Once upon a time, being a leader writer for the Times implied Jupiter like vision and magisterial judgement, thundering out opinions that changed events across the globe. Astonishing that now it is done by the empty, bombastic Murdoch lickspittle Oliver Kamm.
On 7 February I published an article calling out Kamm for publishing a blatant and deliberate lie about me. The very next day, 8 February, my Wikipedia page came under obsessive attack from somebody called Philip Cross who made an astonishing 107 changes over the course of the next three days. Many were very minor, but the overall effect was undoubtedly derogatory. He even removed my photo on the extraordinary grounds that it was “not typical” of me. Edits to Wikipedia articles can be seen by clicking the “view history” tab top right. Here is just a sample of the record of “Philip Cross'” obsession with me.
I don’t look at my own Wikipedia page, but was told about it yesterday. I therefore googled Philip Cross and was amazed to discover that he is allegedly an alias for Oliver Kamm attacking people online. Furthermore that Kamm has employed lawyers to threaten those who claim that he is Philip Cross, and by Kamm’s own account the Metropolitan Police have even warned off Neil Clark from saying Kamm is Cross. The Kamm/Cross affair was discussed on George Galloway’s show on Saturday. It starts 12mins 30s in.
It could of course be an extraordinary coincidence that Philip Cross, who has been named as Oliver Kamm, launched this massive attack on my Wikipedia entry the day after I outed Kamm as a liar on this blog.
But here is another extraordinary coincidence for you. On 6 August 2015 Philip Cross had launched an initial edit attack on my Wikipedia entry, with only about two dozen edits. What was my last blog post before that attack? The revelation that Murdoch lackeys at the Times had tens of thousands of fake twitter followers purchased for them. I have only criticised Murdoch’s Times operation twice in two years, and each one has been followed immediately by attacks on my Wikipedia entry from Philip Cross. I wonder if Mr Kamm’s lawyers would care to explain this?
I am not alone by any means. The magnificent Stephen Sizer has suffered fearful attacks for his stalwart stand against the oppression of Palestinians, at great risk to his livelihood in the new neo-con Welby Church of England. Sizer has been a constant target for Oliver Kamm. On 22 August 2015 Oliver Kamm published an attack on Stephen Sizer in the Jewish Chronicle describing him as “an insanitary crackpot.” Of course, something published in the Jewish Chronicle on 22 August will have been written a couple of days earlier – around 20 August 2015. On 20 August 2015 we find that “Philip Cross” made six edits to Stephen Sizer’s Wikipedia page. These coincidences really do build up, don’t they?
And just in case you are not convinced, in early February 2015 Kamm was launching a series of twitter insults at Stephen Sizer, including Kamm’s remarkable claim that Veterans Today – for which several of my ex-CIA friends write – is an “anti-Semitic website”.
And lo and behold! Up pops “Philip Cross” on 9 February 2015 making 32 more edits on Sizer’s Wikipedia page.
Now I really do not care whether or not “Philip Cross” is actually Oliver Kamm or whether he is just Oliver Kamm’s bitch. For Oliver Kamm’s lawyers, my address is 89/14 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh, EH8 8BA. I should love to see Kamm explain all this in court.
Kamm has for years exhibited an absolute obsession with attacking John Pilger, the great Australian journalist. Just google “Oliver Kamm John Pilger” to see. And who has hundreds of edits on Jon Pilger’s Wikipedia page? Philip Cross. Cross has apparently his own twitter account. Here it is obvious that he shares Kamm’s precise views. Zionism, and accusing pro-Palestinians of anti-Semitism, is the single most dominant element along with attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, Julian Assange and Kamm’s other targets. Cross retweets the Jewish Chronicle, for which Kamm is a columnist, and notably Joan Smith, leading anti-Assange campaigner and former partner of convicted expenses fiddler and Israeli lobbyist Dennis McShane.
I genuinely had no idea that Kamm had an established reputation for years for weird internet trolling. For example he published readers’ reviews on Amazon of 19 of Noam Chomsky’s books, giving every one of them one star. That link is very well worth reading, incidentally. Did you know that Kamm has written that the invasion of Iraq was “the most far-sighted and noble act of British foreign policy since the founding of NATO”?
There are some very serious points to all of this. It is not just personal flim-flam. The first serious point is that it really is the most appalling comment on what Murdoch has done to the Times, that its leader-writer should be such a low creature as Kamm. A man who has not only written that the Iraq invasion was “great”, that Noam Chomsky is an “idiot” and that John Pilger is a “fraud”, but who genuinely appears to hold those views.
The second is a very serious point indeed about Wikipedia. “Philip Cross” is not just anybody who can, like you and me, make edits on Wikipedia. he is a senior editor with special administrative privileges. He uses this access on a continued basis to repeatedly and in enormous detail denigrate any individuals who hold anti-establishment views. Equally sinister, he bigs up and protects the reputation of those who promote the corporate media agenda. “Philip Cross” has not just edited, but according to Wikipedia “predominantly written” the hagiographic entries of
James Harding, Former Editor of the Times, now Head of BBC News
Katherine Viner, Editor of the Guardian
Paul Dacre, Editor of the Daily Mail
Amol Rajan, Editor of the Independent
and numerous other corporate media journalists.
Philip Cross may be Oliver Kamm. Or he may be someone who shares his views closely and echoes them in a synchronised way. Or he may be an identity which cloaks the activities of a group of people. But it is absolutely plain that “Philip Cross” is used systematically to attack the Wikipedia entries of prominent anti-establishment figures, and simultaneously to bolster the image of the corporate media. The purpose of “Philip Cross” is to ensure that an anti-establishment narrative does not take hold on Wikipedia.
The burning question is this. “Philip Cross'” activities and purpose are blindingly obvious. Actions such as the hundred edits to my page and removal of my photo, or the continued war on John Piger’s entry, are completely unjustifiable. Why then does Wikipedia continue to tolerate “Philip Cross” and grant him administrator privileges?
Oliver Kamm briefly held an internet admin account in his won name. It is particularly noteworthy that Kamm was contacted by email on 28 June 2007 at 17.25 in this guise by “slim virgin”, another Wikipedia admin account that has been widely reported to be a security services front. It ostensibly belongs to Canadian Oxbridge graduate Linda Mack, but impossibly high levels of activity (including once editing straight for 26 hours) have led many to conclude that Slim Virgin is a team – she averaged 100 articles a day, seven days a week, for a year! Linda Mack was believed by ABC News to have been acting on behalf of MI5 in monitoring their Lockerbie investigation while working for their London bureau. The admin page on which “slim virgin” contacted Oliver Kamm is specifically about his attacks on Neil Clark, which is where we came in.
There are just far too many coincidences and linkages for any reasonable person to conclude that nothing murky is happening on Wikipedia. We know for certain from the Snowden revelations that the government does carry out internet operations to promote its narrative and to degrade the image and reach of known opponents on the web. I know from personal professional experience that the security services work with trusties in the media. We have plainly uncovered something at the edge of one of these operations here.
UPDATE I have received twitter messages from “Philip Cross” that he is a person, not part of GCHQ, and that his activity on Wikipedia is often sparked by things he has read, including by Oliver Kamm. He also points out that I had blogged that I did not like my photo on Wikipedia (this is true). He states that Oliver Kamm’s influence on his Wikipedia activity is “not as great as it seems”. I have replied to “Philip Cross” asking if he knows Oliver Kamm, and why Kamm has any influence at all on his Wikpedia activity. I shall keep you posted.
FURTHER UPDATE “Philip Cross” has now replied that “occasionally, it is one of OK’s tweets that reminds me. There is no conspiracy here and I am not a paid editor.” No reply to if he knows Oliver Kamm.
Hat-Tips to Node, Clark and Squonk
I’m sure many of us on here are already very familiar with this GCHQ trolling phenomenon:
“You only think somebody is being a jerk to you online. It turns out, the most sophisticated, thorough, and highly trained Internet trolls yet uncovered actually work for the British government.
That’s according to the latest revelation provided by docs leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. According to documents published at the news site First Look, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the U.K.’s counterpart to the NSA, has an extensive disinformation program to undermine anyone on the Internet.”
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/gchq-biggest-trolls-nsa-edward-snowden-jtrig/
More on Wikipedia and its methods:
https://wikipediaonlineatrocity.wordpress.com
Clark
” “the dinderhead might wish to respind”
Love it!”
____________________
It’s not bad, is it. 🙂
Now if I were Republicofscotland I’d cash in a bit of my chutzpah reserves and say “I did it deliberately”.
But I’m not and so won’t. 🙂
“That was a truly beautiful moment. Finkelstein put the pretentious little twerp Kamm in his place in front of a large audience.”
Absolutely!
Look at the oily little git squirming in his seat.
Oily Ollie.
I’d imagine habby is quite the big supporter of Oily Ollie’s world view.
Herbie
“I’m sure many of us on here are already very familiar with this GCHQ trolling phenomenon”
_____________________
Don’t presume to speak for the majority, Herbie.
I suspect – and certainly hope – that what is “familiar” to you would not even occur as a passing possibility to most normal people.
@ Habba 15 Mar, 2016 – 4:07 pm
GCHQ are a criminal organisation. The investigatory powers bill (AKA snooper’s charter) which is presently going through parliament is just a means to codify illegal activity that GCHQ have been engaged in for years.
Further, GCHQ share intelligence on British citizens with foreign powers (the USA), and take payment for this information.
That’s called treason.
But in the lunatic asylum that is Britain in the early 21st century this is all seen as ‘normal’.
Herbie –
That clip always cheers me up. You can see Kamm really didn’t know what hit him. The little poppinjay thought he was going to toy with Finkelstein the way a cat torments a cockroach.
Kamm reminds me of someone who has spent his whole life in a neocon echo chamber. He is simply unequipped for real debate.
Is the resident troll himself this person called Philip Cross?
just asking, but they do seem to share a lot in common.
“normal people” to habby are hired goons like Oliver Kamm.
I suppose I should give a link…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/14/investigatory-powers-bill-not-fit-for-purpose-say-200-senior-lawyers
… although I’m sure that everyone here knows what I’m talking about.
Herbie.
Thank you for your link at 18.06.
It does make you wonder if Kamm actually has any kind of forte? Unlike our resident vigilant eye.
Ironically, a Wikipedia entry, Hasbara Fellowships, has this:
“It does make you wonder if Kamm actually has any kind of forte?”
Banking background.
Who’da thunk it, eh.
His salary now depends on his worldview coinciding with elite interests.
But, and this is the real laugh, he portrays himself as a Leftist.
NuLab leftist, of course.
A murderin and a slaughterin leftist, supporting banking theft from the masses.
Using a Charlie Mingus logo would go with the fake leftist shtick.
Craig 5:58,
You’re very smart, a good blogger, a brilliant polemicist, a good debater and would probably have been the best ambassador the UK has ever had. But you’re a bloody awful Wkipedia editor! I would probably even have reverted some of those edits myself, if someone else hadn’t already done so.
My strong advice is to steer well clear of your Wikipedia page. So far all you’ve done is just make things worse for yourself. But what you can do is argue your case on the talk page of the article. Your strength is holding your own in debate, so use it! Identify yourself as the subject of the article, say what is wrong with it (be specific) and give links to “reliable sources” supporting your case. If you do that, then there’s a good chance other editors will add the material to the article, with proper referencing, all providing, of course, that it satisfies wiki rules. Edits that don’t comply with the rules haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving. Remember to sign your talk page posts with four tildes, thus: ~~~~ (the software will translate that into your IP address, date and time).
Neil NSH001 3:21 pm:
Sorry, I should have said earlier. I spotted NSH002 only this morning, wondered briefly and thought I’d probably find links on the user pages, but I was busy looking at edits by Philip Cross so decided to look later and by then you’d posted here…
Herbie is spot on.
I would also like to draw attention to Kamm’s unrivalled skill in recognising the humanity in others. Or better put, revolting characters seem to attract one another:
http://apjjf.org/-Peter-J.-Kuznick/2642/article.html
Such insensitivity to the death and suffering of innocent victims permeated Tibbets’s comments over the years. Oliver Kamm has argued that Tibbets was a humane man. However, in contrast to many others who participated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he never reflected publicly and thoughtfully about the atomic bombings, the lives cost and saved, or the deeper and more enduring legacy of the nuclear age he helped usher in. Perhaps he rejected the numerous opportunities provided to show his humanity because he felt so much guilt or perhaps, as he always claimed, it was because he felt none. Like most of the other participants, he stubbornly clung to a truncated, partial, and increasingly discredited version of events, refusing to even consider the mounting evidence that the atomic bombs neither ended the war nor were necessary to avoid an invasion. This helps explain why, with the exception of Eatherly, none were able to fully make the crucial leap from regret to remorse. – See more at: http://apjjf.org/-Peter-J.-Kuznick/2642/article.html#sthash.MmNe6TUV.dpuf
Jjc, 6:28 pm, I take it this is the Wikipedia article your link is so incensed about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Fletcher_Prouty
Looks reasonably complimentary towards Prouty to me…
Herbie
““normal people” to habby are hired goons like Oliver Kamm.”
____________________
Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Herbie.
But I’m happy to confirm that I don’t regard you as normal person.
Sorry, I meant to include the previous paragraph which portrays Tibbets at his humanitarian finest. No wonder he inspired Kamm:
“In 1985 he (Tibbets) told an interviewer that, if asked to drop a nuclear weapon on Hanoi during the Vietnam War, “I would’ve without any question.”[225] And he also said he would have done so against Muslim extremists. He told Studs Terkel in 2002 that he supported using nuclear weapons against current U.S. enemies: “Oh, I wouldn’t hesitate if I had the choice. I’d wipe ‘em out. You’re gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we’ve never fought a damn war anywhere in the world where they didn’t kill innocent people. If the newspapers would just cut out the shit: ‘You’ve killed so many civilians.’ That’s their tough luck for being there.”[226]
– See more at: http://apjjf.org/-Peter-J.-Kuznick/2642/article.html#sthash.D6HWvpav.dpuf“
Neil
Did you see my last comment? I have no intention of learning how to edit Wikipedia, life is too short. And a subject should not be forced into defending themselves from ill-motivated attack there either.
I am just trying to post some pointers to how to correct the disinformation posted by Cross. I requested that somebody who knows how to do so replaces it with properly sourced and written material to the same effect.
Speaking of which – would anyone like to tell us which interestingly significant (or significantly interesting) books he or she has just been reading?
Neil sorry if that sounded sharp have been grateful for your contributions.
Habba this really is a final warning about the agent provocateur stuff introducing David Irving or other attempts to evince anti-Semitism.
On Jimmy Wales co-founder Wikipedia:
On UK/US extradition: Jimmy said,“What needs to happen next is a serious reconsideration of the UK extradition treaty that would allow this sort of nonsense in the first place.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/28/wikipedia-extradiction-law-review-odwyer
In August 2013, Jimmy Wales criticized U.K. agent David Cameron’s plan for an Internet porn-filter, saying that the idea was “ridiculous.”
http://newswire.xbiz.com/view.php?id=169017
In November 2013, Wales also commented on the Snowden affair, describing Edward Snowden as “a hero” whom history would judge “very favourably” considering Joe citizen “would never have approved if known.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/25/edward-snowden-nsa-wikipedia-founder
Meanwhile a nice picture of Craig appears on Jimmy’s commercial venture, Wikia:
http://twtwfy.wikia.com/wiki/Craig_Murray
The person who is so quick to bring up David Irving is also the person who strenuously defends the view that the Nazis were not responsible for the Reichstag Fire (and accuses someone who criticizes Richard Evans for also taking this view — of the Nazis not being responsible — of being somehow associated with David Irving).
Craig, my apologies for going a bit off-topic in my earlier posts, but it does sort of tie-in with your post.
Craig 7:18pm,
I am genuinely trying to help you. (Of course I saw your last post, I gave the time). So I’m telling you how to get your page fixed without having to learn how to use Wikipedia. If you have the time to try and edit your article, you have the time to post your requests on the talk page. That’s the way to do it. Certainly easier than fruitless effort trying to edit your own page.
If and when I get round to editing your page, I will do it thoroughly and properly, and it will probably take several weeks of work. I dislike making short-term emergency edits, preferring to tackle a page as a whole. Sorry about that, but that’s just the way I like to work on Wikipedia.
Yours is only one of a huge list of articles I’d like to work on, but maybe I’ll think about moving it up the priority list. If you take my advice then at least something is likely to get done a bit sooner. That’s the best I can do.
Regards,
Neil
Neil
Wasn’t trying to lean on you. I am actually quite relaxed about it. My Wikipedia is no worse at least than it was this morning and I have outed some nasty Zionist shills. But if Wikipedia really wants to be serious it has to deal with trolls like Cross.
Craig
I agree you shouldn’t worry too much about o)your Wikipedia profile. Anyone who relies blindly on Wikipedia is not a serious thinker.
Incidentally, you write:
“…and I have outed some nasty Zionist shills.”
As a matter of interest (to me and surely to many an Eminence):
a) do you think I am a Zionist shill (nasty or otherwise)
b) in the context of your blog, am I a troll?
🙂