00:02:04.780So everyone can go back and watch our first interview
00:02:07.300if they want a backstory on you and whatever,
00:02:09.720but you're the director of Big Brother Watch,
00:02:11.200which is a civil liberties organisation here in the UK.
00:02:13.880you've just released a report that is really really worrying tell us about it yeah so we've
00:02:22.260uncovered a number of secretive government units that claim to be fighting misinformation and
00:02:28.400disinformation and they've been very resistant to transparency so over a long time we've been
00:02:35.060investigating them and we found that actually they're monitoring and recording people that
00:02:40.760are criticising the government and government policies. And we found that this was particularly
00:02:45.880active during the pandemic, but that we think that they're active on other topics. And it's
00:02:52.320particularly affecting members of parliament, journalists, academics, experts, and campaigners.
00:03:01.800So, you know, not the kind of boogeyman, Russian disinformation, bot farms, or whatever it is that
00:03:08.040government would have us believe that these units are working on. You're off the hook, Mike.
00:03:13.140Well, probably not, actually. I mean, one of the things you mentioned to us is we could see if we
00:03:17.460are included in that. I imagine we would be, actually, given that the people that you were
00:03:22.620talking about, quite a lot of them we've had on the show, you know, Toby Young, Julie Hartley Brewer,
00:03:27.480and others, right? Yeah. They're people who have big followings on social media in particular.
00:03:33.140That's what the government seemed to be interested in. They're also interested in alternative platforms. So, for example, one of the documents we have describes Parler as a threat. And that was when it had just launched. And the government were interested in senior politicians who had gone onto that platform. And they're recording the fact they've gone onto that platform.
00:03:54.500um so yeah when they are collecting um posts that people have put online they're also looking at
00:04:04.180engagement so that's why you know a show like this and people like your guests are quite likely to be
00:04:10.800um you know in the crosshairs really because they're looking at people who are talking about
00:04:15.380controversial topics and looking at then the engagement rates so they're literally recording
00:04:21.380numbers of retweets and this sort of thing.
00:04:24.000And what are they doing with this information?
00:04:25.580Because one of the things that people might say is, well, the government, I mean, anyone
00:04:39.460In essence, it is censorship and propaganda.
00:04:44.180The units in question claim to work with the tech companies to flag things that might breach their terms of service or that are inappropriate.
00:04:56.620And we've even had ministers say this in the House of Commons.
00:04:59.200But the problem is that people have just assumed that it's all this nasty stuff in question.
00:05:04.480And so everyone's kind of congratulated it. Now we know it's basically dissent.
00:05:09.360So taking stuff down or pressuring social media companies to take stuff down.
00:05:14.540And the other part of it is, I think, understanding the public conversation so that the government can respond.
00:05:20.060And that could be through trying to work with their SEO to get their search results up higher in search engines on key topics,
00:05:30.100especially around the pandemic, or issuing rebuttals to newspapers or social media users.
00:05:36.320basically to amplify their point of view in response. And I mean, that's the element of it
00:05:43.920that you can say is reasonable, whether it's proportionate to be keeping records and tabs
00:05:48.880on dissidents, I would say is probably not. But the element of this kind of collusion of
00:05:55.680state and big tech power to silence people for lawful opinions should really make everyone
00:06:02.500shudder. I completely agree with you. And how long has this been going on for, Silky?
00:06:08.280All of the units but one that we've identified were started during the Conservative government,
00:06:15.360but most of them have been in really recent years since around 2018. But the pandemic was
00:06:21.260absolutely the catalyst for it really taking off. So the central unit that is responsible for most
00:06:27.820of this is the counter disinformation unit that's what it's called although we haven't seen much of
00:06:33.060them uh them doing much around disinformation um it sits within the department for digital
00:06:40.020culture media and sports um so it's like a policy unit you know they're not spooks um but they're
00:06:47.640acting in that way um they had started this unit actually um in 2019 i think it was during elections
00:06:56.980and then it was stood down and then during the pandemic it was stood up again and now it's
00:07:03.360permanent and it's folding in other kind of disinformation specialists from across government
00:07:09.160to feed into this central unit. The other thing that happened you know and I think important to
00:07:15.380bear in mind that the pandemic was you know it was the blank check for a massive extension of
00:07:22.280powers across the peace, really, in government. And so the birth of some of the activity that we
00:07:30.040saw during the pandemic was actually in this secretive army unit called the 77th Brigade.
00:07:37.100The 77th Brigade had these kind of conspiracy theories around it, like, are they watching us
00:07:41.300online, controlling what we say? And I don't think anyone really took it seriously. We weren't even
00:07:46.700actually looking into the unit until a whistleblower came forward to us and told us what
00:07:52.880was really going on during the pandemic within that unit. The public statements from the
00:07:59.300army were that the 77th Brigade stood up during the beginning of March 2020 and that
00:08:06.960they were dealing with foreign disinformation. And in response to questions about would you
00:08:11.960ever do anything domestically, of course not. All of our operations are directed overseas.
00:08:16.700What the whistleblower told us is that there were absolutely no safeguards or controls in place whatsoever to prevent this monitoring affecting people in Britain and that it was affecting people in Britain.
00:08:32.140They were doing general searches on social media in English language on topics that Johnson government was interested in.
00:08:42.800So, you know, basically trying to gauge public opinion, see what people were thinking about different elements of COVID and the policies.
00:08:51.080And then they were collating these reports, including of individuals.
00:08:54.960We saw even a university student, you know, someone that doesn't have a big following.
00:09:00.400They're just collating these records of what people were saying and thinking and then sending those up to central government.
00:09:07.940Silky, why did it explode over the pandemic?
00:09:10.460Was it because more and more people were online so there was an opportunity to do that?
00:09:16.780Was it because they were genuinely worried about misinformation being spread during the pandemic and as a result, people potentially dying?
00:09:24.400I think all of these things can be true at the same time.
00:09:27.340Of course, people were worried about public health during the pandemic.
00:09:32.400Of course, people were. But, you know, does recording what a university student is worried about, you know, about the virus, that's not saving lives, is it?
00:09:46.180And, you know, I think actually an interesting thing that the whistleblower said was that there had been a desire for the army to demonstrate this information ops capability.
00:10:01.180And the 77th Brigade describes itself as involved in non-lethal engagement for modern warfare against adversaries.
00:10:08.680adversaries. And so, you know, you think of these kind of sophisticated overseas operations,
00:10:14.340but they were interested in demonstrating to government that we can do these kind of elite
00:10:20.060information ops. And so it was an attractive thing to say, we can deal with the dangerous
00:10:26.060misinformation and disinformation, which I think we now have to be honest, and especially in light
00:10:29.820of our report, there is a moral panic about it. And it's overblown. And now we need to have a
00:10:35.120sober conversation about what we really mean when we're talking about misinformation and
00:10:39.040disinformation. Because what the army got away with in this instance was an accumulation of
00:10:43.680resources to do basically nothing, nothing worthwhile. But that does have a serious impact
00:10:49.540on Brits and meant that we were being surveilled by our own military, you know, with military power.
00:10:56.720It's extraordinary, really. And so I think that a few things, and this happened after 9-11 as well,
00:11:04.180didn't it? You know, the desire for certain elements within the military-industrial complex
00:11:09.940and business and government to show that they can, with more resources, they can provide these
00:11:18.020new services and do these new things with civil liberties put really to the side. So that was
00:11:25.940going on. And of course, I think the overriding thing, the fundamental thing that I hope we're
00:11:31.340now thinking about more clearly is that governments will always try to accumulate power. And having
00:11:36.340power over information is the most extraordinary power you can have. If you can strongly influence
00:11:43.640and even control what people are able to say to each other, what people are able to see and hear
00:11:50.260and read, especially when it comes to criticism of your own policies, you know, for a government
00:11:57.940really, for an authoritarian government, that's the dream. And that's really the territory that
00:12:03.980we're now on the precipice of. And the disturbing thing is that so many people in the liberal
00:12:10.980establishment are actually calling for this. They want the misinformation units to do more,
00:12:19.360be more active, be more present, and to scrub the internet of wrong ideas.
00:20:21.180That's true, a bit too much. But to put him in a disinformation report, he's an expert.
00:20:28.920He was taken off Twitter for a period. His studies were marked as false by Facebook.
00:20:35.300But again, by these people that could not compete with Fresco Hennigan in terms of his expertise, it's absolutely absurd.
00:20:43.320And the fact that both of these people are in these government reports and that we know also they were being censored.
00:20:51.820David Davis had a video taken off YouTube.
00:20:54.860The speech that he gave against vaccine passports that we put on our channel, on Big Brother Watch's channel, was taken off YouTube until we complained and got it put back on.
00:21:04.340We weren't able to get the correspondence between these units and social media companies.
00:21:11.040They also won't tell us how many times they flagged stuff, no information whatsoever.
00:21:16.420So something very useful that Elon Musk could do would be disclose all of the communications
00:21:21.680between the British government and Twitter during the pandemic.
00:21:54.400Yeah, they're totally not prepared for... They weren't prepared for that kind of a challenge.
00:21:59.160um but in my view the easiest thing for them to do would be to follow the laws of the country
00:22:07.080that they operate in and then choose what countries they operate in so you know it's not
00:22:12.920against the law to spout nonsense um and it's really easy to deal with um and i do worry as
00:22:20.740well that if for example you've got people that are uh say spreading conspiracy theories about
00:22:26.7405G masks or this kind of thing. If you just silence those people, what do the people who
00:22:33.540are interested in the ideas do and where do they go and what do they then think? But you had to
00:22:37.640silence it. Is it that dangerous? Are these ideas? So you'll either think, yeah, it's dangerous
00:22:44.760because it's wrong, or you'll think it's dangerous because you don't want me to know it for some
00:22:48.960reason. I think the best way of challenging nonsense or falsehoods of any type, and I mean
00:22:56.180from fringe people all the way up to the stuff, some of the stuff that gets printed in the
00:23:00.200mainstream press, is more speech. And to just suppress it and silence it means that it will
00:23:06.380just grow and cultivate in another part of society or the internet where there's probably
00:23:14.220a less rational discussion. Silky, are you concerned that you've just uncovered the tip
00:23:21.020of the iceberg here, because I would imagine if I was a powerful person in government and
00:23:27.380I've identified a Toby Young or a Julia Hartley Brewer or a Professor Carl Hennigan or a David
00:23:32.740Davis, who's annoying me and not allowing me to do the things that I'm doing for public
00:23:37.720health, quote unquote, I'd quite want to know what they're sending to each other on their
00:23:42.260Telegram groups and their WhatsApp chats and their text messages and what they're saying
00:23:46.560on their voicemails and on their phone calls.
00:23:48.680Is there any suggestion that that was going on?
00:23:51.020We have absolutely no idea. But I think the fact that we are finding such extreme activity so low down the scale within government policy units makes you think, well, what was going on in GCHQ, what was going on in MI5.
00:24:15.640um we they have extraordinary powers to do uh exactly what you're talking about you know to
00:24:23.600hack phones and to intercept calls and messages and all the rest of it uh we spoke last time i
00:24:28.780was here about those powers um at length um and you know public health is in law one of the reasons
00:24:38.180that, you know, governments can sometimes intrude on your privacy or intrude on your
00:24:45.860right to freedom of expression, but it's about proportionality. And so who knows? We need
00:24:53.100probably more whistleblowers. It's an interesting aspect of the work of the 77th Brigade in my view
00:25:01.580and based on some people that I've spoken to is that, yes, it's really concerning what they were
00:25:09.540doing. I mean, just searching all of the internet, clearly impacting people at home, clearly with
00:25:15.480policy direction from Number 10 to look at things that Number 10 was interested in. But it was also
00:25:22.000a bit of a distraction and meant that people were, especially before we found out what we've just
00:25:28.740found out, some people were, I guess, building conspiracy theories around what the 77th Brigade
00:25:37.540were doing. And the name is kind of spooky, isn't it? The 77th Brigade, you know, what they're up to.
00:25:43.020But then people weren't talking about where the power really lies. And actually,
00:25:47.980an interesting aspect of what the whistleblower tells us is that their resources were crap.
00:25:53.100They had nothing. They wouldn't have been able to find disinformation if they'd been desperate to.
00:25:58.740because they didn't have the resources. They didn't have the skills even. And the whistleblower
00:26:04.900suspects that there was foreign disinformation being spread at the time, some of which other
00:26:11.260people have written about, perhaps stuff coming from China, for instance, and that they would
00:26:15.800have had absolutely no chance of finding it. So where does the power really lie to be doing some
00:26:22.460of this stuff? And that would be in GCHQ and MI5. And based on what we know about their
00:26:28.460activities over the years and their interest in politics. You know, a lot of this report and our
00:26:37.020investigation has strong echoes of Reds Under the Bed that we saw in the 80s where UK intelligence
00:26:44.240agencies were really interested in, you know, political surveillance, what union activists
00:26:49.540were up to and what leftists were up to more broadly, as you had McCarthyism in the US for
00:26:54.900the same kind of thing. So the intelligence agencies have formed for this. And wouldn't
00:27:01.340it be the fact that during a pandemic, you know, this kind of sense of crisis, that they
00:27:11.520would be highly active during that period if policy units were? Yeah, I think so.
00:27:16.200Silky, isn't part of the problem that we're here talking and we're talking about the government
00:27:20.560And I'm thinking, ah, there's a general election in a couple of years.
00:27:24.060We're going to vote these bastards out.
00:27:26.960And then I remember that then it's Labour coming in
00:27:29.020and they're even more insane about this.
00:27:31.700Yeah, well, yeah, the conversation around misinformation
00:27:38.660and disinformation I think to some degree hasn't happened yet
00:27:41.360and around free speech generally has been really poor.
00:27:44.820On the online safety bill, for instance, you know,
00:27:47.080we've got this regulation coming through at the moment
00:27:48.880which is about precisely what, you know, the person you were sitting next to at question time is talking about controlling speech on the Internet, lawful speech.
00:27:58.540So and it's both Tory and Labour. I mean, the Tory guy was like, you know, we've been too slow to catch up with a wave of hate online.
00:28:07.880That's how they frame it. Yeah. And look, I think we should acknowledge that the Internet and the ability to communicate in that scale
00:33:13.940can't use the wrong pronouns for this person on a social media platform according to the government
00:33:20.700because the government is making these terms and conditions a legal duty do you see what i mean
00:33:24.920yes so you know when youtube has crazy rules or you know twitter may less so now i don't know but
00:33:31.800um yeah it's strange well or like you know musk not wanting his private jets to be tracked or
00:33:37.120whatever if that becomes twitter law you know that kind of becomes the law because the government is
00:33:42.540saying it's now a legal duty that you always impose these laws so that's a nonsense but
00:33:47.920unfortunately no one's talking about it. Silky do you think the only way that people really wake up
00:33:54.660is when something happens or an event happens that is so powerful or it just strikes the people as
00:34:03.260something that is completely wrong so for instance the one time when we actually changed football
00:34:10.000stadiums in this country was after the Hillsborough disaster because it was such an awful, awful
00:34:14.920event. And if you look at the pandemic, the moment people woke up when they started to think about,
00:34:22.060you know, the right to congregate and the right to protest is the police's actions during the
00:34:26.880Sarah Everard vigil. Do you think we just need something to happen? Like, I don't know what it
00:34:33.260is where people just collectively come to their senses. Maybe, but by then it will be too late.
00:34:40.000So my message would be, please don't wait. Please don't be complacent.
00:34:44.960If you can remember what that feeling was like when we were all told by the government to stay in your home,
00:34:50.960weren't sure if we were going to be able to travel again, didn't know when we'd be able to be out,
00:34:54.580didn't know if normal life was coming back.
00:34:57.040And of course, you know, a lot of us fought tooth and nail to make sure that it did and that all of these laws were repealed.
00:35:03.360But there was a sense then, like, is it too late?
00:35:06.580And I think a lot of people, that obviously has, you know, made a lot of people a lot more alive to how precious their liberty is. And I also think if anyone hasn't kind of got it during these couple of years, then you might never. But, you know, please don't be complacent and don't wait, because, yeah, you know, we can lose these freedoms, we can lose these liberties really, really quickly.
00:35:27.800but also the culture shifting you know so already the fact that you can sit in an audience of people
00:35:33.300and they have these really you know almost disdain actually for free speech not even an indifference
00:35:40.560to it but actually to it's been recast as a threat to democracy rather than the foundation of it
00:35:46.960then you know something's going really really wrong how do we come back from that and i think
00:35:52.700that's why conversations like these and platforms like these are important because um this is as
00:35:58.060much about you know culture and ideas as it is about anything people have to really realize now
00:36:04.440how important these these liberties are that's why i always say to americans because they're like well
00:36:10.160how come you know like there are certain issues in terms of the cultural stuff that we often talk
00:36:14.400about in the show we're actually in the uk we're doing much better than than they are in america
00:36:18.400but on speech we're doing far worse and they always go well is it because of the first amendment
00:36:23.960and i don't think it's because of the first amendment i think it's because they have a
00:36:27.640culture a first amendment culture which is at the end of the day like anyone can say what they want
00:36:34.380unless they're inciting violence we don't have that we don't have that and the pandemic was
00:36:39.240almost like i almost i don't know maybe i'm wrong but i think francis and i were both very
00:36:43.940disappointed in this country, actually, and in many people in this country, because maybe we
00:36:49.560were projecting our own views and values onto it. But I certainly didn't think that the polling
00:36:55.740numbers and people's behavior during the pandemic showed that we live in a society that values
00:37:01.020freedom of expression. Yeah, but it's all relative. I mean, how the UK did compared to the rest of
00:37:08.760Europe, you know, we did a lot better than a lot of European countries. We got rid of the
00:37:14.980restrictions quicker than anyone else. We didn't have, you know, the EU now has a EU-wide super
00:37:21.480state COVID pass system. They're introducing biometric borders, you know. So, you know,
00:37:27.660they've got millions of people enrolled in databases with IDs, digital IDs and passes.
00:37:32.680And, you know, we're not there. And I think there is something about perhaps the parliamentary system and, you know, our culture. But I think where the vacuum really was, was in the opposition and on the left, to be honest.
00:37:57.940And I'm saying that as a non-partisan, you know, we're a non-partisan organisation.
00:38:01.940I say it's from a totally non-partisan point of view.
00:38:04.480And I should say as well for people, like you genuinely are.
00:38:07.220That's not a thing that you say because you're a right-wing evil bigot.
00:38:11.280You're not party political, you just care about these issues.
00:41:58.220and they're going to track your movement.
00:42:00.620Yes. And monitor what you do on the internet and control what you do on the internet to make sure you're not doing protest-related activities on there either. So basically, if you're an effective campaigner, you will be disruptive in some sense. And this word disruptive is being used to usher in these extraordinary curbs on your right to protest.
00:42:22.780And this really is the kind of power where I think, you know, if even the Russians or the Chinese say we're going to ankle tag our protesters, you'd be like, wow, they've really gone for it now.
00:42:35.140You know, this is really extreme. And this is happening in Britain.
00:42:39.840I mean, that is just, that's beyond belief that they're going to ankle tag people who they claim to be disruptive and who are not guilty of a crime.
00:42:48.820Yeah, it really is. But I think we're winning this campaign.
00:42:51.860I think that we I think I think that we are. The government has said that they're going to maintain some of these powers, but that it seems like they're willing to drop the ankle tags finally.
00:43:03.360But it's not confirmed right just now. How do they. How do you.
00:43:11.820That's wrong thing. That's a tag for you. It would just be me walking around my flat.
00:43:17.360but it's how do you and coming here that's about all i do nowadays but how do you how how do they
00:43:23.700sit in government and come up with these ideas like have they not read all well like does it
00:43:29.240not occur they've read all well they're following the script very closely yeah it seems like it
00:43:34.720doesn't it yeah but just with the benefits of technology you know this is like a high-tech
00:43:40.040dystopia um which is you know the blueprint is china you look at how closely you can be
00:43:46.760followed and tracked, let alone through an ankle tag, you know, things like facial recognition,
00:43:51.860surveillance, which the police are using more and more now. But yeah, I mean, again, and this
00:43:57.120stuff can only happen in an environment where people are not protecting their rights closely
00:44:04.240enough, where people have lost sight of how important it is to be able to protest against
00:44:09.660your government. And also, you know, if the other people who are in Parliament in opposition are not
00:44:16.160speaking up loudly enough about these things. The reason that they won't is because the press
00:44:23.100is so anti-protest at the moment. And so this really safe line is being followed of just kind
00:44:29.760of allowing the government to self-implode. I am anti-extinction rebellion,
00:44:37.380gluing themselves and blocking ambulances. But as you said, there are laws in place for the police
00:44:42.400to deal with protests that are actually
00:44:44.160endangering lives or damaging property
00:46:35.720I mean, something really, really has gone wrong there. And probably a lack of political leadership as well. And that that's been allowed to happen and that what's being thrown at the problem is more police powers. That just doesn't make sense. And I fear the problem will get worse before it gets better until you have proper political leadership on it.
00:46:58.540I was going to say there was one more thing that the government brought in during the pandemic that made my blood run cold, which was they wanted to implement some powers against journalists.
00:47:12.980Do you remember what this was, what actually happened with that?
00:47:17.600So much has happened. I mean, I know that a lot of journalists were arrested and manhandled by police during this time.
00:47:28.540And actually, coming back to these anti-protest laws, one of the new anti-protest bills that has come into force has already been used.
00:47:39.220There was an LBC journalist that was arrested for covering Extinction Rebellion.
00:47:44.740Yeah, for I think it was conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, which they were basing on the fact that she may have known that the protest was going to take place.
00:47:54.520So now journalists are kind of seen as like proxy spies for the police, you know, which goes to show, I think, the risks of introducing extreme powers.
00:48:04.840You can't just say, well, they probably won't be used like all the other ones.
00:48:07.260So they will be sometimes in the worst circumstances.
00:48:10.640So, you know, these anti-freedom laws will affect journalists and the whole kind of civil society that's supposed to prop up democracy.
00:48:21.780silky thank you so much for coming on the show have i cheered you up yes you have massively he
00:48:28.400loves a bit of depressiveness yeah i'm like doom and gloom it's all shit have it confirmed fabulous
00:48:33.620but no thank you so much for coming it was an absolutely brilliant interview if people wanted
00:48:37.840to find out about your amazing work online what is the best way to do that how can they join um
00:48:43.900the struggle yes well this is the good part that we're doing something about it so um bigbrotherwatch.org.uk