The Grayzone

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The Grayzone
The Grayzone Logo.png
The Grayzone as of 11 September 2021.png
The homepage of The Grayzone on September 11, 2021
Type of site
News website, Blog
Created byMax Blumenthal
EditorMax Blumenthal
Key peopleBen Norton (until January 2022[1])
Aaron Maté
Anya Parampil
URLthegrayzone.com
LaunchedDecember 2015

The Grayzone is a left-wing[2] to far-left[9] news website and blog[13] founded and edited by American journalist Max Blumenthal.[10] The website, initially founded as The Grayzone Project,[14] was affiliated with AlterNet before becoming independent in early 2018.[3] The website's news content is generally considered to be fringe[3][15][16][17] and it is known for its sympathetic coverage of authoritarian regimes[3][11][18] and its denial of the Uyghur genocide.[22]

History[]

The Grayzone was founded as a blog called The Grayzone Project in December 2015 by Max Blumenthal.[3][10][14] The blog was hosted on AlterNet from its inception until early 2018, when The Grayzone became independent of the website.[3][23]

Content[]

The Grayzone's news content is generally considered to be fringe,[3][15][16][17] with its content ideologically centered around the website's desire for a multipolar world.[3] Along this vein, the website has supported the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria,[24] publishing content denying that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians during the Syrian Civil War,[3][25] and maintains a pro-Kremlin editorial line.[24][2] The website has also denied the scope of the Xinjiang internment camps and the Uyghur genocide, downplaying widely reported abuses by the Chinese government against Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.[3][11][10][15]

Twitter hacked materials warning label[]

In February 2021, tweets concerning a Grayzone article by Blumenthal were the first to receive a Twitter warning label stating "These materials may have been obtained through hacking". The story was entitled "Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to 'weaken Russia', leaked docs reveal". The story referred to hacked and leaked documents and alleged that a British Army unit has used "social media to help fight wars".[26][27]

Reception[]

The Grayzone has been criticized "for its coverage of authoritarian regimes".[3][10][23] Bruce Bawer, writing in Commentary, described The Grayzone as "a one-stop propaganda shop, devoted largely to pushing a pro-Assad line on Syria, a pro-regime line on Venezuela, a pro-Putin line on Russia, and a pro-Hamas line on Israel and Palestine".[23] Nerma Jelacic, writing in the Index on Censorship, described The Grayzone as "a Kremlin-connected online outlet that pushes pro-Russian conspiracy theories and genocide denial."[28] The Grayzone had previously claimed Jelacic's employer collaborated with ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra affiliates.[28] Socialist academic Gilbert Achcar asserts that The Grayzone is an example of "pro-Putin, pro-Assad 'left-wing' propaganda combined with gutter journalism."[29]

It has also been sharply criticized for its characterizations of the Xinjiang internment camps and other Chinese state abuses against Uyghurs.[3][10][30] James Bloodworth, writing in the New Statesman, commented: "[i]n an echo of the way dictatorships publish the flattery of credulous foreign dupes in their state newspapers, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespeople have approvingly tweeted articles from Blumenthal's online magazine The Grayzone which have sought to deny the persecution of China's Uighur population."[30]

In March 2020, the English Wikipedia formally deprecated the use of The Grayzone as a source for facts in its articles, citing issues with the website's factual reliability.[3][12]

Chinese state-affiliated entities[]

The Government of China, officials within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Chinese state media have viewed The Grayzone's coverage of China positively.[3][11][10][15] In order to dispute ongoing atrocities in Xinjiang, Chinese state media and Chinese officials have increasingly cited posts from The Grayzone in their public communications.[33] According to a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Chinese state-controlled media and affiliated entities began to amplify articles from The Grayzone in December 2019 after the website posted an article critical of Xinjiang human rights researcher Adrian Zenz.[15] Chinese state-controlled media cited The Grayzone at least 313 times between December 2019 and February 2021, 252 of which were in English-language publications, the report said.[19][20][15]

References[]

  1. ^ Introducing Multipolarista - New independent media outlet reporting on end of US unipolar hegemony on YouTube
  2. ^ a b Carroll, Oliver (February 24, 2021). "Anger after Amnesty strips Navalny of 'prisoner of conscience' status". The Independent. Retrieved September 20, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Thompson, Caitlin (July 30, 2020). "Enter the Grayzone: fringe leftists deny the scale of China's Uyghur oppression". Coda Story. Based on a desire for a multipolar world, in which global military, cultural and economic power is distributed among multiple nation states and Western influence greatly diminished, they have been quick to argue on behalf of authoritarian regimes such as China and Syria.
  4. ^ a b Lang, Marissa J. (August 1, 2019). "Activists who occupied Venezuela's embassy in Washington honored at ceremony in Caracas". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
  5. ^ Sebok, Filip (April 30, 2021). "Czechia: A Case Study of China's Changing Overseas Propaganda Efforts". The Diplomat. Retrieved September 20, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ a b Bloodworth, James (December 11, 2020). "China's useful idiots". UnHerd. Retrieved September 27, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ^ a b Van der Made, Jan (April 8, 2021). "China's state television risks losing broadcast licence in France". Radio France Internationale. Retrieved September 20, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ^ Cuffe, Danil; Simon, Chloe (November 4, 2021). "Fringe right-wing media and conspiracy theorists spread antisemitic disinformation about the Pandora Papers". Media Matters for America. Retrieved November 8, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ [3][4][5][6][7][8]
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany (August 11, 2020). "The American blog pushing Xinjiang denialism". Axios.
  11. ^ a b c d Ross, Alexander Reid (July 27, 2021). "Meet 'Leftist' Grayzone's New Neo-fascist Allies in Denying China's Genocide of Uyghurs". Haaretz.
  12. ^ a b Ross, Alexander Reid (June 19, 2020). "Russia's Disinformation War on America Takes Racist Aim at Black Lives Matter". Haaretz. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
  13. ^ [3][4][6][7][10][11][12]
  14. ^ a b Davis, Charles (October 4, 2018). "In Nicaragua, Torture Is Used to Feed 'Fake News'". The Daily Beast.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h Zhang, Albert; Wallis, Jacob; and Meers, Zoe. (March 2021) Strange bedfellows on Xinjiang: The CCP, fringe media and US social media platforms. Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
  16. ^ a b Chan, John (March 5, 2021). "Campaign to Discredit BBC Revealed as Media Conditions Inside China Continue to Deteriorate". China Digital Times.
  17. ^ a b Davis, Charles (November 1, 2021). "Facebook says it just uncovered one of the largest troll farms ever - run by the government of Nicaragua". Business Insider. Retrieved November 6, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  18. ^ Chik, Holly; Baptista, Eduardo (March 30, 2021). "The China-based foreigners defending Beijing from Xinjiang genocide claims". South China Morning Post. Retrieved September 27, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. ^ a b Xiao, Eva (March 30, 2021). "China Used Twitter, Facebook More Than Ever Last Year for Xinjiang Propaganda". The Wall Street Journal.
  20. ^ a b "China Expands Disinformation Campaign to Undermine International Xinjiang Outcry". Radio Free Asia. April 29, 2021.
  21. ^ Kanji, Azeezah; Palumbo-Liu, David (May 14, 2021). "The faux anti-imperialism of denying anti-Uighur atrocities". Aljazeera. Retrieved September 20, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  22. ^ [3][10][19][20][15][21]
  23. ^ a b c Bawer, Bruce (September 2019). "Useful Idiot: The Curious Case of Max Blumenthal". Commentary.
  24. ^ a b Fiorella, Giancarlo; Godart, Charlotte; Waters, Nick (September 13, 2021). "Digital Integrity". Journal of International Criminal Justice. Oxford University Press. 19 (1): 147–161. doi:10.1093/jicj/mqab022. ISSN 1478-1387.
  25. ^ "Unpublished OPCW Douma Correspondence Casts Further Doubt on Claims of 'Doctored' Report". Bellingcat. October 26, 2020.
  26. ^ Binder, Matt (February 24, 2021). "Twitter is now adding a controversial 'hacked materials' warning label to tweets". Mashable. Retrieved February 24, 2021. UPDATE: Feb. 24, 2021, 9:34 a.m. EST According to Twitter, this instance is indeed the first time the "hacked materials" warning label has been used.
  27. ^ Judson, Jen (September 10, 2019). "Virtual boots on the ground: British Army grapples with operating in the gray zone". DefenseNews; DSEI. Retrieved December 9, 2021. {{cite news}}: External link in |ref= (help)
  28. ^ a b Jelacic, Nerma (July 1, 2021). "Spinning bomb". Index on Censorship. SAGE Publishing. 50 (2): 16–23. doi:10.1177/03064220211033782. ISSN 0306-4220.
  29. ^ Achar, Gilbert (October 10, 2019). "On Gutter Journalism and Purported "Anti-Imperialism"". New Politics.
  30. ^ a b Bloodworth, James (June 15, 2021). "Why are progressives still defending China's brutal dictatorship?". New Statesman.
  31. ^ "China pushes back against critics of its policies in Xinjiang". The Economist. May 8, 2021.
  32. ^ Dudley, Renee; Kao, Jeff (July 30, 2020). "The Disinfomercial: How Larry King Got Duped Into Starring in Chinese Propaganda". ProPublica.
  33. ^ [3][10][31][15][32]

External links[]

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