NBC說香港《蘋果日報》委託撰寫拜登兒勾結中國的假報告,真不能小看黎智英與川普

NBC說拜登兒子韓特「電郵門」作者是假的,是香港《蘋果日報》委託撰寫拜登兒勾結中國的假報告,這讓我想到紐約時報說《大紀元時報》及法輪功虔誠教徒將新冠病毒稱之為「中共病毒」,如果這是真的,川普獲得的境外勢力支持還真多呢。

How a fake persona laid the groundwork for a Hunter Biden conspiracy deluge 

Balding claimed that the document was commissioned by Apple Daily, a Hong Kong-based tabloid that is frequently critical of the Chinese government. A spokesperson for Apple Daily confirmed it had worked with Balding on the document. 

妙的是,台灣與香港的蘋果日報都發出聲明否認!

請問全世界,大家相信民主美國的NBC還是相信「裸體加屍體」的狗仔蘋果日報呢?

Blackjack 2020/10/30

紐約時報《大紀元時報》:從反華小報到右翼影響力機器報導
NBC說香港《蘋果日報》委託撰寫拜登兒勾結中國的假報告
台灣與香港的蘋果日報都發出聲明否認

糗!川粉狂傳拜登兒勾結陸報告 遭爆「作者是假的」
17:002020/10/30 中時新聞網 馮英志
正值拜登兒子韓特(Hunter Biden)「電郵門」在大選前發酵之際,美國國家廣播公司(NBC)指出,就在韓特「電郵門」爆料前一個月,一份在右派盛傳的情報報告當時就指控韓特與大陸掛勾,但這份自稱是來自「颱風調查」的報告,其作者自稱為瑞士分析師「阿斯彭」(Martin Aspen)根本不存在,令外界質疑又是一起欲左右選舉的陰謀論。

NBC報導指出,根據研究假訊息的研究人員透過公開資訊指出,自稱是瑞士安全分析師阿斯彭完全是虛構人物,他的照片是透過人工智慧合成,而在他個人履歷中的先前任職情報研究公司中,並未有這位人物的工作紀錄;且根據公開紀錄與社群媒體搜尋,在瑞士也沒有阿斯彭這位人物。

而最早貼出這份報告的部落客鮑爾丁教授(Christopher Balding)被NBC問到相關問題時,也承認部分報告內容是他所撰寫,且阿斯彭是虛構人物,根本不存在。報導稱,這份虛構報告,與川普密友朱利安尼爆料給《紐約郵報》的「電郵門」內容,都成為抹黑拜登陰謀論的一部分。

報導稱,這份「颱風調查」(Typhoon Investigations)報告最初是出現在匿名部落格「情報季刊」(Intelligence Quarterly)中,並由曾任北京大學匯豐商學院的鮑爾丁助理教授所張貼。

鮑爾丁向NBC表示,大約在2個月前已向媒體交一份關於韓特在大陸活動的報告,但他們都果斷拒絕報導,並強調他並未撰寫該份報告,但知道是誰寫的;不過,鮑爾丁之後又向NBC改口稱「關於前言與回顧等部分內容是自己寫的」,但強調外界基於假訊息的擔憂,相關報告引用必須要從已為大眾接受的公共來源,這一點至關重要。

至於為何要用「阿斯彭」虛構人名,鮑爾丁表示純粹用來發布報告用的,但基於個人以及職業風險因素,主要作者要求匿名。而鮑爾丁也聲稱,該報告是由香港《蘋果日報》委託撰寫的,而一位《蘋果》的發言人也確認曾與他在該份報告上合作。

此外,除了在部落格上張貼報告外,他還在川普的前策士班農(Steve Bannon)的podcast節目,以及大紀元時報等極端右翼媒體上宣傳這份報告,而「情報季刊」部落格也成為保守與陰謀論社群最主要的資訊來源之一,特別是當前最備受關注的陰謀論團體「匿名者Q」(QAnon)。

不過,台灣《蘋果日報》聲明指出NBC報導內容嚴重謬誤,並聲明指出《蘋果》從未委託任何人寫該份報告,或參與此一調查報告製作、撰寫相關事情,也未接觸來自NBC的任何查詢,要求NBC應立即更正澄清。

#川普 #拜登 #韓特 #美大選 #超八卦


How a fake persona laid the groundwork for a Hunter Biden conspiracy deluge 

How a fake persona laid the groundwork for a Hunter Biden conspiracy deluge
A 64-page document that was later disseminated by close associates of President Donald Trump appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm."
Image: Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden speaks at the World Food Program USA's annual awards ceremony in Washington in April 2016.Paul Morigi / Getty Images file
Oct. 30, 2020, 5:30 AM CST
By Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny
One month before a purported leak of files from Hunter Biden's laptop, a fake "intelligence" document about him went viral on the right-wing internet, asserting an elaborate conspiracy theory involving former Vice President Joe Biden's son and business in China.

The document, a 64-page composition that was later disseminated by close associates of President Donald Trump, appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm" called Typhoon Investigations, according to researchers and public documents.

The author of the document, a self-identified Swiss security analyst named Martin Aspen, is a fabricated identity, according to analysis by disinformation researchers, who also concluded that Aspen's profile picture was created with an artificial intelligence face generator. The intelligence firm that Aspen lists as his previous employer said that no one by that name had ever worked for the company and that no one by that name lives in Switzerland, according to public records and social media searches.

One of the original posters of the document, a blogger and professor named Christopher Balding, took credit for writing parts of it when asked about it and said Aspen does not exist.

Despite the document's questionable authorship and anonymous sourcing, its claims that Hunter Biden has a problematic connection to the Communist Party of China have been used by people who oppose the Chinese government, as well as by far-right influencers, to baselessly accuse candidate Joe Biden of being beholden to the Chinese government.


Inside the false conspiracy theory being pushed about the Bidens
OCT. 24, 202004:43
The document and its spread have become part of a wider effort to smear Hunter Biden and weaken Joe Biden's presidential campaign, which moved from the fringes of the internet to more mainstream conservative news outlets.

An unverified leak of documents — including salacious pictures from what President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and a Delaware Apple repair store owner claimed to be Hunter Biden's hard drive — were published in the New York Post on Oct. 14. Associates close to Trump, including Giuliani and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, have promised more blockbuster leaks and secrets, which have yet to materialize.

The fake intelligence document, however, preceded the leak by months, and it helped lay the groundwork among right-wing media for what would become a failed October surprise: a viral pile-on of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.

Behind Typhoon
The Typhoon Investigations document was first posted in September to Intelligence Quarterly, an anonymous blog "dedicated to collecting important daily news," according to its "about" section. Historical domain records show the blog was registered to Albert Marko, a self-described political and economic adviser, who also lists the blog on his Twitter bio. When asked about the provenance of the document, Marko said he received it from Balding.

Balding, previously an associate professor at Fulbright University Vietnam who studied the Chinese economy and financial markets, posted the document on his blog on Oct. 22, seven weeks after it was initially published.

"I had really not wanted to do this but roughly 2 months ago I was handed a report about Biden activities in China the press has simply refused to cover. I want to strongly emphasize I did not write the report but I know who did," Balding said in an email.

Balding later claimed to NBC News that he wrote some of the document.

"I authored small parts of the report and was involved in report preparation and review. As a researcher, and due to the understandable worry about foreign disinformation, it was paramount that the report document activity from acknowledged and public sources," Balding said. "Great care was taken to document, cite, and retain information so that acknowledged facts could be placed in the public domain."

Image: Martin Aspen deepfake
A viral dossier about Hunter Biden was written by "Martin Aspen," a fake identity whose profile picture was created by artificial intelligence.TyphoonInvesti1 / via Twitter
Balding said Aspen is "an entirely fictional individual created solely for the purpose of releasing this report." Balding did not name the document's main author, saying "the primary author of the report, due to personal and professional risks, requires anonymity."

Balding claimed that the document was commissioned by Apple Daily, a Hong Kong-based tabloid that is frequently critical of the Chinese government. A spokesperson for Apple Daily confirmed it had worked with Balding on the document.

In addition to posting the document to his blog, Balding also promoted it in far-right media, appearing on Bannon's podcast and on "China Unscripted," a podcast produced by The Epoch Times, a pro-Trump media outlet opposed to the Chinese government.

Balding, an American who taught economics at China's Peking University HSBC Business School until 2018, is often critical of the Chinese government. He made news this year as a source uncovering a global bulk data collection operation by the Chinese company Shenzhen Zhenhua Data Technology.

Blog posts highlighting the most salacious parts of the document, including articles from the Intelligence Quarterly Blog, Revolver News and Balding's blog, received 70,000 public interactions — which includes reactions, comments and shares — across Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, according to the social media analysis tool BuzzSumo.

Balding's blog was the primary driver of virality in conservative and conspiracy communities. The report itself was shared across Facebook and Twitter around 5,000 times, according to BuzzSumo, and more than 80 sites linked back to the blog, which was shared more than 25,000 times on Facebook and Twitter. Hyperpartisan and conspiracy sites like ZeroHedge and WorldNetDaily led the pack.

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After the promise of a big reveal one day earlier, the document was also posted on the extremist forum 8kun by Q, the anonymous account behind the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.

On Twitter, the document was pushed by influencers in the QAnon community, as well as by Dinggang Wang, an anti-Chinese government YouTube personality who works for Guo Wengui, a billionaire who fled China amid accusations of bribery and other crimes. Republican Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, tweeted the document to his 2.3 million followers.

'Immediately suspicious'
The document gained attention from disinformation researchers in part because of the image of the document's author.

Elise Thomas, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, first spotted telltale signs of a fake photo when she went searching for Typhoon Investigations' Aspen on the web. Thomas found a Twitter account for Aspen named @TyphoonInvesti1, which had posted a link to Typhoon's WordPress page that contained the document on Aug. 15.

The profile picture for Aspen immediately showed signs of being a computer-generated image that can be created by computers and even some websites. Aspen's ears were asymmetrical, for one, but his left eye is what gave away that he did not really exist. Aspen's left iris juts out and appears to form a second pupil, a somewhat frequent error with computer-generated faces.

"The most obvious tell was the irregular shape of the irises," Thomas said. "The profile picture looks pretty convincing in the Twitter thumbnail, but when I popped it up into full view I was immediately suspicious."

Thomas then consulted with Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at the analytics company Graphika, who noted the other telltale sign of a computer-generated face.

"One of the things he and his team have figured out is that if you layer a lot of these images over the top of one another, the eyes align," Thomas said. "He did that with this image, and the eyes matched up."

Other parts of Aspen's identity were clearly stolen from disparate parts of the web. Aspen's Facebook page was created in August, and it featured only two pictures, both from his "new house," which were tracked back to reviews on the travel website Tripadvisor. The logo for Typhoon Investigations was lifted from the Taiwan Fact-Checking Center, a digital literacy nonprofit.

Aspen claimed on his LinkedIn profile to have worked for a company called Swiss Security Solutions from 2016 to 2020. Swiss Security Solutions denied having ever employed anyone named Aspen, and it said it had found fake accounts for two other people pretending to have worked for the company.

"Martin Aspen was never a freelancer or worker of the Swiss Security Solutions. We do not know this person. According to our Due Diligence Software, this person does not exist in Switzerland," Swiss Security Solutions Chairman Bojan Ilic said, adding that the company has reported the profile to LinkedIn.

Fake faces
Computer-generated faces have become a staple of large-scale disinformation operations in the run-up to the election. In December, Facebook took down a network of fake accounts using computer-created faces tied to The Epoch Times. Facebook removed over 600 accounts tied to the operation, which pushed pro-Trump messages and even served as moderators of some Facebook groups. Stephen Gregory, publisher of the U.S. editions of The Epoch Times, has denied any connection to the accounts.

Last month, Facebook removed another batch of computer-generated profiles originating in China and the Philippines, some of which made anti-Trump posts.

Renee DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said computer-created identities are becoming common for disinformation campaigns, in part because they are easy to create.

DiResta, who helped examine a ring of AI-generated faces tied to the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA last month, said computer-generated profile pictures can be used to "build an army of fake people" to artificially support a cause or to make "disinformation operations harder to discover."

"One of the things that investigators look at to understand the narrative that is spreading is whether the accounts are authentic, whether they're real," DiResta said. "If they were to use a stock photo, it confirms something dishonest is likely happening. By using an AI-generated face, you're guaranteeing you won't find that person elsewhere on the internet."

Ben Collins
Ben Collins covers disinformation, extremism and the internet for NBC News.

Image: Brandy Zadrozny
Brandy Zadrozny
Brandy Zadrozny is an investigative reporter for NBC News.

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