It’s kind of forgotten how the current incumbent government used a whole load of fake social media accounts to push their agenda in the last election and were exposed due to a variety of screw ups, but it looks as though they’re up to their old tricks regarding the response to the Coronavirus pandemic as well.
Featured Image VIA
You probably remember at the start of the crisis the government said that there was no point in going into lockdown and that we would be following the path of herd immunity instead, only for this decision to be quickly reversed after about three days as it was soon realised to be a particularly dumb idea that would lead to way more deaths than necessary. However, in this time a number of NHS workers appeared on Twitter to voice their support for the government’s policy – but it’s now being revealed that these were all fake accounts set up by some social media manager for the government.
This Twitter thread exposes it all:
Can you confirm that ‘@nhs_susan‘ here is a creation of the DHSC Communications Team, and not in fact, one of your hardworking staff at the Starfish Ward ?
Can you ask your staff member what she thinks of her image being used for automated #Tories Propaganda ? pic.twitter.com/ZKGeo2uqml
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 17, 2020
.@DHSCgovuk – Why is your Communications Team creating 100s of fake Twitter accounts to promote Boris Johnson’s ‘Herd Immunity’, and using stock photos to create fake identities ? https://t.co/VE3mWPzOKD
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 17, 2020
The @DHSCgovuk / @DHSCmedia
Communications people responsible for this are Dominique Lemon @DominiqueLemon5
and Eleanor Riches @DHEleanor. https://t.co/Jqt8dUALAM— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 17, 2020
The one person has been identified.
Despite the @DHSCgovuk reply to my queries of ‘no comment’ (and that’s all she wrote), that person is a contracted Government employee temporarily assigned to this department.
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 20, 2020
.@DHSCgovuk are adopting a corporate ‘head in the sand’ ‘fingers in the ears’ approach to this matter, hoping it will be swept aside by ongoing news stories of a more serious nature.
After all, who cares about industrial scale misinformation in the face of so many deaths? pic.twitter.com/TBHJQcpDJy
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 20, 2020
Addendum :
I quoted “28 fake #NHS Staff accounts” for clarity.
In actuality, there are 128 confirmed, 9 probables and 14 possibles, and amongst those, there are 16 which do not claim an #NHS connection.
43 accounts use actual photos of actual NHS staff.
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 20, 2020
Addendum : (again, sorry)
The accounts have now mostly gone, not suspended by Twitter but deleted by the account holder(s) in one simultaneous mass cull a few days ago … At the click of a button.
Which itself, goes to prove the singular control of all the accounts.
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 20, 2020
Further Addemdum:
When we state ‘DHSC’, to clarify, this is either directly, or indirectly via a ”Marketing Agency” set up a few months ago with one client (guess who) and three staff (all ex DHSC). A poor attempt at deniability.
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 20, 2020
Further :
The accounts originally pushed for the ‘herd immunity’. In later days they changed tack and were were pushing for the country to ‘open up again’.
Not to much of a stretch that the operation was to test the waters for a change in policy. Just a theory.
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 20, 2020
Further …
This is not new. The methods, the technology, the tools, all used before by the various #Brexit Campaigns.
What’s different here is the scale, and almost certain Government Department involvement, either officially or ‘under the radar’.
— John O’Connell (@jdpoc) April 20, 2020
Devious hey? Although I suppose not really that surprising given the much publicised antics of this Tory government in the past. Guess it’s just the world that we live in now isn’t it?
Serious props to John O’Connell for seemingly uncovering it all and I know he’s only shared the NHS Susan account at this point, but it looks like he’s planning a major investigation and expose given what he’s saying and the attention that the thread is already receiving. Just gotta make sure he’s legally protected beforehand which I think is reasonable enough at this point.
The best part of the story though is that after people started sharing this on Twitter, another bot account appeared to debunk it and sent 50 replies to different accounts in under 15 minutes. Surely it’s not a good idea to use the same technology that you’re denying exists to try and debunk it?
It’s mad, ~50 identical rebuttals sent out over 15 mins just after 10PM to people sharing that evidence thread about fake NHS accountshttps://t.co/XLlUwkg2aj
Video in case they vanish pic.twitter.com/iu1DoNhvJp
— Jane⭐#KeepBritainKind 🌱✌️🖤 (@localnotail) April 20, 2020
Yeah so that seems like a ridiculous stupid response to these revelations. Be interesting to see where this goes – if anywhere – over the next couple of days, but it seems likely that it will probably just get washed under the rug again and everyone will just gloss over it and focus more on people clapping for the NHS on Thursday nights. Kinda sums it up.
For more of the same, check out the NHS Tablet Team encouraging you to donate your tablet to the NHS. Nice one.
