As Andrea Mitchell said recently, NBC News has stayed away from covering stories pertaining to Hunter Biden and his laptop because NBC News prefers to “cover what is reliably truthful.”
Well, it seems that the firefighters at NBC News finally found a “reliably truthful” approach to the subject:
A 64-page document asserting an elaborate conspiracy theory involving Joe Biden's son and business in China, that was later disseminated by close associates of President Trump, appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm." (1/8) #NBCNewsThreads https://t.co/9HcZ6dyhCR
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2020
The document, which went viral on the right-wing internet a month before the purported leak of files from Hunter Biden's laptop, was said to be authored by Swiss security analyst Martin Aspen — who doesn't exist, according to an analysis by disinformation researchers. (2/8)
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2020
Disinformation researchers say Aspen is a fabricated identity and that his profile picture was created with an artificial intelligence face generator. The firm he lists as his previous employer tells @NBCNews that nobody by that name had ever worked for their company. (3/8) pic.twitter.com/PcLCjgvsnf
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2020
The document and its spread have become part of a wider effort to smear Hunter Biden and weaken Joe Biden's presidential campaign. One of the original posters of the document, Christopher Balding, took credit for writing parts of the document and said Aspen doesn't exist. (4/8)
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2020
Balding said Aspen is "an entirely fictional individual created solely for the purpose of releasing this report" and said "the primary author of the report, due to personal and professional risks, requires anonymity." (5/8) https://t.co/JqLn0RXuUH
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2020
Balding claims that the document was commissioned by Apple Daily, a Hong Kong-based tabloid that's frequently critical of China's government. The document was promoted on far-right media despite its dubious origins, appearing on podcasts by Steve Bannon and The Epoch Times. (6/8)
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2020
Blog posts featuring the most salacious parts of the document received tens of thousands of public interactions across Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, according to social media analysis tool BuzzSumo. The content was also pushed by the QAnon conspiracy movement. (7/8)
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2020
Computer-generated faces have become a staple of large-scale disinformation operations in the run-up to the 2020 election, and have the potential to make disinformation operations harder to discover, Renee DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory says. (8/8)
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2020
Long story short? Some 64-page document about Hunter Biden and China that you’ve most likely never seen or even heard of is actually the real story here, so focus on that instead of the Hunter Biden laptop stuff.
Sure nothing to see here…. https://t.co/nyBxJJf7vZ
— Ava- I Love My USA! ?? ? (@WEdwarda) October 29, 2020
Pathetic, NBC News. But then, pathetic has become your brand.
Nice job with the head fake to distract from the real thing. Nobody has been talking about some fake "dossier."
— Aldous Huxley's Ghost™ (@AF632) October 30, 2020
This is some hardcore deflection.
No one's ever heard of this 64-page document before tonight.
It is completely unrelated to Hunter Biden's laptop & the FBI investigation.
This story written by people who still refuse to verify or report on the Biden laptop or its contents. https://t.co/fGEU4VoHqt
— Alex VanNess (@thealexvanness) October 30, 2020
This NBC story is not news, it’s calculated misdirection. It has the specific intent of confusing the public into believing that the Hunter Biden story is relatedly false. https://t.co/319lzTAETz
— Marina Medvin ?? (@MarinaMedvin) October 30, 2020
Bingo.
how media/big tech work in tandem:
NBC digs up some random hunter biden conspiracy nobody’s ever heard of, discredits, then twitter trends it to gloss over actual reports because they know a lot of people can’t differentiate pic.twitter.com/76x0OyX5xK— Logan Hall (@loganclarkhall) October 30, 2020
The firefighters aren’t even trying to hide their agenda anymore. They’re just full-on broadcasting it now.
These are the same reporters who want you to believe QAnon is more dangerous than Antifa. Now they want you to believe the FBI has a fake laptop and didn't really interview Tony Bobulinski. Brandy just needs to muddy the waters for a few more days and then they're all home free. https://t.co/VQ8DFQci5w
— Relax, I didn't vote for the guy you hate (@jtLOL) October 30, 2020
