“Far right…far outnumbered,” begins the splash on the homepage of Mail Online. Beneath the headline, videos portray masked Antifa hooligans - many of whom have been spotted beating up their adversaries and Sieg Heiling - as anti-racist freedom fighters. The article claims that the protests “send one clear message: Britain does not welcome hate”.
The significance of the splash - and the line the Daily Mail has taken on the riots - cannot be overstated. It marks the beginning of a new, terrifying war on truth.
There is an irony in a newspaper - so often accused by those in all corners of spreading hate - appearing to revel in its defeat. This is no accident. The Mail has taken a long, hard look at the media landscape. Right now, its enemies are no longer the smug Leftie Guardian or even Piers Morgan’s former rag The Mirror.
It’s Elon Musk.
It’s me.
And it’s you.
The Real Story
Nestled beneath the homepage splash is an article about Taylor Swift having to cancel her tour in Austria due to Islamic terror threats. But why did The Mail’s editors decide to perch in pole position an article about how hate was destroyed because the Far-Right didn’t turn up?
Surely - as social media might tell you - the real story is how greatly exaggerated the bogeyman of the Far-Right actually is? How it is a tool used gallingly by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to:
Deflect from the very real and growing concerns around mass immigration and Islamic Terror.
Deflect from rising anti-Semitism in a country with a Jewish population less than 1/20 the size of a Muslim populace (in which Jew hatred is out of control).
Deflect from the fact that it is the average person - not a Far-Right Tommy Robinson-shaped Voldemort - who fears the above.
Just look at the YouGov stats:
Worryingly, this deflection works.
It gave purposeless people an opportunity to take to the streets, and cosplay at punching Neo-Nazis. While no such Nazis turned up - because they haven’t existed in any meaningful or organised way in the UK for decades - the media-made phantom of fascism managed to distract rally revelers from the real enemies of Western liberal values - such as mass immigration, oppressive fundamentalist Islamism and women-hating trans rights activists - in their midst. Having vanquished the imaginary Nazis, everyone went home feeling jolly good about themselves and the state of the country.
Some such people in my own neighbourhood WhatsApp Group invited the rest of us to join them in an Antifa march. “Wear masks and black block,” they told us of our anticipated attendance at the peaceful rally of *not* Jew haters. “And do NOT speak to police.”
I didn’t reply (in case I need to borrow a tape measure or ask for a dog-sitter one day).
But had I decided to foul my own nest, I’d have sent this as an example of the rhetoric propagated at those so-called anti-hate rallies:
To understand why the use of Zionism here is anti-Semitic, see Douglas Murray.
Media Disinformation
But to see how the British media has combined to indulge Starmer’s establishment deflection and spread disinformation, consider this post from legacy stalwart journalist Robert Peston.
Peston - much like the BBC’s disgraced headliner Huw Edwards - is the trusted face of legacy media in the UK. It is inconceivable that he doesn’t know that the aforementioned minorities are significantly over-represented in the media. It is white men who are under-repped. The Diamond Diversity Report is freely available to everyone.
So - what is Peston’s goal?
Alternatively, let’s look at the BBC commentary for Imane Khelif - a male boxer who has spent the Olympics beating up women for our entertainment. Before anyone gets their hairy back up, he has XY chromosomes, and enough testosterone to kill a horse (I do wonder what non-testicular-like objects the BBC imagines produced said testosterone). I discussed this yesterday for an hour with developmental biologist Dr. Emma Hilton to be sure, because it’s an important topic to get right.
Yet here’s the BBC’s take:
“That’s a nation that feels like it’s been pushed to the edge,” shouts the pundit amid not only Algerian but - importantly - Palestinian flags. “A nation that feels like it’s been victimized. She (sic) has maintained […] dignity. [Many others] have not retained that. She has.'
The male boxer’s large fist - fresh from easily pummelling the best female boxer at The Olympics - rises in the air, as the commentator equates it to a power salute.
Encapsulated in that moment is the sad reality: the mainstream media has colluded with the political establishment to go to war with the truth.
Allow me, dear reader, a quick aside. I feel it necessary to explain - plead - that I’m not taken to conspiracy thinking. I don’t believe in flat earth or that Bill Gates is trying to kill us with 5G. I have spent my career investigating magical thinking and extreme ideologies. I have lived and worked in many different countries, and speak 5 languages. I co-host a hugely popular programme called Skeptical Sunday on The Jordan Harbinger Show in which I debunk myths and conspiracy theories. It is however simply a fact that there are times in history when the media has colluded to fool the people. This is one such time.
Media Collusion in Fake News
As with Peston, it’s unlikely the commentator didn’t know the truth about the sex tests carried out by the International Boxing Association.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.' - 1984, George Orwell.
So what is going on with the media? Has there ever been a time like this, when even ferocious enemies in the media establishment have come together in a lie? When they’ve united to parrot the party line of the politicians they’re supposed to hold to account?
I’ve one such regime in mind, but hesitate lest I fall into Godwin’s trap. Nonetheless, this is something to which Soviets, Italians, the Spanish and the Chinese have seen at one time or another. Fuck it - Germans too. The enemy this time is not just the Jews or liberty (though hatred of both plays a part).
It’s something else.
None of this is to say that there aren’t serious issues with veracity and duty of care on social media. I spent a long time writing and researching this article, but - like most influencers - I don’t have a team of sub-editors.
It was only two weeks ago that a false name of a purported Muslim circulated on social media as the stabber who murdered children. On that evening, a Far-Right group really did converge, and tried to burn down a mosque and intimidate local Muslims.
It turned out that the name was wrong - the 17-year-old attacker wasn’t Muslim. Not only was the disinformation dangerous, but it stoked serious division and led to violent and despicable acts from…well, thugs.
Prime Minister Starmer’s mistake wasn’t that he called out such thuggery - it’s that he came down significantly harder on them than he did on the stabbing of children. A citizenry tired of being ignored, mocked, lied to and treated to two-tier policing rose up.
Still, the fact is that we social media influencers are not subject to the same rigorous checks expected of BBC journalists. More needs to be done, and Musk has already started to address this with his game-changing Community Notes fact-checking system. We need social media outsiders now to be rigorous in holding the mainstream media - hypnotised by money and drunk on its own righteousness - to account.
The Role of Money
Much like how France’s Leftist political camps joined forces to destroy (or delay) an inevitable victory from dissidents, Britain’s newspapers and TV channels feel it incumbent upon them to do the same to their joint enemy: alternative news on social media. It’s important to note that this doesn’t come out of some gallant pursuit of freedom - quite the contrary.
In recent years, we’ve allowed companies to anthropomorphise themselves as cuddly puppies who sport rainbow flags (everywhere but where they’re actually needed. See: the Middle East). But the reality is that ITV is selling you a constant stream of ads, Sky is flogging extortionate packages that even Rishi Sunak’s parents couldn’t afford and the BBC is only a Dickensian caricature of an auntie, forcing you whip-in-hand to empty your pockets to keep the lights on.
My first proper job was at The Sun 14 years ago. Even back then, every conversation behind closed doors was about how to keep up with Mail Online and other internet behemoths. The Sun was the biggest-selling English-language newspaper in the world at the time, but they knew even then that Mail Online was dominating where it actually mattered.
Today, the internet is almost twice the age it was during my stint at The Sun. While Mail Online remains huge, a lot has changed. In 2023, Reuters Institute found that more than 30% of people get their news from social media. This figure is only going to rise.
What do you imagine, then, is the prevailing topic day after day in the offices of News UK, Sky or DMGT?
Bring Down Those Pesky Newbies
And wouldn’t you know it, laws are rapidly being introduced to curb the speech of social media influencers. Just last week,
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