It took about 72 hours for the “disinformation” gang to launch attacks on Slovakia’s investigation into the networks that might have impelled the gunman Juraj Cintula, to attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Robert Fico on May 15. On May 19, four days after Cintula pumped several bullets into Fico, Slovakia’s Interior Ministry announced that they suspected that Cintula had collaborators. One trail involved the matter of who had deleted Cintula’s social media presence within two hours of his shooting Fico. Yesterday, three days after Slovakia decided that Cintula may not be a “lone wolf” assassin, Meta tried to claim that Slovakia was wrong about any collaborators cleaning off Cintula’s computer, and that Meta personnel, themselves, had deleted Cintula’s Facebook page. But it was an exceedingly clumsy performance.
Another trail that Slovakia is investigating is the whipping up of blind hatred and threats against Fico on various social websites, including the possibility that certain individuals instigated Cintula into the assassination attempt. Also yesterday, Bloomberg made a simple-minded attempt to throw shade on the Slovakians’ investigation, with their article, “Russia’s Misinformation Machine Targets Slovakian Assassination Attempt.” The core of their operation is to pick one pro-Russian site that circulated the line that Cintula was “somehow affiliated with pro-Ukrainian forces” because he was a “member of Progressive Slovakia, a pro-EU party that supports Ukraine” and “was somehow associated with pro-Ukrainian forces.” Since there’s no evidence that he was a “member,” this means that Russia is behind such phony stories. Hence, if and when one hears, or even suspects, that there may be more than a “lone wolf” involved, the automatic thought is that Russia is desperate to pull a fast one.
For Bloomberg’s purposes, the article picked the “Cyber Army of Russia Reborn” website, which “circulated messages on the Telegram social media app suggesting” that Cintula was “a member of Progressive Slovakia.” In the days before mis-, dis- and mal-information, this was called setting up a straw man—that is, Cintula was “a member” of Progressive Slovakia—for the argument. One goes down a rabbit hole looking for a membership card. The reality is that Cintula attended their rallies, followed their line, and praised their efforts. If someone called that being a “member,” that’s just loose talk seized upon by the “disinformation” gang. Cintula certainly is recorded on video of an April 26 protest, chanting against Fico the traitor and for full support of Ukraine.
