The right-wing trash site Guido Fawkes displayed complete ignorance of the basics of social media site Facebook in order to smear Labour’s Shadow Communities Secretary Andrew Gwynne.
Under a red and yellow banner screaming, ‘Guido investigation’, Fawkes published an article claiming Gwynne had ‘joined’ multiple racist and antisemitic Facebook groups, concluding that the MP was:
hid[ing] some pretty radical views or – perhaps more likely – he is simply blanket-accepting all the group invitations he gets from randomers.
But Labour Facebook campaigners confirmed that Fawkes’ assumption was nonsense:
They’re public groups so you don’t need to accept anything, it’s automatic. If you get a lot of notifications it’s easy to miss being added into groups.
It’s a well-known tactic some of the racist right use to harrass – add someone you want to embarrass into offensive groups and then ‘expose’ them.
Gwynne is a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel, so the idea that he would join hate groups is ludicrous – but that didn’t stop the right-wing bile site spreading fake news.
Given the use of the tactic by hate groups, the article raises the question of how the ‘investigation’ came across the information, as well as exposing – at best – the site’s ignorance.
A spokesperson for Gwynne said:
These are public groups which Andrew was added to without his knowledge or consent. He does not endorse the views expressed in these groups and was appalled when he learnt he had been added to them.
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Anybody who believes the lying bile that FAWKES writes, is as right wing as he is!
He, along with those who agree with his witterings, will one day, be no more than a bad smell, to those who would care or remember!
Andrew Neil daily politics quotes shitty Fawkes regular now, shows how desperate the BBC are.
This is pretty embarrassing stuff from Guido Fawkes, the Bill O’Reilly of British politics.
How does he expect people to take him seriously when he keeps publishing fake news on his blog?
Maybe, like Bill, he should go into retirement before he makes an even bigger fool of himself than he already has.
Fawkes is trash, as you say, but can you not see the irony in the statement “Gwynne is a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel, so the idea that he would join hate groups is ludicrous?”
It would preclude him from accusations of antisemitism in the eyes of the layperson..
Fawkes is nothing if not casual with facts and misleading. Respectfully I would beg to differ that being a former Chair of FOI is any recommendation of being non racist. Lest we forget FOI is amongst a number of proxy political agencies (including JLM, BICOM, the Community Security Trust, We Love Israel etc), the sole aim of which is to further and gain legitimacy for the apartheid racist policies of the Israeli state in the form of the slow genocide of the Palestinian people which has been ongoing since 1948. FOI in both it’s Labour and Conservative forms seeks to promote this agenda of the Israeli state and you need only recollect FOI’s involvement in the Patel case to evidence this. The attempted corruption of our political processes is unwelcome whatever side of the political divide one occupies.
‘Fawkes is nothing if not casual with facts and misleading.’
Don’t mince words – he’s the bullshitter’s bullshitter.
This is just a Blairite Tory Lite Right Winger getting kicked by another Right Winger ! What I wonder is how someone like Gwynne has managed to get a job in Comrade Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet! I think that Comrade Corbyn would be better off leaving a position (albeit a very minor one) vacant rather than fill it with someone who is more a weathervane than a sign post (unless one likes a sign post which will return one back to the way one has come! i.e. Tory Lite shit street!).
This is true what happens on Facebook, it has happened to me, you have to be really careful as someone can as you say add you without your knowledge, One examplel, I was added to Britain First & the chair of my CLP messaged me, as she knew I wouldn’t have anything to do with them. Also if you like what appears to be an innocent post they can add you that way too.
I post a lot on Facebook which are all political & have acquired a lot of friends because of this & get numerous friends requests, too many to vet each one or I would be at it all day checking them out, so I tend to go on how many mutual friends we have in common.
Guido Fawkes website is named after someone who sought to blow up Parliament and kill a lot of people. If it had succeeded, it may well have led to terrible pogroms against Catholics and huge loss of life.
I think that most people would have come up with a better name.
“hid[ing] some pretty radical views” – Not like fawkes then!!