GM-free Scotland

June '08 | Computers at dawn

Hands up! This computer is loaded!

Drop that mouse!

So, how do you use an innocent computer and an electronic information network which anyone, anywhere, can access as a weapon?

Here's an example ...

The Internet abounds with the websites of “not-for-profit” organisations sporting serious-sounding names and aims. These consistently champion GM and churn out GM-friendly reports, making them sound as serious as their names. A closer look will reveal that they have direct links with industry, or with government departments whose mandate is to promote GM, or, with each other (see Andy Rees' book for more on these 'front' organisations).

You'll also find a proliferation of pro-GM lobbyist blogs (e.g. GMOAfrica, GMOfoodforthought, GMOPundit) which pump out pro-GM opinion pieces. Monsanto itself produces film clips showing GM enthusiasts from all around the world saying suitable things about GM. These recordings are not only aired by the Company, but are also posted “independently” on youtube.

These are fairly in-your-face tactics, but others are much more underhand ...

In order to counter an embarrassing scientific study that revealed evidence of transgenic contamination in maize landraces in Mexico, Monsanto manufactured a string of e-mails from fictitious people in order to discredit the authors of the study.

Here's another example ...

'Newsvine', established in 2005 as an open source, community news service, invites original articles and links to articles, but has a strict code of honour. It does not allow self-promotion, links to writer's own sites, or advertising. The Newsvine staff have caught a biotech PR professional sneaking in articles with links to his own site (GMOAfrica blog) and to Monsanto's PR site. After Newsvine asked him to delete the offending links, he did so, but immediately created a new user name and did it again.

And another ...

If you don't like hearing negative opinions about the quality of your research, one way to silence them is to issue a string of legal threats. This is especially useful if the site you want to silence belongs to a (genuinely) not-for-profits public concern group. First, demand that they alter their website contents and links, and then, most important, tell their Internet Service Provider it will be sued (see SLAPP ON FREE SPEECH – News, November 2007). Two major GM concern groups, GM Watch and GM Free Ireland, have been subject to such treatment.

And if you can't find an excuse to make legal threats ...

A direct attack on inconvenient information on the Internet can be achieved by a number of means. You can:

All of these can be automated to provide a sustained attack, and the web log can be corrupted so no one can trace where the attacks are coming from.

Over the last 14 months, the UK's fearless reporter of world-wide GM bad-news stories, GM Watch, has been subject to a sustained attack on its website using ALL of the above tactics. A network engineer brought in by GM Watch web host to advise on the site damage said he'd never seen anything like it in 20 years in the industry.

Unfortunately, the attacks have had financial implications. The GM Watch web host was finding it so expensive to deal with the scale of the attacks, they finally refused to continue hosting the site (the attacks stopped immediately). The first Denial of Service attack started within 24 hours of GM Watch launching a financial appeal which included a link for on-line donations.

OUR COMMENT

Old-fashioned gangsters forced the little guy into terrified submission by straightforward means: “You can can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.” (Al Capone 1899-1947). The modern high-tech gangster's version of this seems to be “You can go a long way with PR. You can go a lot further with PR and a computer.”

Ask yourself why somebody, somewhere, is spending a lot of (very expensive?) time orchestrating a black-out on the dissemination of GM news (note news, not propaganda)? And, as Newsvine asked “Why is a company (Monsanto) with $2.6 billion in quarterly sales planting PR material at free user-supplied content sites, and why, when they've been caught once would they do it again?”

Answers: fear?

GM Watch is managing (just) to keep the GM info flowing, but they could use your support. You can donate to GM Watch online (if service isn't denied!).

Or, send an old-fashioned internet-free paper cheque made out to 'NGIN' in an old-fashioned paper envelop with an old-fashioned post-office stamp on it to:

GM Watch

26 Pottergate

Norwich, UK

NR2 1DX

GM Watch sends out daily, weekly or monthly e-mails summarising global GM news (if you were previously receiving one of these services and it has stopped, now you know why!). To subscribe, or re-subscribe, to GM Watch regular news reviews, e-mail editor@gmwatch.eu specifying whether you would like to receive them monthly, weekly or daily.

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