Jack Posobiec Interviewed a Pro-Hitler Disinformation Poster on One America News Network

Jack Posobiec, a correspondent for One America News Network (OANN), brought a pseudonymous disinformation poster onto the air without providing context of that person’s hateful and terroristic beliefs, Hatewatch found. Posobiec produced a segment for OANN in September 2018 in which he interviewed “Microchip,” who was at that time a pseudonymous contributor to the white-supremacist-friendly website Gab. Microchip achieved notoriety during Trump’s 2016 run for president for his involvement in a number of high-profile disinformation campaigns. Posobiec also linked his Twitter followers to Microchip’s Gab feed at least five times after the interview was aired, archives show. Microchip posted statements to Gab prior to being interviewed on OANN that celebrated Hitler, and alluded to terrorism and murder. “I wish [Atomwaffen Division] had survived. They did great work in scaring the living shit out of everyone,” the person behind the Microchip Gab account wrote on July 24, 2018, across two posts. “We need more hatred and fear. Everyone needs to stop being such f—— p——.” Atomwaffen Division is a terroristic neo-Nazi group responsible for at least five murders in the U.S. since 2017. On July 14, John Cameron Denton of Atomwaffen Division, who goes by the online moniker “Rape,” pled guilty to charges related to “swatting” journalists, which means calling police on false grounds to the homes of people in an effort to provoke accidental violence against them. Hatewatch documented Microchip’s Gab posts extensively at the time Posobiec brought him onto the air, and they are virulently hateful. In addition to writing “Hitler 2.0 is coming and it is glorious,” he called black Congresswoman Maxine Waters a “Bush n—-r ,” in response to President Trump saying she had a “low IQ.” In another Gab post, Microchip expressed hatred for LGBTQ people, Jews and people of color by employing a litany of slurs. Hatewatch has chosen not to reproduce the hatred and profanity in this post, but readers can view a screenshot of the full content. He also wrote on Gab that “racism and hatred is the future.” OANN noted to Hatewatch that their segment featuring Microchip is “active.” It can be found on their YouTube page. Posobiec, however, appears to have deleted a tweet promoting it to his followers.
Microchip called Posobiec his online ‘buddy’ and they spread disinformation together Posobiec based the OANN segment with Microchip on claims the pseudonymous personality made about inventing “QAnon,” along with the help of one other person. No one has been able to prove Microchip’s claims, which are based on screenshots he said were taken on the gaming app Discord. QAnon is a conspiracy theory modeled loosely on the idea that a government official with inside information is speaking to Trump supporters through secret online channels. Posobiec protected Microchip’s identity in the segment OANN aired by using an illustrated image of a man in a red hat and allowing him to speak through a voice distorter.

via splcenter: Jack Posobiec Interviewed a Pro-Hitler Disinformation Poster on One America News Network

By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Jack Posobiec, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link