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Comment by Hasknewbie | Hacker News Reader

>> Likewise it was very embarrassing for the foreign policy establishment when their tools such as the oscar-winning White Helmets relief-workers were photographed arm-in-arm with rebel militants and shown staging videos

I looked this up and I found is this: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-this-proof-white-helmet...

Wikipedia has a couple of incidents listed in the 'Controversies' section on White Helmets, that do not really show them as 'tools of the foreign policy establishment'.

>> but I didn't see any of this exposed as 'misinformation.'

Well there you go then.

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The snopes page has them admitting in an official statement to making a fake video but, you see, that’s ok because they were intentionally making a fake video, it was an exercise, and they never meant for it to be distributed. Right.

The Wikipedia article states that they were founded by a man who happens to be a former British military intelligence officer, that they were initially funded by the UK foreign office, that they received 30 million annually from western governments and NGOs, and that they now operate in other countries. Sounds a hell of a lot more like a foreign policy tool than a grass roots charity operation, to me at least.

And lest we think this is just some pictures flying around on unverified Twitter accounts, here’s a BBC Panorama documentary featuring blatantly faked footage.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SvjTeuSKTW0&t=3m54s&feature=yo...

> The snopes page has them admitting in an official statement to making a fake video but,

That's false. The Syrian Civil Defense never said/admitted such thing.

>>>> These images have been online since 2016, and show members of the White Helmets filming a “mannequin challenge” video.

So have you seen that video? I haven't. I guess you haven't either. Let's watch it then, shall we? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgl271A6LgQ Now, why are you calling it "fake"?

> NGOs, funding, etc.

How does that make them a FP tool?

I wanted to look into the BBC Panorama Saving Syria's Children thing, and haven't found anything conclusive and short.

The BBC's reponse is the most relevant probably: https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/2014/0...

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/50507/i... [BBC's case against RT UK, which of course run with the whole "scandal"]

https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/05/02/assad-supporters-plan...

It's still possible that the BBC and its crew is full of lies. But at least their lies are well in line with what Assad is doing nowadays - and what probably did in 2013 too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2X84JZINcI

It’s a video featuring people pretending to rescue someone who is pretending to be injured. I call that fake. Why are they engaging in this sort of activity?

The BBC are standing by their footage, but it looks mighty fake to me, I suppose it could be real though.

They are doing homemade amateur performance art basically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannequin_Challenge

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