuters were shocked by the U.S. anti-vax effort, which they say exploited an already vulnerable citizenry. Public concerns about a Dengue fever vaccine, rolled out in the Philippines in 2016, had led to broad skepticism toward inoculations overall, said Lulu Bravo, executive director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination. The Pentagon campaign preyed on those fears. Signage that reads "No Vaccine No Ride" (L) is seen on the windshield of a passenger jeepney in Quezon City, suburban Manila on January 17, 2022, as the Philippine government banned unvaccinated people from using public transport amid a record surge in coronavirus cases.
“Why did you do it when people were dying? We were desperate,” said Dr. Nina Castillo-Carandang, a former adviser to the World Health Organization and Philippines government during the pandemic. “We don’t have our own vaccine capacity,” she noted, and the U.S. propaganda effort “contributed even more salt into the wound.”
The campaign also reinforced what one former health secretary called a longstanding suspicion of China, most recently because of aggressive behavior by Beijing in disputed areas of the South China Sea. Filipinos were unwilling to trust China’s Sinovac, which first became available in the country in March 2021, said Esperanza Cabral, who served as health secretary under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Cabral said she had been unaware of the U.S. military’s secret operation.
“I’m sure that there are lots of people who died from COVID who did not need to die from COVID,” she said.
To implement the anti-vax campaign, the Defense Department overrode strong objections from top U.S. diplomats in Southeast Asia at the time, Reuters found. Sources involved in its planning and execution say the Pentagon, which ran the program through the military’s psychological operations center in Tampa, Florida, disregarded the collateral impact that such propaganda may have on innocent Filipinos.
“We weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective,” said a senior military officer involved in the program. “We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.” A new disinformation war
In uncovering the secret U.S. military operation, Reuters interviewed more than two dozen current and former U.S officials, military contractors, social media analysts and academic researchers. Reporters also reviewed Facebook, X and Instagram posts, technical data and documents about a set of fake social media accounts used by the U.S. military. Some were active for more than five years.
Clandestine psychological operations are among the government’s most highly sensitive programs. Knowledge of their existence is limited to a small group of people within U.S. intelligence and military agencies. Such programs are treated with special caution because their exposure could damage foreign alliances or escalate conflict with rivals.
Over the last decade, some U.S. national security officials have pushed for a return to the kind of aggressive clandestine propaganda operations against rivals that the United States’ wielded during the Cold War. Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, in which Russia used a combination of hacks and leaks to influence voters, the calls to fight back grew louder inside Washington.
In 2019, Trump authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a clandestine campaign on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in China against its government, Reuters reported in March. As part of that effort, a small group of operatives used bogus online identities to spread disparaging narratives about Xi Jinping’s government.
COVID-19 galvanized the drive to wage psychological operations against China. One former senior Pentagon leader described the pandemic as a “bolt of energy” that finally ignited the long delayed counteroffensive against China’s influence war.
The Pentagon’s anti-vax propaganda came in response to China’s own efforts to spread false information about the origins of COVID. The virus first emerged in China in late 2019. But in March 2020, Chinese government officials claimed without evidence that the virus may have been first brought to China by an American service member who participated in an international military sports competition in Wuhan the previous year. Chinese officials also suggested that the virus may have originated in a U.S. Army research facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland. There’s no evidence for that assertion.
Mirroring Beijing’s public statements, Chinese intelligence operatives set up networks of fake social media accounts to promote the Fort Detrick conspiracy, according to a U.S. Justice Department complaint.
China’s messaging got Washington’s attention. Trump subsequently coined the term “China virus” as a response to Beijing’s accusation that the U.S. military exported COVID to Wuhan. US President Donald Trump holds a news conference with members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the COVID-19 outbreak at the White House on February 26, 2020.
“That was false. And rather than having an argument, I said, ‘I have to call it where it came from,’” Trump said in a March 2020 news conference. “It did come from China.”
China’s Foreign Ministry said in an email that it opposed “actions to politicize the origins question and stigmatize China.” The ministry had no comment about the Justice Department’s complaint.
Beijing didn’t limit its global influence efforts to propaganda. It announced an ambitious COVID assistance program, which included sending masks, ventilators and its own vaccines – still being tested at the time – to struggling countries. In May 2020, Xi announced that the vaccine China was developing would be made available as a “global public good,” and would ensure “vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries.” Sinovac was the primary vaccine available in the Philippines for about a year until U.S.-made vaccines became more widely available there in early 2022.
Washington’s plan, called Operation Warp Speed, was different. It favored inoculating Americans first, and it placed no restrictions on what pharmaceutical companies could charge developing countries for the remaining vaccines not used by the United States. The deal allowed the companies to “play hardball” with developing countries, forcing them to accept high prices, said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University who has worked with the World Health Organization.
The deal “sucked most of the supply out of the global market,” Gostin said. “The United States took a very determined America First approach.”
To Washington’s alarm, China’s offers of assistance were tilting the geopolitical playing field across the developing world, including in the Philippines, where the government faced upwards of 100,000 infections in the early months of the pandemic.
The U.S. relationship with Manila had grown tense after the 2016 election of the bombastic Duterte. A staunch critic of the United States, he had threatened to cancel a key pact that allows the U.S. military to maintain legal jurisdiction over American troops stationed in the country.
Duterte said in a July 2020 speech he had made “a plea” to Xi that the Philippines be at the front of the line as China rolled out vaccines. He vowed in the same speech that the Philippines would no longer challenge Beijing’s aggressive expansion in the South China Sea, upending a key security understanding Manila had long held with Washington.
“China is claiming it. We are claiming it. China has the arms, we do not have it.” Duterte said. “So, it is simple as that.”
Days later, China’s foreign minister announced Beijing would grant Duterte’s plea for priority access to the vaccine, as part of a “new highlight in bilateral relations.”
China’s growing influence fueled efforts by U.S. military leaders to launch the secret propaganda operation Reuters uncovered.
“We didn’t do a good job sharing vaccines with partners,” a senior U.S. military officer directly involved in the campaign in Southeast Asia told Reuters. “So what was left to us was to throw shade on China’s.” Military trumped diplomats
U.S. military leaders feared that China’s COVID diplomacy and propaganda could draw other Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia and Malaysia, closer to Beijing, furthering its regional ambitions.
A senior U.S. military commander responsible for Southeast Asia, Special Operations Command Pacific General Jonathan Braga, pressed his bosses in Washington to fight back in the so-called information space, according to three former Pentagon officials.
The commander initially wanted to punch back at Beijing in Southeast Asia. The goal: to ensure the region understood the origin of COVID while promoting skepticism toward what were then still-untested vaccines offered by a country that they said had lied continually since the start of the pandemic.
A spokesperson for Special Operations Command declined to comment.
At least six senior State Department officials responsible for the region objected to this approach. A health crisis was the wrong time to instill fear or anger through a psychological operation, or psyop, they argued during Zoom calls with the Pentagon.
“We’re stooping lower than the Chinese and we should not be doing that,” said a former senior State Department official for the region who fought against the military operation.
While the Pentagon saw Washington’s rapidly diminishing influence in the Philippines as a call to action, the withering partnership led American diplomats to plead for caution.
“The relationship is hanging from a thread,” another former senior U.S. diplomat recounted. “Is this the moment you want to do a psyop in the Philippines? Is it worth the risk?”
In the past, such opposition from the State Department might have proved fatal to the program. Previously in peacetime, the Pentagon needed approval of embassy officials before conducting psychological operations in a country, often hamstringing commanders seeking to quickly respond to Beijing’s messaging, three former Pentagon officials told Reuters.
But in 2019, before COVID surfaced in full force, then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed a secret order that later paved the way for the launch of the U.S. military propaganda campaign. The order elevated the Pentagon’s competition with China and Russia to the priority of active combat, enabling commanders to sidestep the State Department when conducting psyops against those adversaries. The Pentagon spending bill passed by Congress that year also explicitly authorized the military to conduct clandestine influence operations against other countries, even “outside of areas of active hostilities.”
Esper, through a spokesperson, declined to comment. A State Department spokesperson referred questions to the Pentagon. U.S. propaganda machine
In spring 2020, special-ops commander Braga turned to a cadre of psychological-warfare soldiers and contractors in Tampa to counter Beijing’s COVID efforts. Colleagues say Braga was a longtime advocate of increasing the use of propaganda operations in global competition. In trailers and squat buildings at a facility on Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base, U.S. military personnel and contractors would use anonymous accounts on X, Facebook and other social media to spread what became an anti-vax message. The facility remains the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda factory.
Psychological warfare has played a role in U.S. military operations for more than a hundred years, although it has changed in style and substance over time. So-called psyopers were best known following World War II for their supporting role in combat missions across Vietnam, Korea and Kuwait, often dropping leaflets to confuse the enemy or encourage their surrender.
After the al Qaeda attacks of 2001, the United States was fighting a borderless, shadowy enemy, and the Pentagon began to wage a more ambitious kind of psychological combat previously associated only with the CIA. The Pentagon set up front news outlets, paid off prominent local figures, and sometimes funded television soap operas in order to turn local populations against militant groups or Iranian-backed militias, former national security officials told Reuters.
Unlike earlier psyop missions, which sought specific tactical advantage on the battlefield, the post-9/11 operations hoped to create broader change in public opinion across entire regions.
By 2010, the military began using social media tools, leveraging phony accounts to spread messages of sympathetic local voices – themselves often secretly paid by the United States government. As time passed, a growing web of military and intelligence contractors built online news websites to pump U.S.-approved narratives into foreign countries. Today, the military employs a sprawling ecosystem of social media influencers, front groups and covertly placed digital advertisements to influence overseas audiences, according to current and former military officials.
China’s efforts to gain geopolitical clout from the pandemic gave Braga justification to launch the propaganda campaign that Reuters uncovered, sources said. Pork in the vaccine?
By summer 2020, the military’s propaganda campaign moved into new territory and darker messaging, ultimately drawing the attention of social media executives.
In regions beyond Southeast Asia, senior officers in the U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia, launched their own version of the COVID psyop, three former military officials told Reuters.
Although the Chinese vaccines were still months from release, controversy roiled the Muslim world over whether the vaccines contained pork gelatin and could be considered “haram,” or forbidden under Islamic law. Sinovac has said that the vaccine was “manufactured free of porcine materials.” Many Islamic religious authorities maintained that even if the vaccines did contain pork gelatin, they were still permissible since the treatments were being used to save human life.
The Pentagon campaign sought to intensify fears about injecting a pig derivative. As part of an internal investigation at X, the social media company used IP addresses and browser data to identify more than 150 phony accounts that were operated from Tampa by U.S. Central Command and its contractors, according to an internal X document reviewed by Reuters.
“Can you trust China, which tries to hide that its vaccine contains pork gelatin and distributes it in Central Asia and other Muslim countries where many people consider such a drug haram?” read an April 2021 tweet sent from a military-controlled account identified by X.
The Pentagon also covertly spread its messages on Facebook and Instagram, alarming executives at parent company Meta who had long been tracking the military accounts, according to former military officials.
One military-created meme targeting Central Asia showed a pig made out of syringes, according to two people who viewed the image. Reuters found similar posts that traced back to U.S. Central Command. One shows a Chinese flag as a curtain separating Muslim women in hijabs and pigs stuck with vaccine syringes. In the center is a man with syringes; on his back is the word “China.” It targeted Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, a country that distributed tens of millions of doses of China’s vaccines and participated in human trials. Translated into English, the X post reads: “China distributes a vaccine made of pork gelatin.”
Facebook executives had first approached the Pentagon in the summer of 2020, warning the military that Facebook workers had easily identified the military’s phony accounts, according to three former U.S. officials and another person familiar with the matter. The government, Facebook argued, was violating Facebook’s policies by operating the bogus accounts and by spreading COVID misinformation.
The military argued that many of its fake accounts were being used for counterterrorism and asked Facebook not to take down the content, according to two people familiar with the exchange. The Pentagon pledged to stop spreading COVID-related propaganda, and some of the accounts continued to remain active on Facebook.
Nonetheless, the anti-vax campaign continued into 2021 as Biden took office.
Angered that military officials had ignored their warning, Facebook officials arranged a Zoom meeting with Biden’s new National Security Council shortly after the inauguration, Reuters learned. The discussion quickly became tense.
“It was terrible,” said a senior administration official describing the reaction after learning of the campaign’s pig-related posts. “I was shocked. The administration was pro-vaccine and our concern was this could affect vaccine hesitancy, especially in developing countries.”
By spring 2021, the National Security Council ordered the military to stop all anti-vaccine messaging. “We were told we needed to be pro-vaccine, pro all vaccines,” said a former senior military officer who helped oversee the program. Even so, Reuters found some anti-vax posts that continued through April and other deceptive COVID-related messaging that extended into that summer. Reuters could not determine why the campaign didn’t end immediately with the NSC’s order. In response to questions from Reuters, the NSC declined to comment.
The senior Defense Department official said that those complaints led to an internal review in late 2021, which uncovered the anti-vaccine operation. The probe also turned up other social and political messaging that was “many, many leagues away” from any acceptable military objective. The official would not elaborate.
The review intensified the following year, the official said, after a group of academic researchers at Stanford University flagged some of the same accounts as pro-Western bots in a public report. The high-level Pentagon review was first reported by the Washington Post, which also reported that the military used fake social media accounts to counter China’s message that COVID came from the United States. But the Post report did not reveal that the program evolved into the anti-vax propaganda campaign uncovered by Reuters.
The senior defense official said the Pentagon has rescinded parts of Esper’s 2019 order that allowed military commanders to bypass the approval of U.S. ambassadors when waging psychological operations. The rules now mandate that military commanders work closely with U.S. diplomats in the country where they seek to have an impact. The policy also restricts psychological operations aimed at “broad population messaging,” such as those used to promote vaccine hesitancy during COVID.
The Pentagon’s audit concluded that the military’s primary contractor handling the campaign, General Dynamics IT, had employed sloppy tradecraft, taking inadequate steps to hide the origin of the fake accounts, said a person with direct knowledge of the review. The review also found that military leaders didn’t maintain enough control over its psyop contractors, the person said.
A spokesperson for General Dynamics IT declined to comment.
Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”
And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.
Scientists Found Carbon in an Ancient Place Where It Was Never Supposed to Be
Darren Orf Thu, June 13, 2024 Life May Have Kicked Off Earlier Than We Thought
Aitor Diago - Getty Images
Scientists estimate that the universe garnered enough carbon to form planets some one billion years after the Big Bang.
But that timeline might be a bit more complicated—a new study analyzing a primordial galaxy named GS-z12, which formed 350 million years after the Big Bang, contained clouds of carbon.
This could indicate that early stars released less energy than expected when going supernova, and instead released their outer carbon shells rather than consuming the element in a black hole.
The nonmetallic chemical element carbon is the essential building block of all life (at least on Earth). Because the element can combine with so many other elements—including itself, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and more—carbon is seen as required for complex life to take shape.
During the early (millions of) years after the Big Bang, no carbon existed, because the early universe contained only light elements like hydrogen and helium (as well as trace amounts of lithium). Scientists estimate that the heavy element-engines, which were the very first stars, likely churned out enough carbon to form planets around one billion years after the Big Bang.
However, scientists from the University of Cambridge are altering that timeline significantly after analyzing data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In that data lurked an ancient galaxy named GS-z12—one of the most distant ever observed at some 13 billion light-years away—in which the experts discovered traces of clouds of carbon. Accepted for publication by the Astronomy & Astrophysics and posted to the preprint server arXiv, the study could prove that carbon was present in the universe as early as 350 million years after the Big Bang.
“Earlier research suggested that carbon started to form in large quantities relatively late – about one billion years after the Big Bang,” Roberto Maiolino, a co-author of the study, said in a press statement. “But we’ve found that carbon formed much earlier – it might even be the oldest metal of all.”
JWST’s Near Infrared Spectrograph, or NIRSpec, allows the groundbreaking space telescope to analyze light from this galaxy in a spectrum of colors. This is particularly important because GS-z12 is both incredibly faint and 100,000 times less massive than our own Milky Way. Luckily, while JWST spends hundreds of hours gathering light from this distant corner of the universe, it also uses its microshutter array to glimpse other objects at the same time.
Because elements leave behind different chemical fingerprints in this infrared spectrum, scientists can analyze the data and determine what exactly makes up this early galaxy. The scientists clearly found traces of carbon, as well as oxygen and neon. This discovery could make scientists rethink the role of early stars in the universe.
“We were surprised to see carbon so early in the universe, since it was thought that the earliest stars produced much more oxygen than carbon,” Maiolino said in a press statement. “We had thought that carbon was enriched much later, through entirely different processes, but the fact that it appears so early tells us that the very first stars may have operated very differently.”
One explanation, according to the researchers, is that early stars released less energy when going supernova than initially believed. This might’ve allowed carbon—likely contained in the stars’ outer shells—to quickly seed the universe, rather than being consumed by a collapsing black hole.
This means life might’ve gotten quite the headstart on the timeline we have long believed to be true. And while that life might look much different than our own, we can likely bet on one thing—it was probably made of carbon.
Boeing Starliner not ready to come back to Earth – leaving astronauts on International Space Station
Andrew Griffin Fri, June 14, 2024 Boeing Starliner not ready to come back to Earth – leaving astronauts on International Space Station
It means that the astronauts who were carried to the space station in a mission earlier this month will have to stay for longer than expected, coming back on 22 June. They may end up staying for longer.
Nasa said that the delayed return will allow Nasa and Boeing to spend more time planning for the astronauts’ return and their journey back down to Earth.
Nasa astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were launched aboard Starliner June 5 and arrived at the ISS the next day, following a 24-hour flight in which the spacecraft encountered four helium leaks and five failures of its 28 manoeuvring thrusters.
“The extra time allows the team to finalise departure planning and operations while the spacecraft remains cleared for crew emergency return scenarios within the flight rules,” Nasa and Boeing said in a statement.
They are targeting a departure no earlier than June 22, leaving open an opportunity for further extensions of time at the ISS. Starliner, while designed for future six-month missions, can stay docked to the ISS for a maximum of 45 days during its current mission.
The return to Earth is expected to last about six hours and target a location in the desert of Utah, New Mexico or other backup locations, depending on local weather conditions.
Starliner‘s first flight with astronauts is a crucial last test in a much-delayed and over-budget program before Nasa can certify the spacecraft for routine astronaut missions and add a second US crew vehicle to its fleet, alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
The spacecraft during its time docked to the ISS has encountered more problems. A fifth leak of helium - used to pressurize Starliner‘s propulsion system thrusters - popped up, and separately an oxidizer valve has been stuck, Nasa has said.
Those in-flight problems follow years of other challenges Boeing has faced with Starliner, including a 2019 uncrewed test failure where dozens of software glitches, design problems and management issues nixed its ability to dock to the ISS. A 2022 repeat uncrewed test succeeded to dock.
If all goes as planned with Starliner‘s return of two astronauts back to Earth, Boeing still faces other challenges before making the spacecraft operational and bringing it to market for other non-Nasa customers.
Boeing's Starliner astronaut taxi spotted at ISS (satellite photo)
Mike Wall Fri, June 14, 2024 Boeing's Starliner capsule is seen docked to the International Space Station in this zoomed-in view of an image captured by Maxar Technologies' WorldView-3 satellite on June 7, 2024. | Credit: Maxar Technologies
An Earth-observing satellite has given us a unique view of Boeing's new Starliner astronaut taxi in space.
Starliner arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on June 6, delivering NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the orbiting lab on a shakeout cruise known as Crew Flight Test (CFT).
A day later, Maxar Technologies' WorldView-3 satellite snapped a striking photo of the ISS and its new arrival, which is prominently featured near the center of the frame. a white space capsule is seen docked to the international space station in this satellite photo
WorldView-3, which launched in August 2014, usually observes Earth from its vantage point 385 miles (620 kilometers) above our planet. But the new photo shows that the spacecraft can study objects in orbit as well.
"This type of imagery collection, known as non-Earth imaging (NEI), is a breakthrough capability that enables Maxar to support critical space domain awareness missions for government and commercial customers," Maxar wrote in an X post on Wednesday (June 12) that featured the ISS-Starliner photo.
Non-Earth imaging could become a higher and higher priority for the U.S. government and other entities with a large stake in the final frontier over the coming years.
The number of satellites going to orbit has jumped dramatically recently and will likely continue to grow, largely due to the rise of megaconstellations such as SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, which currently consists of more than 6,000 active spacecraft. Keeping tabs on this ever-growing orbital population will likely become increasingly important, and increasingly challenging, for satellite operators.
CFT is the first-ever crewed mission for Starliner, which is scheduled to come back to Earth no earlier than June 18. If all goes well on the mission, the capsule will be certified to fly long-duration astronaut missions to and from the ISS for NASA.
SpaceX already does this with its Crew Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket. Elon Musk's company is in the middle of its eighth operational astronaut flight to the ISS, known as Crew-8.
NON SCIENTIST CHEERLEADER
NASA administrator says 'at least a trillion' other planets like Earth could exist in universe
Bret Baier
FOX NEWS Thu, June 13, 2024
NASA has plans to return astronauts to the lunar surface in the near future. Next year, four astronauts will orbit the moon.
"We don't need to go back to the moon just for the moon. We're going back to learn new things. In order for us to go to Mars and beyond," said Administrator Bill Nelson.
The Perseverance Rover is exploring the Jezero Crater on Mars, which was once a lake on the red planet. Scientists believe life may have existed there in the distant past.
"It's getting samples and it's drilling with this drill, creating these core samples about the size of a cigar and sealing them up in these titanium tubes," Nelson explained. "We're trying to figure out right now how we're going to go back and get them and bring them back to Earth, so that we got an idea of whether or not there was life there."
NASA is now working with several companies to develop a plan for the return mission, which could happen in the 2030s. The agency is also working with Firebird Diagnostics in the search for life on Mars.
"NASA's mission is to go out, among other things, and discover whether or not we are alone," said Firebird Diagnostics Founder Steven Benner.
His company sells so-called alien DNA. It uses synthetic properties and has helped NASA understand what possible forms of alternative DNA might exist.
"It's a big question as to how molecular biology could be done if it was, done by an organism that does not share a common ancestor, a common origin, with you and me," Benner said.
The DNA has also helped detect diseases like Covid-19, cancer and HIV here on Earth. Human DNA has four nucleotides or building blocks. Benner’s synthetic material has up to eight. They allow for more sensitive testing and eliminate false positives.
"It allows you to get that needle in the haystack without having to worry about all the background information," Benner said.
Nelson says searching for life on other planets helps us understand better who we are in the universe.
"If you ask me directly, do I think that there are aliens here on Earth? I don't think so. I don't absolutely know. And I don't think the U.S. government is hiding anything from anybody. But if you ask me, ‘do I think there's life out there in the cosmos?,’" Nelson said. "I ask our NASA scientists that question, ‘how many possibilities in the vastness of this universe are there, that there's another planet like Earth that would be habitable for life as something like we know it?’ They said at least a trillion."
Nelson says while the odds that life may exist in space, whatever it may be, likely exists so far away that it won’t be discovered for a long time. However, NASA is still preparing for the possibility.
"Even if you could travel at the speed of light to a far off distant world, the close ones are a thousand light years away," Nelson said. "That doesn't mean that we cannot have some kind of understanding of what's out there."
Nelson has asked NASA scientists to use artificial intelligence in the software of spacecrafts.
"In a spacecraft like Voyager, that is out in interstellar space, that is beyond our solar system, if it came upon another spacecraft, it could real time learn to communicate with that other spacecraft," Nelson said. "That’s what we do at NASA. They make the impossible possible. It's a bunch of wizards around here."
NASA administrator describes future projects, partnerships in space
Bret Baier, Amy Munneke
FOX NEWS Thu, June 13, 2024
Bill Nelson says he never imagined he would become administrator of the nation’s space agency, NASA.
"I had no idea," Nelson said. "As a matter of fact, I grew up in the shadow of the cape, never thinking I would ever have a chance to fly in space."
Nelson served in both the House and Senate as a Democrat representing Florida. In 1986, Nelson trained and flew with the crew of the space shuttle Columbia and became the second sitting member of Congress to travel to space, after Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah.
"I flew in the space shuttle. We had 135 flights, two that were catastrophic. The first one, Challenger, was 10 days after our flight landed back on Earth," Nelson said. "It's an unforgiving environment. And there you are, white-knuckle time when that baby's going up and when it's coming back."
The space shuttle completed its final mission in 2011. Since then, NASA has begun working with an increasing number of private companies to travel and conduct research in space. He says the partnerships have helped unite Americans.
"Just think how the space history here brought us together. Think when the Soviets beat us, and we were scared because they had the high ground. They had Sputnik, and then they got Yuri Gagarin up first for one orbit," Nelson said. "But [a few] months later, John Glenn climbed into that Mercury capsule. He shimmied into it, and it's sitting on top of an Atlas rocket. There was a 20% chance that that thing was going to blow up. And when Glenn was successful for three orbits, that changed everything."
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson speaks during a media briefing at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 14, 2023.
Nelson said space is part of the American spirit and making the impossible possible.
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard," President John F. Kennedy said during a speech at Rice University in 1962.
Kennedy’s speech has helped inspire decades of research at NASA. When the agency was created in 1958, Congress put into law that any technology created for space must also be practical for earth.
"Since 1958, we've been spinning off these technologies to the public in the forms of new products and services that make our lives better," said NASA Technology Transfer Program Executive Daniel Lockney. "[The technologies] enhance the U.S. economy, save lives and in other instances are just really cool things that we get as a result of the nation's investment in this aerospace research."
Lockney has worked to transfer NASA inventions or intellectual property to the public sector.
"We get credit for things that we didn't do, which is a wonderful problem to have," Lockney said. "Something we did do that we don't get credit for is, we invented the camera that's in your cellphone."
In the 1980s, spacecraft imaging helped launch the digital camera industry using charged devices to create pictures in space. By the next decade, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California worked to create image sensors that used less power and were easier to mass-produce. The result was a small digital computer chip.
"We didn't know what to do with it," Lockney said. "Then, Nokia approached us, and they had this wacky idea of putting a camera in a telephone." A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft launches from pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5, 2024, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA administrator Bill Nelson says public-private partnerships in space are helping unite Americans.
The lightweight, high-resolution camera microchip didn’t require a lot of power and was perfect for spaceflight and handheld personal devices.
"Now, we all have the blessing of taking with our camera a photograph, and it's an absolutely beautiful photograph," Nelson said.
Bobby Braun, director for planetary science at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), discusses Mars sample return flight systems on Oct. 14, 2021, at the JPL in Pasadena, California.
New technology is being developed on Earth to advance space flight, but an increasing amount of research and innovation is being done in space. Nelson says astronauts are experimenting at the International Space Station 24/7. Private companies also have been sending astronauts into space for experimenting.
"The additional astronauts coming up are bringing their own [research], many of them sponsored by pharmaceutical companies to do their own. Whenever they want to send it up for much longer, we have our astronauts up there full time," he said.
How China's Chang'e 6 minirover snapped its epic photo on the moon's far side Andrew Jones Fri, June 14, 2024
An image of China's Chang'e 6 lander on the moon's far side, snapped by the mission's minirover. | Credit: CNSA
China has revealed details about a miniature rover tucked away on the country's pioneering Chang'e 6 lunar far side sample-return mission.
Chang'e 6 launched on May 3 on a Long March 5 rocket. While being a repurposed backup to the successful 2020 Chang'e 5 mission, it was revealed after launch that the new spacecraft also packed a surprise rover.
The Chang'e 6 lander touched down in Apollo crater with the South Pole-Aitken basin on June 1. The rover was deployed around two days later, after sampling operations on the moon had been completed.
The small, autonomous vehicle drove away from its parent craft and snapped an iconic image of the lander, topped with an ascent vehicle which would later blast the collected samples into lunar orbit. The image shows solar arrays, landing legs, a deployed sampling arm and a basalt Chinese flag.
The rover is highly capable and has significantly enhanced autonomous intelligence, stated its developer, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), according to the state-run media outlet Xinhua.
The rover autonomously detached from the lander, drove to a suitable position and selected an ideal angle for the photograph before capturing the image, according to the report.
The small vehicle represents "a significant stride forward in the development of autonomous intelligence in China's deep space exploration endeavors, promising a positive influence on future lunar exploration," according to CASC.
At approximately 11 pounds (5 kilograms), the rover is much smaller and lighter than China's first two moon rovers: Yutu and Yutu 2, part of the 2013 near side Chang'e 3 and 2019 far side Chang'e 4 missions, respectively. Each Yutu weighed around 310 pounds (140 kg). Yutu 2 is still active inside the moon's Von Kármán crater.
While China has not provided details, the Chang'e 6 lander and rover likely ceased operations when the ascent vehicle lifted off from atop the lander, blasting it with high-velocity exhaust. In any case, the lander and rover were not designed to survive the deep cold of lunar night that has since fallen over Apollo crater.
Chang'e 6 has been supported by Queqiao 2. The relay satellite bounced signals between ground teams and the spacecraft on the far side of the moon, which never faces Earth.
Chang'e 6 is expected to deliver around 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) of precious lunar far side samples to Earth around June 25.
NASA's Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, is doing science again after problem
ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN Fri, June 14, 2024 FILE - This illustration provided by NASA depicts Voyager 1. The most distant spacecraft from Earth stopped sending back understandable data in November 2023. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California announced this week that Voyager 1's four scientific instruments are back in business after a technical snafu in November. (NASA via AP, File)
DALLAS (AP) — NASA's Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, is sending science data again.
Voyager 1's four instruments are back in business after a computer problem in November, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said this week. The team first received meaningful information again from Voyager 1 in April, and recently commanded it to start studying its environment again.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is drifting through interstellar space, or the space between star systems. Before reaching this region, the spacecraft discovered a thin ring around Jupiter and several of Saturn’s moons. Its instruments are designed to collect information about plasma waves, magnetic fields and particles.
Voyager 1 is over 15 billion miles (24.14 kilometers) from Earth. Its twin Voyager 2 — also in interstellar space — is more than 12 billion miles (19.31 kilometers) miles away.
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Judge rejects bankruptcy plan for Alex Jones’ Infowars but allows him to liquidate his personal assets
Jon Passantino, Nicki Brown, Oliver Darcy and Hadas Gold, CNN Fri, Jun 14, 2024
A Texas bankruptcy judge has rejected a proposed liquidation of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ company Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, saying that a denial of the bankruptcy plan was, in his opinion, in the best interest of the creditors. But the judge approved a separate liquidation of Jones’ personal assets.
Judge Chris Lopez said the Infowars bankruptcy process had dragged on and that it needed to stop “incurring costs” and let the families of Sandy Hook victims try to claim what they are owed through state courts. The families have not received payment of the approximately $1.5 billion in damages against Jones that they have won after he lied about the 2012 school massacre.
“The right call is to dismiss this case,” Lopez said Friday.
Lopez made his ruling in a lengthy decision where he seemed emotional at times, once even noting the timing of this decision being made shortly before Father’s Day.
“I think it needed to happen,” he said towards the end of the hearing. “I wish I would’ve picked a better day.”
Unanswered questions
The rejection of the bankruptcy plan leaves many questions to sort out in the decision’s wake. Among them: What happens next for Infowars? And what legal avenues remain for the victims’ families to collect the massive sum Jones still owes them?
This judgment could be viewed as a partial victory for Jones, who fought the liquidation proposal – but so too did some families, whose attorneys said they’ll benefit more from the bankruptcy plan’s dismissal by going after Jones’ assets immediately – rather than waiting for a prolonged bankruptcy procedure to play out.
That ruling leaves Free Speech Systems to face its creditors outside of bankruptcy in state courts, noted Marie Reilly, professor of bankruptcy law at Penn State University.
In a statement, an attorney for the families said they would press on.
“Today is a good day. Alex Jones has lost ownership of Infowars, the corrupt business he has used for years to attack the Connecticut families and so many others,” said Chris Mattei, an attorney for the families. “The Court authorized us to move immediately to collect against all Infowars assets, and we intend to do exactly that.”
Lopez noted that the case is far from over. The interim trustee, and later the permanent trustee , in Jones’ personal case will ultimately decided Infowars’ fate.
“Those trustees will make decisions about where things go,” he said. “We’re not leaving thing s into the wind here.”
Jay Westbrook, a University of Texas bankruptcy law professor, said that Infowars could still be sold by the court-appointed trustee to pay some of the damages owed to the families, but it would likely not fetch a high price.
“Jones owns [Free Speech Systems] and thus his bankruptcy trustee could sell it, but without his active promotion it may be of little value, except for its inventory of products he has been selling,” Westbrook said.
Jones had been opposed to liquidating Infowars and in recent days ranted on his show about what could be its impending shutdown, urging his audience to buy his products to support him.
“I’m going to try to move forward and maximize the amount of money we can make at Info wars to then have a wind-down,” Jones said outside the court house after the hearing Friday.
Jones’ attorney, Vickie Driver, applauded the decision, saying the judge was fair in his review of the unique aspects of the case.
“Mr. Jones did everything he could to preserve as much value as he could in Free Speech Systems to pay the plaintiffs,” Driver said.
Westbrook said if Jones continues at Infowars, it could maximize the amount of money the victims families could draw from it.
“The problem is that Jones’ appeal to his audience, awful as it is to say it, is probably the only thing of value he has that is not exempt in Texas and it is very difficult to make him use it to benefit anyone else,” Westbrook said. Jones’ personal bankruptcy approved
Earlier on Friday, Lopez approved the liquidation of Jones’ personal assets after the conspiracy theorist agreed to convert his personal bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 liquidation last week. The liquidation means that Jones will immediately lose control of his property except for certain exempt property, such as a $2 million house in Austin.
Jones’ decision to seek bankruptcy protection comes after he agreed to demands from the families of Sandy Hook victims.
The judge said an interim trustee will be appointed to oversee Jones’ estate, as is standard in these cases. Jones’ attorney Vickie Driver told the court $2.8 million from the sale of Jones’ ranch could be sent to the trustee.
Jones founded Infowars, an influential conspiracy empire, in the late 1990s. Over the years, Jones has used the media company to poison the public discourse with lies and conspiracy theories, and he also enriched himself, making millions of dollars in the process.
Whatever proceeds are gained from Jones’ personal bankruptcy will amount to just a fraction of what he owes families of Sandy Hook victims.
The families argued to the court that there is “no prospect” the Jones’ company could produce a proper reorganization plan under a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which would allow the company to remain operational through its restructuring.
The judge’s rulings on Friday would not prevent Jones from spreading conspiracy theories and lies online. X CEO Elon Musk restored Jones’ social media account in December 2023 after a five-year ban from the platform. And Jones could go on any number of far-right outlets to share his outlandish views.
But the Sandy Hook families are hoping to seize Jones’ social media accounts, arguing they are a key part of his Infowars business that allow Jones to promote his brand. And Jones may not be welcome at some venues: He had been listed as a guest on the Milwaukee stop on Tucker Carlson’s live tour but was recently dropped from the lineup without explanation. Lies and conspiracy theories
Since founding Infowars in the late 1990s, Jones has pushed several conspiracy theories, including the lie that the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, mass school shooting was a so-called “false flag” operation staged by the government and that the grieving family members of 20 child victims were “actors.” Jones makes money on those conspiracy theories by hawking high-priced dietary supplements to his audience.
The mood Friday on Jones’ Infowars was somber, with the far-right outlet’s hosts speculating on its future. Chase Geiser, an Infowars host who had driven with Jones to the courthouse where the bankruptcy hearing was underway, made a brief appearance on the outlet, attempting to twist the judge’s decision as one that would net Jones an even larger audience.
Jones’ regularly scheduled program was replaced with previously recorded interviews, airing conversations with Tucker Carlson and Russell Brand.
This story has been updated with additional developments and context.
