In a long English word salad, a quarter dozen WaPo journalists in a hit piece have tried painting us somewhere between RW & RAW (no pun intended). To do this, they recycled 2-year-old Pakistani propaganda, making it ‘ANONYMOUS.’
We dissect the ‘exposé’.
A Thread:
First, the claim of our association with Govt agencies/ RAW. The report is essentially a recycle of previous reports published by Pakistani ISPR/ Info-war machinery. The report is periodically recycled, last by known fake news peddler CJ Werleman.
Lazy Journalism!
The only ‘upgrade’ the WaPo did was to make this Pakistani allegation as ‘anonymous’. And whatever is in addition to that is again attributed to ‘anonymous’ sources. Hence, literally, every fact claimed is ‘anonymous’. The report has more than 10 anonymous sources.
Coming to the report, it is the first of its kind ‘expose’ which could not find a single fact put out by us as incorrect. Thus, basically, the WaPo accuses us of ‘psy-war by truth’!
One must wonder at the compulsions.
Their claim: Disinfo Lab often cites publicly available U.S. lobbying & campaign finance records & produces complex flowcharts to illustrate alleged relationships. Guilty as charged. (if charts are too complex, we can do an explainer)
Claim: When Disinfolab released its 1st major report, in early 2021, created a template for the kind of attacks in coming years. Guilty as charged. Our effort was to expose anti-India forces based on facts & figures.
It is extremely gratifying that this is not only achieved but acknowledged. We are delighted that OSINT space in India has awakened to its rightful place and that the stories told by White masters or Brown sepoys are contested on facts and not emotions.
While, in their questions to us and other people, WaPo journalists have themselves noted that our claims are factually correct! (thanks for acknowledgment), they alleged that we make ‘tenuous claims’, and cited a few examples.
1st USCIRF: WaPo accused us that we connect USCIRF Chair Nadine Maenza with Islamist fronts IAMC/JFA because her friend was head of lobby hired by IAMC. Fact: Maenza was at IAMC/JFA events–despite their radical Islamist links. AND her pal’s firm was hired by same fronts.
Not only that, USCIRF changed India’s map – removed Kashmir – IMMEDIATELY AFTER the lobby money from Pakistan-linked Islamist fronts started flowing to Maenza’s ‘friend’ Terry in 2013. \
Coincidence?
Claim: WaPo says we accused Pramila Jayapal because she was a Modi critic WRONG. We accused her of ‘sponsored’ views on Kashmir.She was engaged by lobby firm Holland&Knight who was paid by Pak govt.
Her tweets on Kashmir were co-terminus with lobby contract Coincidence?
Claim: We target Modi critics. Apparently, it seems as if reading isn’t essential for writing too much English. We’ve exposed everyone, including ruling party leaders, whenever we identified a coordinated info-war, esp. if it concerns anti-India forces.
Some examples:
Claim: Lab is associated with RW/ BJP/ Modi because people associated with them RT/ use our reports! Really? That is the logic of association, as to who follows you and who RTs you? Then WaPo must be a radical Islamist toolkit?
We claimed in our reports with documentary evidence (from the OSF & Soros funding data) that Soros/ OSF have been funding radical Islamist fronts, many of which are even accused of terror links. WaPo’s counter: Soros/ OSF spokesperson denied the claims!
It has to be one of its kind of reporting, which reproduces our claims and thinks it is an accusation! They have quoted our facts on ‘expert’ Pieter Friedrich, but did not deny it. Against our evidence citing the US documents, their counter is “Pieter said no”. OK.
Claim: We dug into the past of HfHR founder Sunita Vishwanath. And exposed her Soros connection. We don’t know what are we accused of. Shouldn’t we dig? But we dig. WaPo deliberately omitted the critical part– we dug into HfHR BECAUSE of its IAMC connect & FOUND Soros!
Funnily, the report uses our characterization– that we have moved from the age of information to the age of disinformation- & has quoted our baseline– that no info-war/ psy-war is possible without fake news. And yet, did not cite a single piece of fake news in our report.
The report has surreptitiously connected unrelated news on politics, social media, etc, and clubbed it with Pakistani propaganda to make it sound like a story on DisInfo Lab. It is creative journalism at its best and intellectual dishonesty at its worst.
PS: It is not surprising that people who don’t understand OSINT are baffled by our reporting. It is especially hard for legacy media journos – Indian and foren alike, who have known journalism only as handouts from sources. Agencies are overrated. OSINT is underrated.
PPS: we had predicted in our first expose of WaPo that all this exercise is to whitewash the discredited ‘activists’ and ‘fronts’ who target India. And we repeat our advice to the powers that be – forget it.
(This article has been compiled from the tweet thread posted by @DisinfoLab on December 11, 2023, with minor edits to improve readability and conform to HinduPost style guide)
