PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2016-06-19 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • DEFCON Warning Level Escalated to 3 (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • On 20 June 2016 the felon-run conspiracy web site SuperStation95 reported that the U.S. had raised the national defense readiness alert level because something very big is taking place: The SuperStation95 article (which leaned heavily on words like likely and reportedly) appeared to include manually-published updates, the bulk of which were transcribed tweets lifted from (but not attributed to) the Twitter account of the (non-government related) DEFCON Warning System web site: The DEFCON Warning System web site itself displayed the following message on 20 June 2016: That page was appended with a disclaimer disclosing that the site was in no way affiliated with nor party to credible intelligence from any government agency or military branches, and that it monitors world events independently. As such, the actual Armed Forces of the United States had nothing to do with any DEFCON-related tweets: A commenter by the name of Alex responded to Superstation95 and, apparently be speaking on behalf of the Defcon Warning System site, stated: Contrary to initial appearances, Superstation95 is neither a radio superstation nor an actual news source, but rather a conspiracy site that peddles false claims and misinformation from Hal Turner, a felon who spent 33 months in prison for making death threats against three federal judges in 2009. (The information on the site's Contact page references Turner's criminal lawyer.) The DEFCON 3 claim (seemingly debunked by its originators in the comments) wasn't the first instance during which Superstation95 has advanced alarmist hoaxes or conspiracy theories on social media. Appearing in late 2015, Superstation95 wasted no time in embellishing what were often legitimate tragedies or unfortunate events with falsified but upsetting details. Among the most widely shared were claims a large group of Muslim men began firing upon campers and hikers in California, Fukushima radiation caused severe mutations in marine life, cargo ships mysteriously ground to a halt signaling an imminent global economic catastrophe, a deadly Las Vegas strip car crash involved a driver shouting Allahu Akbar, the San Bernardino shooting was provoked by pork served at a holiday party shortly before the massacre, the Earth's magnetosphere inexplicably collapsed for two hours, a (nonexistent) suicide note left by a genuinely deceased ICE agent warned of impending FEMA camps and mass enslavement, and that articles about the Orlando shooting appeared on Google News hours before the attack. None of Superstation95's opportunistic claims have ever come to fruition, and the site from which this item was sourced openly stated it had no access to any information about any DEFCON level changes other than speculation. In the time since the article discussed above began circulating, no media sources have reported on on any unusual activity or unexplained military maneuvers. (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url