“Fact-checkers” smear protesting German farmers as CONSPIRACY THEORISTS

02/09/2024 / By Ava Grace

A German “fact-check” site has smeared farmers protesting against the country’s government as mere conspiracy theorists.

Writing for the Public newsletter on Substack, U.S.-based author Gregor Baszak said the Correctiv fact-check site was responsible for the smear. Meanwhile, Reclaim The Net disclosed that Correctiv is funded by leftist groups such as the Omidyar Network and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, tech giant Meta Platforms and the incumbent German government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

According to its website, Correctiv seeks to “expose systematic abuses, hold those in power accountable and strengthen an open and democratic civil society.” However, its smearing of the protesting farmers as mere conspiracy theorists actually goes against these aforementioned goals.

Correctiv reportedly smeared German farmers disgruntled with the heavy-handed bureaucracy of Brussels as “far-right conspiracy theorists aligned with Russia.” The said farmers are allegedly active on the private Telegram messaging app, where they purportedly spread “Russian propaganda” and “disinformation” about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

“Much else in the Correctiv article is false or misleading,” continued Baszak. “The article does not specify what ‘COVID-19 disinformation’ the farmers spread, nor does it offer any evidence of ties between the farmers and the Russian government – only that ‘some X accounts’ that support the farmers wrote posts that ‘coincided with the methods of a pro-Russian propaganda network.'”

Baszak ultimately pointed out that the farmers “aren’t far right,” and that they took to the streets in protest of cuts to “agricultural vehicle and diesel subsidies upon which many farmers rely for their economic survival.” The average German farmer earns just €33,500 ($36,089.55) annually, and “any could mean bankruptcy, especially for smaller family-owned farms.” (Related: Hundreds of German farmers set up disruptive road blockades to protest punitive taxes.)

Berlin is the worst purveyor of DISINFO

The U.S.-based writer also mentioned how the mainstream media and Correctiv ignored these facts, instead focusing on how a neo-Nazi group endorsed the farmer protests. However, many German farmers who joined the protests denounced these neo-Nazis by waving banners that said “agriculture is colorful, not brown” – referencing the brown shirts worn by members of the Storm Division (SA).

“Correctiv doesn’t mention that the worst perpetrators of COVID-19 disinformation were the German government and news media, which claimed that those vaccinated would not get sick or transmit the disease. The institutions with the clearest ties to the Russian government were the parties of Germany’s ruling coalition, which wholeheartedly embraced the building of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines,” wrote Baszak.

“Today, concerns about energy prices and the government’s overreaction to COVID-19 are broadly held among the German people, and [are] hardly ‘far-right.’ The loss of cheap nuclear power and natural gas due to the war in Ukraine and the destruction of the pipelines have resulted in the loss of major energy-intensive industries.”

Meanwhile, Reclaim The Net remarked: “Here we have yet another supposedly ‘fact-checking’ effort that turned into a smear campaign against people engaged in lawful protest regarding economic, social and political issues.”

Watch this drone footage that shows the full extent of the farmer protests in the German capital Berlin.

This video is from the HaloRock™ channel on Brighteon.com.