We are in the age of supervillains. But not the flashy, trashy, cheesy kinds, ones who can be spotted miles away due to their entourage or costumes. These are much more sinister, working from behind the shadows. They don’t monologue, they hijack conversations on a global scale. They don’t shoot guns or blow up buildings, they destroy democracies and enable atrocities. They don’t sell drugs or ammunition, they are in the business of creating chaos through lies & paid propaganda. They use aliases and virtual numbers. They operate under pseudonyms and shady profiles. And it took a whole team of international undercover journalists & sting operatives to uncover them and bring them to the spotlight.
#TeamJorge
#TalHanan aka Jorge (The Boss)
Ex-Israeli Special Forces
Specialises in - Hacking, political & corporate intelligence, and disinformation
#ZoharHanan aka Mick (The CEO)
Former Israeli intelligence, and polygraph expert
Specialises in - Intelligence, Gathering, Hacking, Influence Operations
#MashyMeidan aka Max (The Strategist)
Former Israeli intelligence
Specialises in - Psychological warfare
Working out of a small office made in #Modi’in, #Israel, Team Jorge might have come across as any run-of-the-mill small business, but what they did might have changed the face our of the world for the worse, many times over.
#Haaretz uncovered that these 3 might have been behind the biggest #disinformation campaign of all time. Their #operations are on such a #global #scale, that it’s almost impressive. These people kill the truth, #spread #lies and make it look authentic. They have it down to a science. In fact, they have their own software, named #AIMS that they use to seed any and all conversations across the world at the press of a few buttons.
The team of journalists uncovered that team Jorge was working with the notorious U.K. consulting firm #CambridgeAnalytica as well in the past. Team Jorge served as their Israeli black-ops arm after which Donald Trump allegedly won the toxic 2016 #US #presidential election campaign, as well as the ‘stop the steal’ campaign, that allegedly led to the 6th Jan capitol attack by the #MAGA supporters.
An ode to the real heroes
It took almost a year of work, done by courageous journalists from
#theguardian
#Derspiegel
#DieZeit
#LeMonde
The international organisation of investigative journalists #OCCRP
#radiofrance
#Haaretz
#themarker
And other media outlets from #France, #Kenya, #Israel, #America, #Indonesia, #Germany, #Tanzania and #Spain to crack open this case.
We know about this information warfare today, due to the courageous investigative journalism by Story Killers, a collaboration led by #ForbiddenStories - a group inspired by the work of our very own #GauriLankesh, the brave journalist who was shot dead outside her #Bangalore home in 2017.
Gauri was herself a victim of misinformation and was vilified online by an out-of-context video projecting her as anti-Hindu, which led to her being shot as a consequence.
At the time, she was working on her last article called “In the Age of False News”, which examined how so-called lie factories online were spreading disinformation in India.
In the final line of her article, which was published after her death, Gauri wrote: “I want to salute all those who expose fake news. I wish there were more of them.”
But we want to end this story with a question. Something that bugged us as we peeled the layers of this gripping narrative - Who is the real villain here? Is it Team Jorge? Surely. After all, they sow the seed of deception and lies around the world, bringing suffering to countless. They destroyed democracies, and nations took away the right to vote from millions and misguided millions more. They created, dealt and propagated chaos throughout the world, maybe even in India. But they didn’t do it for themselves. They didn’t set loose their weaponised disinformation machine on the world for their personal motivations. They did it for profit. They did it for a payday. So who is the real villain here? The gun that shot the bullet, the finger that pulled the trigger or the ones who hired the hitmen in the first place? And if all of them are equally guilty, as we think they are, then the world needs, nay should demand vindication.
Let us know who you think is the real supervillain in the comment section below. As Gauri Lankesh said, we are in the age of false news. To protect yourself from fake news, and protect the ones near & dear to you. It’s easy to get lost in the cacophony of social media, but we need to keep charging ahead, with #vygr.
Original Story - https://t.ly/ySyh
Expose Video - https://t.ly/SEtxe
Footage used from - #theguardian, #thewire, #forbiddenstories, #newsminute, #aljazeera
Stock imagery from - #pexels
© Vygr Media Private Limited 2022. All Rights Reserved.
