12 ms·

Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

360 points by FDS 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pdpi 7y ago
This is... tricky. There's two ways you can interpret the situation. One is that Twitter has a desire to use the information warfare skills directly to manipulate the narrative on its platform. The other is that they recognise external actors are very likely to want to do exactly that, and this sort of hire is a great defensive move. Twitter will never admit to the former and will always publicly state the latter. I don't think there's a real way to tell what the truth actually is — arguably it might actually be "a bit of both" — and I suspect most people will see this as proof of whatever theory they already believed in.
- JasonFruit 7y ago
  I guess it makes sense that you'd want for a position like this to have someone with a deep understanding of social media in general, how Twitter is used in Middle Eastern cultures, how to discourage radicalization on the platform, that sort of thing — exactly the sort of thing you'd learn in the 77th Brigade. And yet — it's not a really comfortable sort of thing, is it? It's an admission that, at the very least, the platform is trying to manipulate its users, and at most, engaging in that manipulation on the behalf of governments it supports to the detriment of other groups.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    The Arab Spring both made and broke twitter, and for the same reason: it became very obvious that it now had the power to achieve massive social change. That got a lot of people on board trying to achieve positive social change .. and a lot of people trying to achieve antisocial change (promotion of racism etc), states trying to neutralise it in their own politics, and states trying to promote it in the politics of their enemies. The best ways to sabotage a social movement are with infighting, misidentification of enemies, and distraction with irrelevant goals. Twitter also provides a new one: arguing with trolls and sockpuppets. Hugely engaging, provides moral vindication, achieves less than nothing.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  There's two ways you can interpret the situation. No there are 3 ways, the third being that the guy’s day job and his reserve role are unrelated. What if he had been say a Chef in the Army and a Chef in a restaurant? No one would think that was weird.
  - Teever 7y ago
    A chef in the army usually isn't trying to poison people's bodies so we would have little worry about them trying to do it in their private restaurant. A propagandist for the military is charged with poisoning people's minds and so we should therefore be very worried if they take up similar positions in the private sector.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    So you'd be happy with a high level Chinese party member, perhaps an "ex" People's Army psy-ops guy (or whoever), being in charge of USA's Twitter accounts, for example, because "it's just a job"?
    - goatinaboat 7y ago
      Sure people will ask questions but there is a non-zero possibility that it is above board. That is all I’m saying.
- tolstoshev 7y ago
  It's called the Department of Defense, not Offense :)
noego 7y ago
This is a conflict of interest, which should erode the trust that anyone would have on twitter. The man is simultaneously responsible for editorial decisions, while also serving in a brigade that "uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook ... to wage what the head of the UK military describes as “information warfare”. Imagine finding out that the executive in charge of editorial decisions for Twitter in Hong Kong, is also serving in the Chinese military's department of "information warfare". As a Hong Konger, you'd have to be an idiot to continue trusting twitter at that point. The fact that Twitter is well aware of this, and didn't see a conflict of interest, makes me question their neutrality and effectiveness as a platform for online discussion.
- krona 7y ago
  As far as I'm aware, nobody is using Twitter as a reputable source of information.
  - martin_a 7y ago
    Hahahahahaha. I think you couldn't be any more wrong on this.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Except almost every mainstream news source.. ever? Have you seen the amount of wrong information be blamed on Tweets?
    - stronglikedan 7y ago
      Perhaps this is why the mainstream news sources are considered by many (most?) to be disreputable now.
      - altendo 7y ago
        This completely disregards the number of politicians and newsmakers using Twitter as a platform to share information. The US President has been the first president to announce major policy changes over Twitter without any consultation with his own administration. News outlets cover Twitter precisely because people are making news on the platform. There is a lot of misinformation out there (especially from the President), and major news outlets make bad calls when running stories (affecting their reputation), but their insistence on using Twitter for news isn't a part of that.
muglug 7y ago
Great to see a Twitter exec who actually uses the platform!
aezakmi 7y ago
Spooks everywhere, what's new?
johnnybaptist 7y ago
"His involvement with the 77th Brigade was made public when he disclosed it on his page at LinkedIn, the online professional networking site." Doxing yourself on Linkedin seems like a pretty amateur psyops move.
- KineticLensman 7y ago
  Not the only amateur thing... > "The identities of the Twitter accounts which the 77th Brigade uses for engagement and communication remain unclear, however: the unit’s acknowledged account has been locked since it was hacked earlier this year, with the result that only approved followers can see its tweets."
- mieseratte 7y ago
  Why would it be a poor idea? Unless he is actively a part of clandestine operations and units there is nothing materially damaging about this. No more than, say, folks like Chris Kyle, Dan Crenshaw, or Jocko Willink revealing they were SEALs.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Many reservists are public about what they do. I have my military affiliation in all my profiles. He's not in some kind of secret special forces unit or anything like that. Ultimately, being a reserve officer is a matter of public record, as you are formally gazetted and there is no point trying to pretend it is secret.
- VectorLock 7y ago
  Where I work there is a big move to replace people's last names with only their initial. Except their LinkedIn URL still displays their name. It was a good attempt, at least.
searine 7y ago
This hire was probably an over-correction after the Saudi's got busted with spies inside twitter. https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/20/18003644/saudi-arabia-twitter-jamal-khashoggi-twitter-employee-spy https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/20/18003644/saudi-arabia-tw...
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  > The [Saudi-groomed] employee was fired in 2015 > Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company's UK office six years ago [2013] Er, how does that work?
leroy_masochist 7y ago
One thing that mystifies me is why the general population thinks that uniformed PsyOps people are like a real-life version of Kilgrave from Jessica Jones. They're basically the military's version of PR reps; most of their time is spent doing stuff like making fliers and taking photos of bags of rice being handed out. Maybe once in a while they get to blast Slayer at a building of holed-up insurgents. Meanwhile all the HN comments treating this guy like he's using Twitter as a cover to put LSD in the Saudis' water supply or some shit.
- 5trokerac3 7y ago
  PsyOps main job is convincing occupied peoples that the occupier is their friend. One of the ways they do that is by taking photos of bags of rice being handed out. They also actively work to spread (dis)information.
  - doktrin 7y ago
    So, like a PR rep?
    - umeshunni 7y ago
      Which also happens to be his role at Twitter, never mind the clickbait "Executive" in the headline.
    - ratacat 7y ago
      The term public relations was actually an explicit rebranding of the term Propaganda after it started to develop a negative association in the public eye. Look up Edward Bernays, it's a fascinating bit of history that's not really talked about much. http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393 http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-...
      - throwaway829 7y ago
        If you're into documentaries, "The Century of the Self" covers this subject excellently: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=century+of+self https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=century+of+self
gnu8 7y ago
Does he get two paychecks?
- EliRivers 7y ago
  He gets paid the daily rate for his rank (and any applicable modifiers) for each day on duty. So if he spends a weekend at 77 HQ or some training location or other such, on duty, he'll get two days' pay for that (potentially a smidge more if he can claim travel time on the Friday, but you get the idea). Also, reservists attract a tax free bounty each year if they complete their agreed training requirment.
  - gnu8 7y ago
    That makes complete sense for a reservist with a day job. I got the impression that this guy is doing his military psyops duty by working at Twitter, thus doing both jobs at once.
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      > I got the impression that this guy is doing his military psyops duty by working at Twitter, thus doing both jobs at once. I think the article tries to create that impression, but it doesn't actually say so. Maybe it's just an attempt to make the story more sensational for clicks.
      - gnu8 7y ago
        I guess today I’m the victim of the psyop, heh.
umeshunni 7y ago
By "Executive", they mean a PR Editor.
whenchamenia 7y ago
Reminds me of Disney, which has long employed DOD Psyops in high positions.
octosphere 7y ago
You need more than one single solitary account to do psyops on Twitter (I know - I regularly play around with Twitter sockpuppet accounts because I have inordinate amounts of free time to do research on the effects of a campaign, albeit small experimental campaigns :p). Twitter have since made it very difficult to keep an account in good standing if you are suspected of doing psyop-type things like auto-liking specific keywords, 'pouncing' on tweets that have just been sent so that you have the first few replies, constantly monitoring their search feature for specific keywords and engaging with others and spreading some sort of repeated message. Gaming the retweet and like count with several bot-accounts that all use the same IP and useragent will surely get you banned. I think over the last few years Twitter have done a good job at filtering out bad actors, though like some game of whack-a-mole - bad actors continue to crop up and game Twitter using more novel methods. I suspect the new way of doing psyops is to buy multiple smartphones which all have separate IPs due to a GSM/4G network, and have different and distinct device fingerprints due to different Android versions in use. Then it's a case of constantly feeding the sim-cards with credit (to keep them registered on the network) and if prompted to verify a Twitter account with a phone number, you have a dedicated device for that.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > I suspect the new way of doing psyops is to buy multiple smartphones which all have separate IPs due to a GSM/4G network, and have different and distinct useragents due to different Android versions in use. That seems like a lot of enormously expensive trouble to do something that probably could be done a lot easier and cheaper: user agents are trivial to spoof and a sufficiently sophisticated attacker can probably just steal any needed IPs from legitimate organizations using BGP (I understand the hosters used by spammers already do this). The only benefit I could think of for using actual smartphones is that they'd provide different, legitimate device fingerprinting results.
  - octosphere 7y ago
    I suppose it could be done a lot cheaper and easier, but don't forget the initial research required to figure out how to do it efficiently. All the trial and error required to create a set of OPSEC rules to abide by as you operate. In terms of useragents, you are right that they are easy to spoof; I actually meant the device fingerprints aren't easy to spoof (Twitter probably looks at heuristics like screen resolution for example) which is why I would suggest getting a variety of different phones like a mix of legacy Android, newer model Samsungs, iPhones, etc So you have different screen resolutions (which are not trivial to spoof) even different timezones, along with a mix of other unique specs One caveat to using hundreds (if not thousands of phones) is the cost. I get that. But remember these are the army we are talking about that have a large budget to spend on psyops and can actually pull something like that off. Another caveat to using phones is the lack of dexterity; using a phone is slower than using a desktop environment with keyboard, mouse, et al, although you can extend a phone with a keyboard for faster typing.
mothsonasloth 7y ago
In the article they describe them as "Facebook Warriors", does that mean they are exempt from the British Army's basic combat fitness test?
dlgeek 7y ago
Even if they wanted to, is there anything Twitter could do about the (potential/perceived/choose-your-own-narrative) conflict of interest? I don't know anything about British labor law, but in the US it's illegal to discriminate, fire, etc. a person because of service in the armed forces, including reserves. I'm pretty sure taking any action on the basis of their role in the reserves would be illegal.
dragonwriter 7y ago
If you think it's problematic that a Twitter exec is also a reserve psyops officer, you probably shouldn't think about how many corporate (and nonprofit, and non-federal government) cybersecurity officials at all levels are military reservists whose military role is cyberwarfare.
bjourne 7y ago
Recently the Chinese government ran a full-page ad in a national newspaper explaining "their view" of "the Hong Kong situation." The newspaper got a lot of flack for publishing the ad, but I think neither they nor the Chinese government did anything wrong. Because the sender of the ad was clearly identified people could judge for themselves. While the ad was propaganda it wasn't manipulative or underhanded. But what is going on these days is that governments are engaging in propaganda where the identity of the sender is shrouded. For example Twitter accounts controlled by the Chinese state pretending to be common citizens. I think such propaganda is not ok and also that it is not only China and Russia doing it but also Western states and states that are supposed to be friendly to the West.
- xvector 7y ago
  > the sender of the ad was clearly identified people could judge for themselves. If they aware enough of how horrible their government is that they can ignore what it says and assume it's all a lie, sure. If the Chinese government has done anything to make citizens trust its authority, such as censorship etc, then the ad is manipulative. > While the ad was propaganda it wasn't manipulative or underhanded. Perhaps not in itself, but taking the very example you give, it is manipulative. Use news stories to paint the "official" picture and use astroturfing to provide a counterpart to the "official" picture. Both as parts in a larger underhanded play.
- input_sh 7y ago
  > For example Twitter accounts controlled by the Chinese state pretending to be common citizens. Problem is that they are real citizens. In China, they're referred to as 50 Cent Army (or 50 Cent Party), because that's how much they're believed to be paid for every pro-government post. Their engagements are usually not. There are botnets upvoting/downvoting/liking/retweeting stuff, but each and every post is written by an actual human, and there are guidelines as to how they need to respond to different stories. It's not like there's one human in charge of posting to 100s of accounts.
  - nyolfen 7y ago
    there are also many, many sincere chinese nationalists, some of whom use twitter. people forget that the number of chinese people on the internet is substantially larger than the entire US population, even if most don’t hang out in the same places
Mikeb85 7y ago
And people wonder why so much of the world is distrustful of western media. It's been obvious for a long time that western media corporations are propaganda outlets for governments that hide behind a thin veneer of 'independent' ownership.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  > outlets for governments that hide behind a thin veneer of 'independent' ownership. Considering how much of US media regularly pillories Trump, I'm skeptical that of the claim of government control. I'm certain they do, however, serve as a PR mouthpiece for various moneyed interests.
  - Mikeb85 7y ago
    Trump is the leader of a single branch of government, meanwhile the Republicans and Democrats have pursued the same neo-con policies for years. Trump is going against the grain with his protectionist policies, so it's entirely predictable that he'd receive criticism from established government officials. Also keep in mind that 2/3 branches of government are still controlled by entrenched Democrats and Republicans.
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
I'm thinking he may actually be full time though.
jessaustin 7y ago
Is this any different? Maybe it's worse? Previously he was in charge of USA propaganda focused overseas. Now he's in charge of USA propaganda focused on USA residents: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/758047287/npr-names-veteran-media-executive-john-lansing-as-its-new-ceo https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/758047287/npr-names-veteran-m...
golemiprague 7y ago
So any reservist in the army can't have a regular job? What about in countries like Korea or Israel where almost every person is a reservist for the army? Also, someone who is aligned with the army objectives is worst than someone else who is aligned with any other political objectives, whatever they may be?
angry_octet 7y ago
Another total beatup. This guy is an Army Captain, a very junior officer in the reserves. He has a journalism background, and while on reserve time he is probably pulling his hair out trying to explain what a tweet is to people who were really comfortable with Blackberry, and dealing with RoE and approvals chains that make doing anything more than writting puff pieces about Change of Command ceremonies or HADR impossible. I only wish the UK and others would get serious about countering Russian / Iranian/Syrian / GCC/Egyptian / Chinese / ISIS bad actors by unmasking their influence campaigns, educating their populace (at schools and whereever old people can be reached), and generally stop being complacent about it. Also, it's not call psyops now, it's Information Ops (IO), and if the UK are doing anything it will be at GCHQ, not the Pashtun DJs at 77 BDE.

360 points by FDS 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pdpi 7y ago

This is... tricky. There's two ways you can interpret the situation. One is that Twitter has a desire to use the information warfare skills directly to manipulate the narrative on its platform. The other is that they recognise external actors are very likely to want to do exactly that, and this sort of hire is a great defensive move. Twitter will never admit to the former and will always publicly state the latter. I don't think there's a real way to tell what the truth actually is — arguably it might actually be "a bit of both" — and I suspect most people will see this as proof of whatever theory they already believed in.

JasonFruit 7y ago
I guess it makes sense that you'd want for a position like this to have someone with a deep understanding of social media in general, how Twitter is used in Middle Eastern cultures, how to discourage radicalization on the platform, that sort of thing — exactly the sort of thing you'd learn in the 77th Brigade. And yet — it's not a really comfortable sort of thing, is it? It's an admission that, at the very least, the platform is trying to manipulate its users, and at most, engaging in that manipulation on the behalf of governments it supports to the detriment of other groups.
- pjc50 7y ago
  The Arab Spring both made and broke twitter, and for the same reason: it became very obvious that it now had the power to achieve massive social change. That got a lot of people on board trying to achieve positive social change .. and a lot of people trying to achieve antisocial change (promotion of racism etc), states trying to neutralise it in their own politics, and states trying to promote it in the politics of their enemies. The best ways to sabotage a social movement are with infighting, misidentification of enemies, and distraction with irrelevant goals. Twitter also provides a new one: arguing with trolls and sockpuppets. Hugely engaging, provides moral vindication, achieves less than nothing.
goatinaboat 7y ago
There's two ways you can interpret the situation. No there are 3 ways, the third being that the guy’s day job and his reserve role are unrelated. What if he had been say a Chef in the Army and a Chef in a restaurant? No one would think that was weird.
- Teever 7y ago
  A chef in the army usually isn't trying to poison people's bodies so we would have little worry about them trying to do it in their private restaurant. A propagandist for the military is charged with poisoning people's minds and so we should therefore be very worried if they take up similar positions in the private sector.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  So you'd be happy with a high level Chinese party member, perhaps an "ex" People's Army psy-ops guy (or whoever), being in charge of USA's Twitter accounts, for example, because "it's just a job"?
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    Sure people will ask questions but there is a non-zero possibility that it is above board. That is all I’m saying.
tolstoshev 7y ago
It's called the Department of Defense, not Offense :)

noego 7y ago

This is a conflict of interest, which should erode the trust that anyone would have on twitter. The man is simultaneously responsible for editorial decisions, while also serving in a brigade that "uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook ... to wage what the head of the UK military describes as “information warfare”. Imagine finding out that the executive in charge of editorial decisions for Twitter in Hong Kong, is also serving in the Chinese military's department of "information warfare". As a Hong Konger, you'd have to be an idiot to continue trusting twitter at that point. The fact that Twitter is well aware of this, and didn't see a conflict of interest, makes me question their neutrality and effectiveness as a platform for online discussion.

krona 7y ago
As far as I'm aware, nobody is using Twitter as a reputable source of information.
- martin_a 7y ago
  Hahahahahaha. I think you couldn't be any more wrong on this.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Except almost every mainstream news source.. ever? Have you seen the amount of wrong information be blamed on Tweets?
  - stronglikedan 7y ago
    Perhaps this is why the mainstream news sources are considered by many (most?) to be disreputable now.
    - altendo 7y ago
      This completely disregards the number of politicians and newsmakers using Twitter as a platform to share information. The US President has been the first president to announce major policy changes over Twitter without any consultation with his own administration. News outlets cover Twitter precisely because people are making news on the platform. There is a lot of misinformation out there (especially from the President), and major news outlets make bad calls when running stories (affecting their reputation), but their insistence on using Twitter for news isn't a part of that.

muglug 7y ago

Great to see a Twitter exec who actually uses the platform!

aezakmi 7y ago

Spooks everywhere, what's new?

johnnybaptist 7y ago

"His involvement with the 77th Brigade was made public when he disclosed it on his page at LinkedIn, the online professional networking site." Doxing yourself on Linkedin seems like a pretty amateur psyops move.

KineticLensman 7y ago
Not the only amateur thing... > "The identities of the Twitter accounts which the 77th Brigade uses for engagement and communication remain unclear, however: the unit’s acknowledged account has been locked since it was hacked earlier this year, with the result that only approved followers can see its tweets."
mieseratte 7y ago
Why would it be a poor idea? Unless he is actively a part of clandestine operations and units there is nothing materially damaging about this. No more than, say, folks like Chris Kyle, Dan Crenshaw, or Jocko Willink revealing they were SEALs.
chrisseaton 7y ago
Many reservists are public about what they do. I have my military affiliation in all my profiles. He's not in some kind of secret special forces unit or anything like that. Ultimately, being a reserve officer is a matter of public record, as you are formally gazetted and there is no point trying to pretend it is secret.
VectorLock 7y ago
Where I work there is a big move to replace people's last names with only their initial. Except their LinkedIn URL still displays their name. It was a good attempt, at least.

searine 7y ago

This hire was probably an over-correction after the Saudi's got busted with spies inside twitter. https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/20/18003644/saudi-arabia-twitter-jamal-khashoggi-twitter-employee-spy https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/20/18003644/saudi-arabia-tw...

vonmoltke 7y ago
> The [Saudi-groomed] employee was fired in 2015 > Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company's UK office six years ago [2013] Er, how does that work?

leroy_masochist 7y ago

One thing that mystifies me is why the general population thinks that uniformed PsyOps people are like a real-life version of Kilgrave from Jessica Jones. They're basically the military's version of PR reps; most of their time is spent doing stuff like making fliers and taking photos of bags of rice being handed out. Maybe once in a while they get to blast Slayer at a building of holed-up insurgents. Meanwhile all the HN comments treating this guy like he's using Twitter as a cover to put LSD in the Saudis' water supply or some shit.

5trokerac3 7y ago
PsyOps main job is convincing occupied peoples that the occupier is their friend. One of the ways they do that is by taking photos of bags of rice being handed out. They also actively work to spread (dis)information.
- doktrin 7y ago
  So, like a PR rep?
  - umeshunni 7y ago
    Which also happens to be his role at Twitter, never mind the clickbait "Executive" in the headline.
  - ratacat 7y ago
    The term public relations was actually an explicit rebranding of the term Propaganda after it started to develop a negative association in the public eye. Look up Edward Bernays, it's a fascinating bit of history that's not really talked about much. http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393 http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-...
    - throwaway829 7y ago
      If you're into documentaries, "The Century of the Self" covers this subject excellently: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=century+of+self https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=century+of+self

gnu8 7y ago

Does he get two paychecks?

EliRivers 7y ago
He gets paid the daily rate for his rank (and any applicable modifiers) for each day on duty. So if he spends a weekend at 77 HQ or some training location or other such, on duty, he'll get two days' pay for that (potentially a smidge more if he can claim travel time on the Friday, but you get the idea). Also, reservists attract a tax free bounty each year if they complete their agreed training requirment.
- gnu8 7y ago
  That makes complete sense for a reservist with a day job. I got the impression that this guy is doing his military psyops duty by working at Twitter, thus doing both jobs at once.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > I got the impression that this guy is doing his military psyops duty by working at Twitter, thus doing both jobs at once. I think the article tries to create that impression, but it doesn't actually say so. Maybe it's just an attempt to make the story more sensational for clicks.
    - gnu8 7y ago
      I guess today I’m the victim of the psyop, heh.

umeshunni 7y ago

By "Executive", they mean a PR Editor.

whenchamenia 7y ago

Reminds me of Disney, which has long employed DOD Psyops in high positions.

octosphere 7y ago

You need more than one single solitary account to do psyops on Twitter (I know - I regularly play around with Twitter sockpuppet accounts because I have inordinate amounts of free time to do research on the effects of a campaign, albeit small experimental campaigns :p). Twitter have since made it very difficult to keep an account in good standing if you are suspected of doing psyop-type things like auto-liking specific keywords, 'pouncing' on tweets that have just been sent so that you have the first few replies, constantly monitoring their search feature for specific keywords and engaging with others and spreading some sort of repeated message. Gaming the retweet and like count with several bot-accounts that all use the same IP and useragent will surely get you banned. I think over the last few years Twitter have done a good job at filtering out bad actors, though like some game of whack-a-mole - bad actors continue to crop up and game Twitter using more novel methods. I suspect the new way of doing psyops is to buy multiple smartphones which all have separate IPs due to a GSM/4G network, and have different and distinct device fingerprints due to different Android versions in use. Then it's a case of constantly feeding the sim-cards with credit (to keep them registered on the network) and if prompted to verify a Twitter account with a phone number, you have a dedicated device for that.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> I suspect the new way of doing psyops is to buy multiple smartphones which all have separate IPs due to a GSM/4G network, and have different and distinct useragents due to different Android versions in use. That seems like a lot of enormously expensive trouble to do something that probably could be done a lot easier and cheaper: user agents are trivial to spoof and a sufficiently sophisticated attacker can probably just steal any needed IPs from legitimate organizations using BGP (I understand the hosters used by spammers already do this). The only benefit I could think of for using actual smartphones is that they'd provide different, legitimate device fingerprinting results.
- octosphere 7y ago
  I suppose it could be done a lot cheaper and easier, but don't forget the initial research required to figure out how to do it efficiently. All the trial and error required to create a set of OPSEC rules to abide by as you operate. In terms of useragents, you are right that they are easy to spoof; I actually meant the device fingerprints aren't easy to spoof (Twitter probably looks at heuristics like screen resolution for example) which is why I would suggest getting a variety of different phones like a mix of legacy Android, newer model Samsungs, iPhones, etc So you have different screen resolutions (which are not trivial to spoof) even different timezones, along with a mix of other unique specs One caveat to using hundreds (if not thousands of phones) is the cost. I get that. But remember these are the army we are talking about that have a large budget to spend on psyops and can actually pull something like that off. Another caveat to using phones is the lack of dexterity; using a phone is slower than using a desktop environment with keyboard, mouse, et al, although you can extend a phone with a keyboard for faster typing.

mothsonasloth 7y ago

In the article they describe them as "Facebook Warriors", does that mean they are exempt from the British Army's basic combat fitness test?

dlgeek 7y ago

Even if they wanted to, is there anything Twitter could do about the (potential/perceived/choose-your-own-narrative) conflict of interest? I don't know anything about British labor law, but in the US it's illegal to discriminate, fire, etc. a person because of service in the armed forces, including reserves. I'm pretty sure taking any action on the basis of their role in the reserves would be illegal.

dragonwriter 7y ago

If you think it's problematic that a Twitter exec is also a reserve psyops officer, you probably shouldn't think about how many corporate (and nonprofit, and non-federal government) cybersecurity officials at all levels are military reservists whose military role is cyberwarfare.

bjourne 7y ago

Recently the Chinese government ran a full-page ad in a national newspaper explaining "their view" of "the Hong Kong situation." The newspaper got a lot of flack for publishing the ad, but I think neither they nor the Chinese government did anything wrong. Because the sender of the ad was clearly identified people could judge for themselves. While the ad was propaganda it wasn't manipulative or underhanded. But what is going on these days is that governments are engaging in propaganda where the identity of the sender is shrouded. For example Twitter accounts controlled by the Chinese state pretending to be common citizens. I think such propaganda is not ok and also that it is not only China and Russia doing it but also Western states and states that are supposed to be friendly to the West.

xvector 7y ago
> the sender of the ad was clearly identified people could judge for themselves. If they aware enough of how horrible their government is that they can ignore what it says and assume it's all a lie, sure. If the Chinese government has done anything to make citizens trust its authority, such as censorship etc, then the ad is manipulative. > While the ad was propaganda it wasn't manipulative or underhanded. Perhaps not in itself, but taking the very example you give, it is manipulative. Use news stories to paint the "official" picture and use astroturfing to provide a counterpart to the "official" picture. Both as parts in a larger underhanded play.
input_sh 7y ago
> For example Twitter accounts controlled by the Chinese state pretending to be common citizens. Problem is that they are real citizens. In China, they're referred to as 50 Cent Army (or 50 Cent Party), because that's how much they're believed to be paid for every pro-government post. Their engagements are usually not. There are botnets upvoting/downvoting/liking/retweeting stuff, but each and every post is written by an actual human, and there are guidelines as to how they need to respond to different stories. It's not like there's one human in charge of posting to 100s of accounts.
- nyolfen 7y ago
  there are also many, many sincere chinese nationalists, some of whom use twitter. people forget that the number of chinese people on the internet is substantially larger than the entire US population, even if most don’t hang out in the same places

Mikeb85 7y ago

And people wonder why so much of the world is distrustful of western media. It's been obvious for a long time that western media corporations are propaganda outlets for governments that hide behind a thin veneer of 'independent' ownership.

mieseratte 7y ago
> outlets for governments that hide behind a thin veneer of 'independent' ownership. Considering how much of US media regularly pillories Trump, I'm skeptical that of the claim of government control. I'm certain they do, however, serve as a PR mouthpiece for various moneyed interests.
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  Trump is the leader of a single branch of government, meanwhile the Republicans and Democrats have pursued the same neo-con policies for years. Trump is going against the grain with his protectionist policies, so it's entirely predictable that he'd receive criticism from established government officials. Also keep in mind that 2/3 branches of government are still controlled by entrenched Democrats and Republicans.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

I'm thinking he may actually be full time though.

jessaustin 7y ago

Is this any different? Maybe it's worse? Previously he was in charge of USA propaganda focused overseas. Now he's in charge of USA propaganda focused on USA residents: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/758047287/npr-names-veteran-media-executive-john-lansing-as-its-new-ceo https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/758047287/npr-names-veteran-m...

golemiprague 7y ago

So any reservist in the army can't have a regular job? What about in countries like Korea or Israel where almost every person is a reservist for the army? Also, someone who is aligned with the army objectives is worst than someone else who is aligned with any other political objectives, whatever they may be?

angry_octet 7y ago

Another total beatup. This guy is an Army Captain, a very junior officer in the reserves. He has a journalism background, and while on reserve time he is probably pulling his hair out trying to explain what a tweet is to people who were really comfortable with Blackberry, and dealing with RoE and approvals chains that make doing anything more than writting puff pieces about Change of Command ceremonies or HADR impossible. I only wish the UK and others would get serious about countering Russian / Iranian/Syrian / GCC/Egyptian / Chinese / ISIS bad actors by unmasking their influence campaigns, educating their populace (at schools and whereever old people can be reached), and generally stop being complacent about it. Also, it's not call psyops now, it's Information Ops (IO), and if the UK are doing anything it will be at GCHQ, not the Pashtun DJs at 77 BDE.