On Saturday, a screengrab of an utterly vile tweet was tweeted by a well-known anti-Corbyn account
Grotesque is not a strong enough word for such a disgusting comment.
The vile tweet – and the account that made it
Rightly, the Brown tweet – or primarily the screengrab of it – sparked outrage. Labour MP Angela Smith was one who responded:
Such a comment is, of course, absolutely incompatible with membership of the Labour Party.
But before or very soon after the ‘Left Over’ tweet of the screengrab, the account was no longer on Twitter.
A discussion among Twitter users began as to the nature of the account – and even about whether it had ever existed in the first place – but it can be established that the account did exist. However, it seems to have existed only to make that tweet – responses to the now-vanished account are limited to a few made to the tweet quoted by ‘Left Over’:
The bottom four responses shown above have the ‘@deanbrownlab’ account rendered in red, showing that they were replies to the account while it was still live. The next one above, made on the same day, is in black, showing that it was typed in but not ‘live’ at that point.
If the account ever made any other tweets, nobody responded to them to leave a trace on Twitter. There are no earlier mentions.
The account name was then briefly changed to ‘@oratorioazamour’, before that was also deleted.
The image in the ‘Dean Brown’ account was stolen. Kai Murphy-Dunn tweeted to Angela Smith that it was his:
Searches of Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo returned no meaningful results for the search term ‘”Dean Brown”+”Labour”, apart from comments on the vile tweet:
A modus operandi?
The description and structure of the ‘Dean Brown’ account had a familiar look. Described by ‘Left Over’ as “a former Labour Party staffer, is a @jeremycorbyn supporter and a member of both @UKLabour and @PeoplesMomentum“, there was no evidence for any of its claims – but they were similar to those used on a fake account last year.
One which fooled not only former Labour leadership hopeful Yvette Cooper but also the Israeli government.
In July last year, Ms Cooper tweeted a number of screengrabs as evidence of ‘online abuse’. Among those she quoted was a reply by an account ‘@WesBrownLab‘ with a similarly disgusting reference to the murder of Jewish people:
The account made claims to support Jeremy Corbyn and to be a Labour staffer similar to those made by the ‘Dean Brown’ account:
No Wesley Brown has ever worked for the Labour Party as an adviser to Jeremy Corbyn – nor indeed in any capacity, according to the party.
But even the Israeli government had been fooled by it.
In 2015, the Israeli foreign ministry slammed the account after it blamed the Paris massacre on zionism – but as the Telegraph reported:
The foreign ministry quickly realised its mistake and apologised. “Unfortunately, many fell in the trap,” a spokesman said.
‘DeanBrownLab‘. ‘WesleyBrownLab‘. Same structure, even the same surname – and both claiming Labour staffer status and support for Jeremy Corbyn. Clearly someone wants readers of the accounts’ appalling tweets to get the message that it is a Labour account – and to make the association between the disgusting comments and the Labour leader.
The Wesley Brown fake account – for such it indisputably was – was also closely associated with other well-known fake accounts that still exhibit similar behaviour.
Angela Smith was contacted for comment about her response, but no reply was received by the time of publication.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
The similarities in construction and behaviour between ‘DeanBrownLab’ and ‘WesleyBrownLab’ are striking – and they made comments that rightly caused outrage.
However, they both clearly appear to be fakes, constructed by a person or persons ready – in both instances – to cynically exploit the murder of Jewish people in order to smear the Labour Party and its leader as antisemitic.
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They must not get away with that. Is there any way to trace the (fake?)account? I am very angry at the filthy nasty tactics applied!!!!!
Great post from Skwarwkbox.
In many years of studying, it has become obvious that there are many deliberate traps out there set to snare the unwary.
We must also be aware, there are still those within the LP machinery who are only too willing to go along with this subterfuge, we must not be complacent.
“fooled” Yvette Cooper & now Angela Eagle funny how they’re both staunchly anti-Corbyn types who happened to reply to & condemn these tweets that are supposedly from Labour staff & Corbyn supporter & Momentum member, its funny how they can claim all that but can’t provide a full name/address isn’t it???
They couldn’t be part of it could they? You set em up, I’ll knock em down type of arrangement?
Now I could never suggest that such upstanding members of the Labour Party would ever stoop so low but it does make you wonder, doesn’t it???
Skwawkbox : This is probably the most important story you have done on anti-Semitism, because where this Faker goes so do many others, probably paid for. Upon them are based ALL the lies because they are ‘the evidence’ journalsits, the JC, and the Margaret Hodges of this world rely on to keep the story going. They are encouraged or ‘given license’ (as with Trump and the extreme right) by the debased political discourse promoted by John Mann, Angela Smith and yes, Yvette Cooper in this instance who adds credence to a lie, possibly deliberately because she is not dangerously daft, unlike say, Mann. That this debased discourse should be picked up like a baton by journalists who claim to speak for the Guardian, is very telling. How many of us knew this was going on all along. I did. But the danger of social media as Cambridge Analytica showed, is that tracing and stopping such lies is difficult and expensive and well nigh impossible for us to shut down. But before you condemn all Guardian types, remember it was another Gdn/Observer journalist Carole Cadwalldr who investigated Cambridge Analytica and under enormous difficulty, for a year or more, because there are some secret service areas of our State, who like such reactionary influencers. It was fantastically important investigative journalism.The point I am making is that do not throw out all the journos as the same rotten apples as the one on sky news! It would be worth asking the Guardian however why they do not report your story or do they leave such anti Semitism lies exposes to Skwak and the Telegraph?
A reasonable point. There *are* some good and genuine journalists in the MSM – and specifically the Guardian. Baby and bathwater. And it is worth remembering that some may not have exactly the same views as oneself. It’s a matter of judgment – for instance, I differ from Peter Oborne on many issues, but he was ahead of Al Jazeera in exposing the Israel lobby.
As to that particular issue – I have no idea whether the Guardian is simply supine under pressure, or complicit with the pressure. Probably a bit of both, given the wild-eyed hatred of Corbyn that it’s editorial line has followed, and the uncritical support for fantasy conspiracy journalists such as Freedland and Cohen with their explicit links to that lobby.
What I do know is that Rusbridger (the previous editor) is edited out of the paper’s history in terms of the revelations that he made on film about pressure from the Israel lobby.
Recently, the Israeli Lobby sent the LP a parcel (trap) and said “here you are, this is a device we have built to defend you from unwanted intruders, just hide it in your garden” and like fools, the LP accepted it. It contained the IHRA definition.
Absolutely right Jack T.
Good work Skwawkbox, I’d encourage anyone noticing such abuse to obtain the Twitter ID of the accounts as soon as possible, in case the abuser tries to reactivate with a different account name, as may have happened.
You can retrieve the account ID here: http://gettwitterid.com
A nasty tweet obviously sent from a nasty person who appears to be mentally unstable and goes to show you can’t take everything you see like this as genuine unless you’re Angela Smith with her own axe to grind. Rarely see stuff like this, but block immediately.
As if a JC supporter would tweet/say such a thing about such an horrendous event, at any time, let alone in the present ‘climate’ (albeit 99% manufactured and fake). But the anti-Corbyn brigade will of course feign to believe it – as those behind it knew that they would – along with all the faux outrage they can muster.
Wesley Brown, Dean Brown…Who next? Bad bad Leroy Brown ffs?