Second site posing as Long-Bailey leadership candidate page sends visitors to rival site – and behaves the same when discovered
Yesterday the SKWAWKBOX revealed the existence of a fake website claiming to be for the campaign of Labour leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey, which redirected visitors to the page of rival Lisa Nandy.
When the site was exposed, it was changed so that it redirected members to the Labour Party’s website.
Thanks to a SKWAWKBOX reader a second, similar site has been identified – one that behaved – before and after its exposure – almost identically.
Tom Tunney found the site – and captured its operation in a video that he published on his Facebook feed:
While Tunney attributed the fake site to the Nandy campaign, it’s possible that it was set up independently by a supporter – or even by a rival trying to create suspicion.
Ms Nandy’s office has not responded to requests for comment on either fake site.
The second fake page – rebeccaforleader.com, very close to the rebeccaforleader.org of the authentic site – appears to be connected to the first and is likely to have been set up by the same person or organisation. According to its ‘whois’ information, it was set up through the same anonymised registering organisation and at the same time as the first site, rebeccalongbaileyforleader.com:
Interestingly, both sites were set up only four days after the general election result. Long-Bailey’s authentic site was not created until 6 January and her candidacy was not announced until this month, so it appears someone was preparing a fake-news campaign in advance on the assumption that she would stand.
When the first site was exposed, it was quickly changed so that it redirected to the Labour Party site. When the second was outed, it was soon changed so that it redirected to an article on the Independent website about Keir Starmer, another candidate in the contest.
Soon after that, in the early hours of this morning, the page was briefly taken offline but is now back and currently still routing visitors to the Independent.
SKWAWKBOX view:
The spread of such disinformation and misdirection into the Labour leadership contest is deeply concerning. Members and registered supporters should take care to check that information they receive is genuine and accurate.
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I think it’s time The Electoral Commission and the ICO need contacting you see if any laws have been broken.
It’s not an election that comes under the aegis of the Electoral Commission.
That’s disappointing considering all the hoops trade unions have to go through with ballots. There must be some quango out there that we could report this dubious behaviour to?
To see
And who’s a naughty girl then..just a slap on the wrist ?
By way of deception we wage war 🙂 #JL
I can conceive of it being the result of incompetence – but that’s from an incompetent’s point of view.
I’m currently wrestling with Windows 10 on a mil-spec machine built for Windows 7 and trial and error is taking a while just to get wifi to stay connec
ted!
Political lightweight Nandy would perhaps be better suited to the Lib Dems?
Her latest comment on accepting the freedom of movement shows her lack of socialist analysis and support for the 4 EC Neo-Liberal freedoms that serve capital – free movement of goods, services, capital, and people.
Seriously apart from RLB and Burgon as first choices (apart from Butler 2 out of 3) the rest are an embarrassment to socialists, a 6th form group of politics students could offer more hope!
Sorry – but RLB is also an embarassment – piss and wind coupled with kow-towing to the BoD. She’ll keel over in a breeze.
As to ‘socialist analysis’ : you mean your political view, of course. Which, of course, you’re entitled to – but don’t cast it as holy writ.
They are all spineless and gutless when it comes to vexatious claims of AS
I note Mason is having a tantrum re Catholic debacle and RLB, even blocked Bastani. All I can say is rofl. More trouble at mill, apparently using yet another religion as a political weapon.
Maria……masons of any discription have problems with the Catholic church.They are banned.!
So there is political skulduggery in the Leadership? I have to question the Labour party administration on this – and yes I mean the general secretary Jennie Formby. She has stood by and watch mayhem in the party and done what?
How much does she get paid by party members funds and what is she doing for the good of the party and the membership?
The membership really need to ask these questions because the leadership contest is falling into farce. And Formby is content to do – nowt.
What can Formby do when candidates screw the Party over? Forget the fake fakes. The real fakes are the problem!
On the subject of bent – or fake – news, The Canary currently has a revealing article about the BBC’s dereliction of duty in terms of Question Time, where audiences are now being selected on the basis of the current voting proportions of parties rather than as a cross-section of views amongst the public. The intention obviously builds in a bias to the Tories.
“After introducing the programme’s panellists, Bruce said:
As usual, our audience has been selected to reflect the current political picture, depending where we are. So here in England that means there are more Conservative than Labour supporters plus a smaller number from other parties.”
See : https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/01/17/the-outrageous-new-audience-selection-policy-bbc-question-time-revealed-last-night/
In conjunction with the above, there is another relevant article detailing Justin Schlosberg’s crowdfunding attempt to take Ofcom to court over its failure to investigate the BBC over its documented bias re. its scam documentary on the AS affair. :
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2020/01/17/one-academic-is-so-sick-of-bbc-bias-hes-taking-legal-action/
“So here in England”, says Fiona Bruce.
Of course the show should be reflecting the general public of the host town/city, in this case Liverpool, but that might spoil our narrative, so we say England so we have an excuse to skew the audience.
Decriminalisation of paying the licence fee can’t come soon enough!
You’re right, timfrom – except in falling into the Tory trap of the baby and the bathwater.
Much though I hate to fall for a Tory bribe, this is one I will take. I’d be happier if I could merely deprive the News/Panorama/QT axis of funds but still fund the rest. Yes, it’d be a shame to throw the drama baby out with the news bathwater!
Who is Rebecca Long Bailey?
Video – 30 minute interview.
We discussed her childhood, her proudest achievements in life, her biggest regret and whether she’s ever taken illegal drugs, all in a bid to find out more about the woman who could soon be Labour’s first ever female leader.
https://www.joe.co.uk/politics/labour-leadership-who-is-rebecca-long-bailey-241832
Steve H ….Long Bailey appeared quite sincere in the staged chat and came across as just a “nice” girl from a working class family.from Salford \Manchester.The only time she seemed uncomfortable was with the AS question and whilst supporting a more ruthless approach to controlling AS in the Labour party(witchunt) her face betrayed that she knows its a scam and a filthy lie.Don’t expect any help from her when the membership are targeted by the security services and the Anti terrorist police.(morning star)editorial report even CND are on the list.Looks to me with this line up of candidates the membership might have to worry more about a knock on the door than voting for this bunch.of carreerists….just what have the public unleashed on themselves by voting for the bullingdon boys.
Today’s Leadership Husting – Video 1 hour 38 minutes
https://youtu.be/s746wYFz5Gg
Skip past the first 15 minutes to the start.
and here is the link to the Deputy Leadership Hustings. It’s only a small thing but I must admit to being a little perplexed as to why nobody saw fit to edit these videos so that they don’t start off with several minutes of nothing.
https://youtu.be/nIpeVHm68Fs?t=597
The reality is they are all political lightweights against a few political heavyweiights RLB (2.5 out of 3), Burgon 3/3, Butler 2/3, rest 0/3 and Starmer, Phillips, Nandy -1,000/3.
The reality is Neo-Liberalism is in structural decline, the Tories have spent £435b on the electronic printing of money (Quantitative Easing) since 2010 to keep the economy static because they don’t know what to do, but the Left, and ONLY the left does!
We need state led public investment, £10 an hour minimum wage etc putting more money in peoples pockets to stimulate the economy.
The Right in Labour like “Macron” Starmer haven’t a clue what to do too, running to the centre, running away from the answers, crumbs for working people, to crush left wing democratic socialism.
The Left in Labour in the UK could be the stars that make history.
Ours could be an example to the World, A GLOBAL VISION!
The Left offer everything, the Right nothing!
Solidarity!
After watching the hustings yesterday here is my opinion.
In my honest opinion these are my ratings. 5th place, is Jess Phillips, incoherent, ill prepared , utterly hopeless. 4th place, Emily Thornberry, made some good interventions but she is not the future and belongs to the past. 3rd place, Lisa Nandy, made some useful points but probably will stay third. 2nd place, Keir Starmer, looked competent but not an inspirational speaker. 1st place, Rebecca Long-Bailey, competence and passion, will inspire the membership.