This week, UK Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy asked the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to disclose how much of taxpayer’s money has been spent on the government’s shadowy “counter disinformation units” that was brought to the public’s attention by Big Brother Watch.
UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace admitted in parliament that the British Army’s 77th Brigade “uses material shared on social media platforms to assess UK disinformation trends.”
The admission came after a whistleblower spoke Big Brother Watch, claiming that the 7th Brigade regularly monitored and flagged the social media posts of Brits during disinformation searches.
Wallace admitted that the 77th Brigade analyzes UK disinformation but announced that claims by the whistleblower about the content flagged for the government would be investigated, arguing that the Brigade “is not to be involved in regulating, policing or even reporting opinion that it may or may not agree with.”
Earlier, the British Army had said that the 77th Brigade “do not, and have never, conducted any kind of action against British citizens,” adding that their counter-disinformation work “is internationally focused.” The evidence contradicts this statement.
