A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic, Laura Dodsworth [the two towers ebook .txt] 📗

The use of unelected advisory groups in 2020 is a technocratic style of government, a command-and-control model of public decision-making that is reliant on scientific expertise rather than political debate. Added to that, there has been limited transparency about the scientific advisors, the modelling they use, and the data ingests. Before key votes on emergency legislation, MPs were not given the data they asked for. For example, 70 conservative MPs asked for a full cost-benefit analysis before a parliamentary vote on a strict three-tiered system to follow lockdown,17 and when a flimsy analysis followed it contained very little in the way of quantifiable costs and benefits.18

Within this technocratic style of government, we are subjects of a ‘psychocracy’, where the policy-making is dictated by psychological expertise. This is even more top-down and opaque, because redefining our behaviour by using stealthy psychology techniques means we aren’t always aware, let alone able to comment on, consent to or participate in policy-making. One of the aims of this book is to alert you to the tools and influence of the psychocrats.

We did not elect the psychocrats that operate and advise within the heart of government. We do not even know how each governmental unit leans on behavioural science, but there are behavioural insights teams in at least 10 government departments.19

Crises ‘justify’ political institutions and governmental units and the accretion of power above democratic oversight. All of these units operate in ways which are not transparent to the population, nor even to MPs. You will find little information about them. I approached the Cabinet Office to discuss the Rapid Response Unit and the 77th Brigade several times and never received a response. I asked MPs for introductions or insights and they were unable or unwilling to help. So, aside from the Nudge Unit, here is a brief overview of the departments that form the shadowy ‘Business of Fear’.

RICU

The Home Office’s Research, Information and Communications Unit is a strategic communications unit within the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism in the Home Office. It works across a range of public security issues, including counter-terrorism and serious and organised crime.

One paper seen by The Guardian set out RICU’s ambition to use ‘strategic communications aims to effect behavioural and attitudinal change’. The unit apparently attempts to covertly engineer the thoughts of people by using chosen ‘grassroots organisations and NGOs, providing financial and technical support from the government for the production of their multimedia campaigns which purport to be ‘grassroots’.20 I interviewed someone who worked for an agency employed by RICU for Chapter 8, ‘Controlled spontaneity and propaganda’, and gained some fascinating insights.

THE RAPID RESPONSE UNIT

Based in Number 10 and the Cabinet Office, this unit was especially created to drive rapid response on social media to help support the ‘reclaiming of a fact-based public debate’.21 Its role during the Covid epidemic has included: ‘direct rebuttal on social media, working with platforms to remove harmful content and ensuring public health campaigns are promoted through reliable sources’. It claims to be dealing with up to 70 incidents a week.

COUNTER DISINFORMATION CELL

The cell falls under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.22 It brings together experts from various government departments and engages with social media platforms and with disinformation specialists from civil society and academia. Along with the Rapid Response Unit it tackles ‘fake news’. (Their work seems to overlap for some reason.)

We have little understanding about what the Counter Disinformation Cell and Rapid Response Unit actually do, but they seem to be working behind closed doors to control and censor otherwise lawful things people say online, despite the UK’s extensive laws about free speech and censorship. Obvious examples are the removal from YouTube of videos by doctors and scientists which supposedly contravene WHO official guidance. As Silkie Carlo of Big Brother Watch said to me, ‘I have to pinch myself sometimes that doctors have been removed from YouTube for talking about their medical experience of treating patients.’ Not only does this not allow people to think for themselves, but the WHO itself has changed its thinking a few times during the epidemic – not unusual as scientists learn about a new disease. A banned video which contravenes today’s guidance might be compliant next week when scientific consensus changes.

GCHQ

Government Communications Headquarters is an intelligence, cyber and security agency. During the epidemic it has been engaged in a ‘cyberwar on anti-vaccine propaganda’. This work is supposed to be directed at foreign actors not UK citizens online. The Times reported on a ‘Whitehall source who emphasised that GCHQ was able to gain permission to tackle disinformation that originated only from state adversaries. It is not legally permitted to disrupt online content written by ordinary citizens. “You wouldn’t get authorisation to go after cranks. People have a right to say batshit stuff online,” the source said.’23

THE 77TH BRIGADE

The 77th Brigade is an army unit which combines former media operations and psychological operations, specialising in ‘non-lethal’ forms of psychological warfare. It works with social media companies to counter disinformation. Would you believe that Twitter’s Head of Editorial in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa also served as a part-time officer for the 77th Brigade and the Ministry of Defence would not reveal his current rank when asked by Middle East Eye?24 MP Tobias Ellwood is a reservist lieutenant colonel in the 77th Brigade.

Many people believe the 77th is giving direct rebuttals to UK citizens who speak out against lockdown on social media. If you search for the hashtag #77th on Twitter you will find scathing comments from people who believe they have identified the 77th at work. My question for the 77th Brigade was, would it attack British citizens online while reinforcing the government message? The old saying goes, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’, yet ‘pileons’ can feel like ferocious verbal and psychological attacks, which lead to anxiety, withdrawal from social media and even threaten job security. Are the military harassing British citizens?

I called the