More protests emerged at UCLA on May 6, 2024, with police arresting multiple people who gathered in a campus parking garage. (Photo by AP)
Miami, July 1 (RHC)-- A Florida-based tech entrepreneur has been revealed to be a key player behind a pro-Israel disinformation network attempting to sway public opinion about the occupying regime’s months-long genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The Guardian said in a report published over the weekend that Daniel Linden, who co-wrote a guidebook for OnlyFans users, is one of the main hands behind the Shirion Collective, an organization that has harassed pro-Palestinian activists and seeks to shape public opinion about Gaza in the US, Australia and the UK.
“The Guardian investigation used public records and open source materials to corroborate information originally provided by the White Rose Society, an Australian anti-fascist research collective,” the paper said.
The investigation said Shirion Collective has attacked pro-Palestine activists, which includes many Jews, offered cash for the identities of pro-Palestine protesters, propagated conspiracy stories centered on figures such as George Soros, and boasted about an AI surveillance platform without providing concrete details about how the technology works.
The daily paper said Linden set up Shirion’s crowdfunding efforts and appears to play a key role in managing the network’s social media profiles and organizing the group’s operations via a Telegram channel in a bid to coordinate the further spread of pro-Israel and anti-Palestine propaganda, as well as the intimidation of pro-Palestine protesters.
Shirion began advertising “bounties” ranging from $500 to $10,000 on X in late 2023 for the identification of those engaging in pro-Palestine protests which they deemed “anti-Semitic.”
The investigation by The Guardian also revealed that Shirion promotes Islamophobia and anti-Palestine hatred, while glorifying death and devastation in Gaza and violence against supporters in the West, frequently cheering the killings of Palestinians in Gaza.
The organization responded to an X post featuring scenes of damage in Gaza on April 27, saying, “Love that Gaza looks like That now.” Shirion Collective has also repeatedly praised police violence against pro-Palestine protesters in the US and praised violence against journalists.
According to The Guardian’s investigation, Shirion has frequently propagated conspiracy theories regarding Muslims, including one that envisions a Muslim takeover of Europe and posting videos of pro-Palestine protesters learning Haitian martial arts with the accusation that they were “practicing slaughter techniques on Jews.”
Shirion also makes exaggerated claims about its relationships and the AI technology it promises to use to detect imagined opponents, claiming on X it has contacts with the NYPD, FBI, Israeli intelligence, and the Met Police in London.
The collective has claimed to have built AI technology “Project Maccabee”, for the “protection and survival of our people,” and “exposing these putrid antisemites,” despite never showing how it functions.
Moreover, Shirion has been taken to task in the US Congress and attracted media attention around the world for its attempts to shut down criticisms of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
Shirion organized two GoFundMe fundraisers in April and May of 2024 for an operation in which trucks with big-screen monitors near universities in various US cities showed footage of the October 7 retaliatory attack by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on the Israeli-occupied territories.
The move attracted the attention of vocal American critics, including Representative Ilhan Omar, who spoke out in Congress against Shirion’s screening of the footage at the University of California, Los Angeles protest encampment.
The organization has repeatedly celebrated online the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza, including Palestinian journalists and children.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after Hamas-led resistance groups waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The occupying regime has killed at least 37,834 Palestinians and injured 86,858 others since the start of the offensive. More than 1.7 million people have been internally displaced as well.
