Security Theater ("Crisis Actors")

[American Dream]

Parents of Sandy Hook victim slam Mark Zuckerberg in open letter

The parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner condemned CEO Mark Zuckerberg for not banning pages like Infowars from the platform.

REBEKAH ENTRALGO
JUL 25, 2018, 4:43 PM


THE PARENTS OF 6-YEAR-OLD SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SHOOTING VICTIM NOAH POZNER CRITICIZED FACEBOOK CEO MARK ZUCKERBERG IN AN OPEN LETTER THIS WEEK, CONDEMNING THE PLATFORM FOR ALLOWING CONSPIRACY THEORISTS TO PUSH FALSE CONTENT UNABATED.


The parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, who was killed in the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, penned an open letter in The Guardian Wednesday condemning Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for failing to effectively stop those spreading hoaxes and conspiracies on the social media platform.

The couple detailed how they were forced to live in hiding after “conspiracy groups and anti-government provocateurs” began spreading misinformation about their son’s death spread on Facebook. The couple wrote that Facebook subsequently chose to protect those claims — despite the fact that they were false — rather than deleting the sensitive material.

“Almost immediately after the massacre of 20 little children, all under the age of seven, and six elementary school teachers and staff, the attacks on us began,” Lenny Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa wrote. “Conspiracy groups and anti-government provocateurs began making claims on Facebook that the massacre was a hoax, that the murdered were so-called ‘crisis actors’ and that their audience should rise up to ‘find out the truth’ about our families. These claims and calls to action spread across Facebook like wildfire and, despite our pleas, were protected by Facebook.”

They added, “Our families are in danger as a direct result of the hundreds of thousands of people who see and believe the lies and hate speech, which you have decided should be protected.”

Pozner and De La Rosa appeared to be referring to right-wing host Alex Jones and his site InfoWars, which has repeatedly propagated a conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook shooting was a “hoax,” that the parents and children were actors, and that media photos from the scene were staged.

“Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. I couldn’t believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids,” Jones said on a segment of his web show in 2015. “And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors. I mean they even ended up using photos of kids killed in mass shootings here in a fake mass shooting in Turkey — so yeah, or Pakistan. The sky is now the limit.”

The families of eight Sandy Hook victims and an FBI agent who responded to the scene have since filed three separate defamation suits against Jones, who has repeatedly claimed the First Amendment protects his comments.

https://thinkprogress.org/sandy-hook-pa ... 0fc5d9202/

[American Dream]

Facebook suspends profile of Infowars founder, says ban is 'close'

The move comes after YouTube also removed four videos posted by the conspiracy theorist and far-right radio host.

by Daniel Arkin / Jul.27.2018 / 2:18 PM ET


Alex Jones from Infowars.com speaks during a rally in support of then presidential candidate Donald Trump near the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 18, 2016

Facebook is close to removing the pages of Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist and founder of the far-right media platform Infowars.

Facebook issued a 30-day suspension to Jones' profile on Thursday night after removing four videos on pages he runs on the social network. The content of the videos was not immediately clear, but the company said all four violated its community standards.

...Infowars has emerged as a particular flashpoint. Earlier this week, YouTube removed four videos posted by Jones and issued a warning that more violations could result in a ban from the video platform. It was not clear if YouTube and Facebook removed the same videos.

Jones is perhaps best known for falsely claiming the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was staged by actors. Those claims have resulted in harassment directed at Sandy Hook families and supporters. Families of Sandy Hook victims have filed lawsuits against Jones for defamation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-med ... d_nn_fb_ma

[American Dream]

Alex Jones tries to get $100K from parents of Sandy Hook victim who had to go into hiding over his conspiracy theories

Noor Al-Sibai NOOR AL-SIBAI
31 JUL 2018 AT 19:11 ET


Infowars' Alex Jones. Image via screengrab.

Infowars founder Alex Jones is suing the parents of a boy who died at Sandy Hook for $100,000 after his false claims about them forced them into hiding.

The New York Times reported that in a counter-suit filed after the parents of Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner sued Jones for defamation, the far-right conspiracy theorist is seeking $100,000 in court costs under a Texas law intended to protect free speech from people “who aim to silence them through costly litigation.”

The boy’s parents, Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner, have had to move seven times since their son was killed in the 2012 mass shooting at his elementary school after Jones claimed they were “crisis actors,” or people who act like victims of a tragedy to achieve a political end.

In the case of Sandy Hook, the “end” these “actors” would be achieving is gun control — but as the Pozner-De La Rosa family and others are arguing in multiple lawsuits, they have been defamed and further victimized by Jones’ claims.

In court, Jones and his attorneys said they’re seeking the hefty court costs under the Texas Citizens Participation Act because the family has taken measures “to silence those who openly oppose their very public ‘herculean’ efforts to ban the sale of certain weapons, ammunition and accessories, to pass new laws relating to gun registration and to limit free speech.”

The Pozner-De La Rosa family’s lawyers in their lawsuit against Jones recounted their history with the Infowars host in court filings. Pozner got an Infowars video taken down from YouTube and in retaliation, Jones “went on an angry rant” about the victim’s father “for nearly an hour.” The host then showed the audience “personal information and maps to addresses associated” with the family.

In 2016, the report continued, an Infowars fan named Lucy Richards was arrested for threatening Pozner multiple times and was later sentenced to five months in prison.

“As a condition of parole, a judge ordered that she cease consuming Infowars programming,” court documents viewed by the Times stated.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/alex-j ... -theories/

[American Dream]

The other side of the coin:

Norwalk native sues Infowars’ founder Alex Jones for $1 million

By Pat Tomlinson Updated 5:25 pm EDT, Friday, August 3, 2018





NORWALK — In his youth, Marcel Fontaine was a shy kid with a heavy stutter. As someone who was on the autism spectrum and had serious doubts about his sexual orientation, he preferred to go unnoticed rather than stick out to his peers.

Fontaine deliberately flew under people’s radar for years, until last February when he was falsely identified as the perpetrator behind the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla. that left 17 dead by Infowars.com, a site run by the provocateur and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Now, Fontaine, a Norwalk native, is suing Jones, Infowars LLC, the website’s publisher Free Speech Systems LLC and a writer on the site, Kit Daniels, in a million-dollar defamation lawsuit.

More Information
Other defamation lawsuits pending against Alex Jones

1. Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, the parents of Noah Pozner, who was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, filed suit against Alex Jones in state District Court in Travis County, Texas. The suit focuses on what they maintain is a false claim by Jones that De La Rosa was part of a faked interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. There was a hearing on Wednesday, Aug. 1 on a motion by Jones to dismiss the case.

2. Neil Heslin, the parent of a Sandy Hook victim, filed suit in state District Court in Travis County, Texas against Jones and InfoWars host and reporter Owen Shroyer. It focuses on what Heslin maintains is the false claim by Shroyer that Heslin was lying when he said he held his son’s dead body and observed a bullet hole in his head. A hearing is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 30.

3. The immediate families of four children and two educators killed at Sandy Hook filed suit against Jones and others in state court in Connecticut, maintaining that Jones has accused Sandy Hook families of faking their loved ones’ deaths, leading to harassment and death threats against them.

4. Brennan Gilmore filed suit against Jones, InfoWars reporter Lee Ann McAdoo and others in federal court in Charlottesville, Virginia. While participating in a counterprotest against neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Gilmore filmed on his cellphone the car driving into the crowd killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. His tweet of the video went viral, and he was accused by Jones and the others of being part of a plot to overthrow President Donald Trump. He claims that Jones falsely described him as a “high-level CIA” operative on the “payroll of (George) Soros.”

—Pat Tomlinson

Fontaine’s attorney Mark Bankston filed the defamation suit in state District Court in Travis County, Texas on Apr. 2, claiming that the post, which included his photo and was topped by headlines such as “Reported Florida Shooter Dressed as Communist, Supported ISIS” and “Reported Florida Shooter Discussed ‘Allahu Akbar’ on Instagram Profile,” was “manifestly false” and ultimately caused his client “enormous injury and continuing personal harassment.”

While Fontaine declined any interviews regarding the lawsuit, the 25-year-old did concede that this isn’t the first time he’s felt unfairly targeted. Kids at Brien McMahon High School would often mimic his stutter, and even after he graduated high school he struggled to feel at home in his own skin.

“I needed to pretend I was straight a lot until I came out (as gay),” Fontaine said.

After graduating high school, Fontaine attended Norwalk Community College but dropped out after a few semesters. He later moved to Keene, N.H., and took off to Massachusetts two years later. Just as Fontaine was getting comfortable in the new locale, the now infamous photo of him found its way to InfoWars.

“The plaintiff’s photograph spread across social media platforms with astonishing speed, resulting in its distribution to millions of additional people, typically accompanied by ridicule or malicious threats,” the lawsuit said.

On Thursday, Jones’ attorney, Eric Taube, sought to have his client removed from the lawsuit, claiming the decision to publish the photo on the InfoWars website was made by Daniels, a reporter for Free Speech Systems, LLC, which Taube said publishes the website, but that Jones himself had no part in publishing the erroneous image and knew nothing about it beforehand.

“The allegations with respect to Mr. Jones are zero,” the Austin attorney told Travis County District Judge Scott Jenkins.

“They say he defamed Mr. Fontaine and he published something” defamatory, Taube said. “He published nothing.”

Taube, who is representing all the defendants, is seeking to have the case dismissed, but, short of that, he is trying to remove Jones and InfoWars LLC from liability.

The lawsuit claims InfoWars targeted Fontaine due to the shirt he was wearing, which played on the phrase “Communist Party” by depicting historical Communist figures in different states of merriment complete with German economist Karl Marx wearing a lampshade on his head.

“Not only was the source extraordinarily untrustworthy, but even the most basic diligence would have revealed that the anonymous message was a cruel and stupid joke, and that Mr. Fontaine had been subject to harassment on the 4chan website for days prior to the shooting,” rebutted Bankston, referring to the site well-known for its trolling and hoaxes.

According to suit, Fontaine contacted the site and demanded the photo be removed. Instead, it took 14 hours for InfoWars.com to remove the post, during which time it spread around the world, the suit claims.

Jenkins will render a decision on whether to dismiss Fontaine’s case against any or all of the defendants within 30 days of receiving any remaining documents in the case.

https://www.nhregister.com/news/article ... 130576.php

[elfismiles]

For what its worth (and I know the assumed value = 0) ... Jones claims that the media are not reporting that his attorney's asked the courts to waive the $100,000 fee.

Alex Jones tries to get $100K from parents of Sandy Hook victim who had to go into hiding over his conspiracy theories

Noor Al-Sibai NOOR AL-SIBAI
31 JUL 2018 AT 19:11 ET



https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/alex-j ... -theories/

[American Dream]

Alex Jones loses bid to stop defamation suit against him
Jones is currently in the middle of several lawsuits.

LUKE BARNES
AUG 31, 2018, 10:33 AM


UNITED STATES - JULY 19: Radio host Alex Jones is escorted from a rally in the Public Square after inciting a confrontation near the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, July 19, 2016.


Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ bid to have a defamation lawsuit leveled against him by the parents of a Sandy Hook victim thrown out was denied on Thursday by a district judge in Austin, Texas.

Judge Scott Jenkins ruled that Jones must stand trial in a defamation lawsuit filed by Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa. The couple lost their son Noah during the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. Since then, Pozner and De La Rosa have been forced to move seven times because of persistent death threats and harassment from conspiracy theorists, who claim that the shooting was a false-flag to promote gun control and that the victims were all actors.

Jones has repeatedly pushed this false-flag theory. Commenting on a CNN interview between Anderson Cooper and De La Rosa last April for instance, Jones said “these holier-than-thou people… they go [gestures]. They glitch. They’re recycling a green-screen behind them.” Jones’ baseless, malicious, and repeated attacks led Pozner and De La Rosa to sue him for more than $1 million. Jones’ lawyer, Mark Enoch, claimed on Thursday that his client was simply “dispensing political speech,” and therefore protected by the First Amendment.

The lawsuit is one of a series of woes, legal and otherwise, that Jones and his channel Infowars are facing. Another parent of a Sandy Hook victim, Neil Heslin, is also suing Jones for defamation — although the judge has yet to rule as to whether this lawsuit can proceed. Six other families and an FBI agent have filed their own similar lawsuits.

Jones is also facing a lawsuit from Brennan Gilmore, a Foreign Service Officer who filmed James Alex Fields murdering a woman when he rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville last August. Jones later claimed that Gilmore was a “deep state operative” which, according to Gilmore’s lawsuit, inspired death threats and harassment against him.

Meanwhile, Big Tech is finally cracking down on Jones’ absurd and damaging conspiracy theories. Earlier in August, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube all banned Alex Jones from their platforms for violating community guidelines, while Facebook imposed a 30-day ban and said the pages would be removed permanently if Jones didn’t appeal.

While the bans won’t stop Jones from getting his conspiratorial message out, they have severely limited his reach, especially with his YouTube channel, which has 2.4 million subscribers. His attempts to set up an alternative broadcasting platform on Vimeo immediately backfired as well when Vimeo promptly shut down his channel.

Twitter, on the other hand, did not immediately follow in the footsteps of YouTube and Facebook in banning Jones. Even after CNN unearthed tweets highlighting conspiracies about the Sandy Hook shooting, as well as ones targeting media figures for harassment — in clear violation of the site’s own policies — Twitter declined to suspend Jones. The reason they gave was that the abusive tweets in question were posted before December 2017, when the company implemented stricter community standards.

On August 15th however, the company did ban Jones for just one week, on the grounds that he violated community guidelines by calling on supporters to “have their battle rifles ready.”

https://thinkprogress.org/alex-jones-la ... 9a64f193d/

[American Dream]

There is a real pattern of activity that relates to the crisis actor theme, as used by the State, be it Uncle Sam, the Stasi, the Soviet Union and/or the Putin regime, El Salvador, Argentina, Indonesia etc., not to mention gangster-type activity without formal state ties.

Amy Goodman provided one example today. Begins @43:20:

Exclusive: Four Days in Occupied Western Sahara—A Rare Look Inside Africa’s Last Colony

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/31/ ... ern_sahara

[American Dream]

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/russia ... tart-idlib

Russian Misinformation About 'Imminent' White Helmets Chemical Attack Could Spell Start of Idlib Seige by Josie Ensor - The Telegraph

On the morning of Saturday August 25, the Russian ministry of defence put out a press release.

It made explosive claims that they had intelligence Syrian rebel forces were about to gas their own people in Idlib province - their last stronghold - as part of a “false flag” operation to frame the Syrian government.

By the end of the day, the accusations had been tweeted out by half a dozen Russian embassy accounts, spread by a network of Kremlin-owned and funded media outlets and shared by hundreds of conspiracy theorists and supporters of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.

It appeared to be Moscow’s latest misinformation campaign, a tactic it has used several times since it intervened in the war on behalf of Assad in 2015 and one that follows a familiar formula.

The defence ministry first claimed opposition fighters trained by British “specialists” from security firm Olive Group were preparing to conduct a possible attack, which was to be filmed by White Helmets civil defence rescuers.

Over the next few days the accusations would become more specific, and more outlandish. They would claim the White Helmets had kidnapped children to use as actors in the imminent chemical attack in the town of Kafr Zita.

It said the attack would serve as a pretext for Britain, the US and France to launch air strikes against Assad’s forces, which they have warned they will do in the event of another chemical attack.

But the US has shown little appetite for taking forceful military action against the government.

Analysts including Charles Lister from the Middle East Institute and Eliot Higgins from Bellingcat, a UK-based investigative website, also pointed out that Moscow had offered no evidence to back up the claims and that Olive Group ceased to exist in 2015 following a merger with Constellis group.

“When your conspiracy theories are based on years-old labels, you undermine your credibility, just a little bit,” Mr Lister tweeted…

Read on.

[Iamwhomiam]

^^^^
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000005840873/syria-chlorine-bomb-assad.html

[dada]

“When your conspiracy theories are based on years-old labels, you undermine your credibility, just a little bit,” Mr Lister tweeted…

There's a point I keep trying to make, one that seems to be lost on the West. "Credibility" doesn't matter in Surkov's strategy. And being clever about it, gears turning, looking at this as the Kremlin telegraphing a Syrian move to bomb the rebels under the cover of 'Western false flag' isn't either. Who is controlling the narrative, here, is what is important. The Kremlin acts, their network moves as one, with speed and overwhelming reach. They're the actors, the West is just reacting.

And I don't think you can blame Donald for this. Western media seems to have no journalists who have the ability to grasp the position they're in, for whatever reasons. They don't seem to be trying to get out from under the role they're playing in someone else's strategy, or that they even realize they're in someone else's strategy now. Because I don't see any effort being made to win back narrative control. That isn't Donald, he has no control over what he considers fake news. This is a failure of journalism and Western analysts. In my opinion.

[American Dream]

Viewing things from a few steps back and adding in a radical critique of all that is, steps me back from rooting for the home team but also just switching sides. I'm flying over the stadium one minute, then zooming in on a bug in the grass the next. The old programming is tough to overcome- newer programming is almost as hard (ad a lot of it we do to ourselves).

Don't hate the sinner, hate the Sin.

[dada]

Oh definitely, AD, I'm not on any side down here, in the golden land/darkworld of polarity. It's my hope that the perspective I'm presenting is additive, not subtractive. Additive in the pursuit of clarity, helping to bring the entire picture into focus. Maybe the casual readers of this board can take something from my way of thinking, whoever those readers may be.

And I think it's helpful when we present every perspective we can think of alongside one another, working together. It isn't in my interest to drown any views out. My interest being that I don't want the world to blow up, of course. That would be my primary motivation, my 'agenda.' If that could be considered an agenda. Things being off-balance, a lack of equilibrium between opposing forces I think is the biggest danger to the world, today, right now. That may change tomorrow. But if I come off as scolding the West, I do it because I see the West falling behind. It doesn't mean I'm on Surkov's, or China's, or anyone's side.

---

I want to add that I think it's a bad idea to fall back on the misquoted Twainism "a lie goes halfway around the world while the truth is still tying its shoes," here. Because this isn't a matter of truth and lies. This is a case of one side having its shit together, while the other side has let commercialism corrupt its worldview to the point where it has forgotten what truth even means.

Here's the truth about the Twainism:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/

[American Dream]

I feel you, dada. Working together is preferable but sometimes there will be conflict. Truth and lies are best served after marinating together for a while. You can always pick out the stuff you don't want.

Oh definitely, AD, I'm not on any side down here, in the golden land/darkworld of polarity. It's my hope that the perspective I'm presenting is additive, not subtractive. Additive in the pursuit of clarity, helping to bring the entire picture into focus. Maybe the casual readers of this board can take something from my way of thinking, whoever those readers may be.

And I think it's helpful when we present every perspective we can think of alongside one another, working together. It isn't in my interest to drown any views out. My interest being that I don't want the world to blow up, of course. That would be my primary motivation, my 'agenda.' If that could be considered an agenda. Things being off-balance, a lack of equilibrium between opposing forces I think is the biggest danger to the world, today, right now. That may change tomorrow. But if I come off as scolding the West, I do it because I see the West falling behind. It doesn't mean I'm on Surkov's, or China's, or anyone's side.

---

I want to add that I think it's a bad idea to fall back on the misquoted Twainism "a lie goes halfway around the world while the truth is still tying its shoes," here. Because this isn't a matter of truth and lies. This is a case of one side having its shit together, while the other side has let commercialism corrupt its worldview to the point where it has forgotten what truth even means.

Here's the truth about the Twainism:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/

[dada]

I feel you, dada. Working together is preferable but sometimes there will be conflict. Truth and lies are best served after marinating together for a while. You can always pick out the stuff you don't want.

Which brings us back to the value of work on consciousness, which when done right, reduces violence. Conflict being a flavor of violence. A genuine desire to reduce conflict in the world, naturally leads back to the individual, the self, the person desiring to reduce violence. Taking responsibility for our part in reducing the violence means seeing the urgency of working on one's self.

And this, in it's turn, also has value, strategically. Because through it we can see who really cares about the world, and who is misguided, or just making a show of it.

[American Dream]

I definitely want to reduce unnecessary violence. Self-defense can be right action, as can be defense of the defenseless.

Asymmetrical warfare is often folly. Self-work helps us develop the skills to know our own motivations and assess the situation without undue emotional reaction. This is invaluable.