A TANGLED WEB: HOW THE MEDIA MISLEADS THE PUBLIC ON TERRORIST THREATS

Public perception about the so-called “Global War on Terror” is manipulated in various ways by a trail of misinformation and disinformation.

This article is a case study on the October 22, 2015 lone gunman rampage of Parliament Hill in Ottawa that was used by the government of Steven Harper to justify the Canadian entry into the US war in Iraq and, later, the US-led war on Syria. Despite being proven otherwise, the attack by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was reported as being linked to the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/DAESH/ISIS/IS).

How and Why Facts Get Lost or are Ignored

On the day that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau went on his rampage, a tangled web of information was erected. In all the reporting by the media, the sources were lost. What resulted from this was the perception that Canada was under a foreign-planned attack led by the ISIL/DAESH.

One important source, @ArmedResearch, a US-based Twitter account that presents itself as a microblog for military studies, claimed that the Ottawa attack on October 22 was connected to an attack which took place two days earlier at Saint Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec (October 20).

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