By
Les May
IN
the distant days
of my youth my two
primary modes of entertainment were listening to the radio and
reading books from Rochdale library. The former gave me a liking for
the music of Django Reinhardt plus
a detailed knowledge of the deeds, and misdeeds, of the Forsyte
family. The latter gave me memorable book titles like ‘Winston
Churchill’s Toyshop’
and accounts
of the doings of characters
like Sefton Delmer.
As
soon as I heard of the appearance of anti-Semitic messages on
Facebook pages
set up by supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, I thought of Delmer, or at
least of his spiritual heirs.
In
the autumn of 1940, Delmer was recruited by the Political Warfare
Executive (PWE) to organize radio broadcasts to Nazi Germany. The
twist in the story was
that the broadcasts
would undermine Hitler by
pretending to originate
from fervent Nazi
supporters complaining
about the way that he was being let down by his underlings.
Pretending to be
something you are not and using that as a disguise to undermine your
opponent, was Delmer’s forte.
A
modern day Sefton Delmer
would not need anything so crude or expensive as a 600kW medium wave
transmitter to spread discord. In
fact his intended victims would open the door and welcome him in by
making him a Facebook ‘friend’
without for one moment knowing who he is. Once
‘inside’ what is easier than to post anti-Semitic messages to
discredit not just Corbyn, but all Corbyn supporters.
If
this sounds a little far fetched check
out these websites all of which offer ‘aged’
Facebook accounts to anyone with the cash to buy.
Whenever
Israel and the Palestinians decide to have a go at each other the war
isn’t just fought with guns and bullets and
the PBI, it’s also
fought on social media
like Facebook and Twitter, by each side’s cyber-soldiers. In time
we shall no doubt find out whether Russia really did influence the
outcome of the Brexit referendum and/or the US presidential election
by similar means.
Labour’s
superior ability in using social media to get its message across has
been been credited with helping to dramatically slash the Tory’s
majority at the last election. Now it is learning that there is no
such thing as a free lunch. Your opponents can play dirty, and they
may just be
doing it.
Anyone for
‘snail mail’?
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1 comment:
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