This is a document that has fueled the debate over the future of the National Health Service (NHS), the British health system, a few days before the December 12 general election. Hundreds of pages of reports of meetings between British and American officials, which were not intended to be made public. And yet they were brandished at the end of November by Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labor opposition, as " evidence " that the prime minister, Boris Johnson, counted " sell " the NHS to Donald Trump, as part of a free trade agreement between the two countries.
Jeremy Corbyn's Labor Party did not reveal how these documents – which the government recognizes as genuine – had been obtained. But on Saturday, Dec. 7, Reddit, one of the largest forums in the world, announced to have banned the account of a user who had leaked at the end of October on the site.
Operation "Secondary Infektion"
This is not all: the US platform says that this account, as well as about sixty others, were part of a destabilization campaign led by Russia. This operation, identified by Facebook in May and nicknamed "Secondary Infektion", covers dozens of platforms, is available in six languages and is known to spread false information, reported in June the DFR Lab – a research organization of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ). One of them asserts, for example, that the anti-Brexit would prepare the assassination of Boris Johnson.
Objective of this operation: "Disseminating information that harms the interests and unity of the West", writes the DFR Lab, which points out that "Its size and complexity indicate that it is led by a persevering, sophisticated, well-resourced actor, possibly an intelligence operation".
Reddit explains that after the publication of the initial post containing the document, another account broadcast it in turn and others have coordinated for "Manipulate the votes" on Reddit. Reddit users can, in effect, cast a "vote" on each post to promote visibility – or lower it. In this case, Reddit has identified an action "Coordinated" multiple accounts to make this publication more visible.
The platform has banned the sixty or so accounts involved, but has decided to leave their content accessible "For a while, so that researchers and the public can consult them, to see for themselves how these accounts have operated".
