26 ms·

Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological operations

272 points by haasted 4y ago

hunglee2 4y ago
Effective propaganda is one of the US's strongest competitive advantages - extensive and well funded national security apparatus, think tanks with global reach, compliant media publishers with global reach and big tech platforms used throughout the world, which can amplify and dampen messages, based on whether they suit US foreign policy objectives. We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  Celebrate in private, but pretend to investigate and be concerned about values in public like the drone program. Narratives like this is part of the propaganda.
- halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
  The US has overall amazing projection generally, be it propaganda, military, culture, etc. I find it funny, looking back a couple years ago, that people were outright dismissing American hegemony but it looks alive and well today imo.
  - andy_ppp 4y ago
    The issue I have is things could be substantially worse than US hegemony - for example there could be a lot more wars/nuclear proliferation if the US failed.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      It's the worst hegemony...except for all of the others. It doesn't have to be perfect.
      - FpUser 4y ago
        Says the hegemon. The victims of which there are plenty might have something resembling "fuck you" instead.
        SyzygistSix 4y ago
        The US has indeed done a lot of damage abroad. However I can't really see anyone else using a gentler approach. Far more the opposite.
    - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
      Are you sure? Where do you think the current path of the US is taking its citizens and the rest of the world? Wars are awful and a nuclear war would especially be so, but taking the slow road to an authoritarian state controlled by unknown forces hidden from view has the potential to be much worse. Think of your ideological worldview, now think of those who are the opposite. What happens if that group ends up in control without you even noticing it happening until it becomes a capital offense to point it out?
      - thfuran 4y ago
        It can't possibly be the case that we're currently headed to a secret takeover by a cabal exactly ideologically opposed to every reader.
        feet 4y ago
        It's a thought experiment to try and point out the negative aspects of the current situation that could resonate with any reader
      - hackerlight 4y ago
        Realism predicts more war in a multipolar world.
        Mountain_Skies 4y ago
        War isn't the only evil in the world.
        hackerlight 4y ago
        Other types of evil are also worse in a multipolar world.
    - troops_h8r 4y ago
      This is much easier to say if you're not living in any of its victim states, or under the boots of any of the vicious autocrats the US props up. Also, it's not like nuclear proliferation is solved. It's still breathing down our necks, we just don't talk about it anymore
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - asdff 4y ago
      Wouldn't there be no nuclear proliferation if the U.S. failed? Who designs weapons systems for NATO? The entire nuclear arms race wouldn't have happened if the U.S. didn't use the strategic bombing of citizens as a foreign policy platform 80 years ago.
  - spamizbad 4y ago
    The US capitalized on the whole "US has declining global influence" meme* and used it to lay the groundwork for even more global influence. A real "Heads we win; tails you lose" sort of operation. *This is probably true in some areas but the opposite in others - our influence simply shifted.
    - okdood64 4y ago
      Interesting, elaborate?
      - pram 4y ago
        Seems to me shifting the narrative to an emerging 'multi-polar' world from the 'uni-polar' US hegemony might solidify alliances more than they otherwise would have been. Kinda like during the cold war you were on one team or another, no trying to play multiple sides.
        erikerikson 4y ago
        Shifting to a multi-polar that in essence agrees to the best possible outcome, even as we explore it, seems perfectly within the interests of all. Such an alliance can be more stable and productive while guarding against misuse of the single point of control.
        spamizbad 4y ago
        Not sure I agree with that in practice, but maybe my understanding of history is flawed. Was the humanity better off during the Bi-polar era of the Cold War, with continuously escalating nuclear threats and proxy wars vs 1991-2010? What about the multi-polar world of 1919-1938?
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > a multi-polar that in essence agrees to the best possible outcome, even as we explore it, seems perfectly within the interests of all Multi-polarity is generally code for regional hegemony. That's great if you're the regional hegemon. Not so much if you're the hegemon's neighbor. America is a maritime power. These (think: Carthage, Venice, Portugal, the Dutch and Britain; counterfactual: Japan) have historically relied on trade, and trading outposts, to project power. As such, they're a natural friend of small countries resisting regional hegemony.
  - adampk 4y ago
    Isn't China dictating Hollywood's scripts a challenge to this projection? Hollywood is the main exporter of American culture and values and that seems to have been compromised quite effectively in this last decade.
    - peteradio 4y ago
      > main exporter of American culture "foot-in-the-door" American culture maybe. I'd say it's a different projection of our culture at home.
    - steele 4y ago
      Complain about this in Mandarin
      - ben_w 4y ago
        Me: "Complain about China dictating Hollywood's scripts, but write the answer in Mandarin Chinese" GPT-3: 我覺得電影腳本被中國人牽制了 (Transition according to Google: "I think the movie script is being held back by the Chinese")
      - polytely 4y ago
        from what I've read it's perfectly fine to complain about stuff on the Chinese net, you start getting in trouble once you attempt to mobilize people
        fortuna86 4y ago
        "Complain all you like, don't take steps to change or improve your situation." The biggest advocate for the fairness of a prison cell often is the prisoner.
        SyzygistSix 4y ago
        I don't feel like they were saying that was a good situation. Rather pointing it out as an instrument of control.
  - concinds 4y ago
    While the U.S.'s core strength has always been propaganda (they got Operation Paperclip Nazis to becom American patriots, got the USSR to abolish itself, and the young Russian Federation to destroy itself with its infamous "shock therapy"), China also has quite strong propaganda, especially in Africa. And in Europe, go back 30 years and people still saw Americans as liberators; now, Europeans see it as a corrupt third-world country where people can't afford healthcare. And while it's true that U.S. cultural "force projection" hasn't weakened; they are being severely squeezed when it comes to trade dominance (https://merchantmachine.co.uk/china-vs-us/ https://merchantmachine.co.uk/china-vs-us/) and monetary dominance (see James Rickards' books). America still has its hegemony, but the notion that it's declining is very much mainstream in academia (https://www.routledge.com/Americas-Allies-and-the-Decline-of-US-Hegemony/Massie-Paquin/p/book/9781032086989 https://www.routledge.com/Americas-Allies-and-the-Decline-of...). Worse, its national security institutions have lost credibility among a significant portion of its electorate (MAGA people), and its military hegemony is now opposed by both populist left (pacifists) and populist right (non-interventionists). They're being squeezed both abroad and at home.
    - kilroy123 4y ago
      All empires eventually decline.
      - fortuna86 4y ago
        What colonies do the US maintain overseas? Or is the word "empire" just slang in this case ?
        sargerage 4y ago
        Any country hosting US military bases and aligning itself with US foreign policy: Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc. Pretty standard definition of an empire.
        jonnybgood 4y ago
        They could kick the US out at anytime. They won't because they want the US to be there. Not the standard definition at all.
- jasfi 4y ago
  The points for not playing dirty, and making that public, are worth it. Hopefully other countries take note.
  - adampk 4y ago
    Have our adversaries historically ever taken note and followed more "enlightened" behavior?
    - weard_beard 4y ago
      Let me ask you, if you heard that in the next town over they started a dog fighting ring would you start one in your town and take your own dog so that he might learn from such "enlightened" behavior? I sleep much better knowing my dog isn't taught such behavior is acceptable. I would hate for him to bite the hand that feeds him because he learned such, "enlightened" behavior is acceptable and condoned by his owner.
      - adampk 4y ago
        So you do not have an example of any of our adversaries changing their behavior because we are acting more "enlightened", but you want to do it anyway because you believe it is good
        weard_beard 4y ago
        I believe democracies are like caring for an animal. I don’t care if my neighbor beats his dog and ends up getting bit, I’m not a cruel idiot so I’m not going to join him.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    But they are less than the points for playing dirty and not getting caught are. Then you reap both the rewards of the sketchy behavior and the perception of moral behavior. So the logical thing to do is dump resources into keeping yourself from being caught.
  - 4y ago
- Eumenes 4y ago
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Found the defense contractor/federal employee You seem new here, but what you wrote is pure noise and violates the site guidelines.
    - Eumenes 4y ago
      Meh, defending the use of propaganda by a nation state seems antithetical to the culture of "hackers" ... but agreed, I'll be more thoughtful moving forward.
- nyokodo 4y ago
  > We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it. Ignoring any moral qualms or suspicions, any powerful weapon that isn’t actively overseen will inevitably be abused.
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    who watchers the watchers though, this is infinitive regress. Besides, who or what is being abused, and what qualifies as such, as also part of the program
    - nyokodo 4y ago
      > who watchers the watchers though, this is infinitive regress. Infinite regress is only contemplated when you aim for perfect oversight which is impossible. The best we can hope for is 'as good as possible'. We the People, as well as possible, oversee that the appropriate authorities are, independently as possible, overseeing the use of weapons and interventions. It's obviously imperfect just like any other human endeavor but that's why we as citizens should fight for strong whistleblower protections, regular investigations/audits and reasonable timeframes for declassification etc so that we can do our job.
    - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
      >who watchers the watchers though We all should - one of many arguments for complete transparency. Democracy dies behind closed doors. All the claims about the need for government secrecy, "national security", protecting "methods and sources" are trash when compared against the importance of transparency in a society purportedly governed by elected representatives of the people. The so-called "risks" posed by radical and complete government transparency are far less than the actual and tangible harms caused by the ever-growing secrecy afforded and demanded by those holding the levers of power.
- banannaise 4y ago
  The tools of warfare and colonialism become the tools of suppressing one's own people. Foucault's boomerang. "These tools are good for us when we use them against our enemies" breaks down very fast when your apparatus starts to find "enemies" within its borders, a line we crossed a very long time ago.
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    yes, I think actually it is other way round - one must first suppress your own population (via propaganda, ideally), so that they can be recruited to suppress the other.
- realce 4y ago
  Your conception of Public Relations and mass manipulation is shallow: investigating these programs is part and parcel of the overall psychological manipulation program the US employs. Part of our marketing includes this whole "integrity" aspect that's supposed to give us "moral authority" over other nations.
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    4D chess. I am naive!
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      No, just 2D chess. Humor the possibility that spies might have some degree of guile.
- paganel 4y ago
  Not sure why you're being down-voted, because once you see it is very, very hard to un-see it. For example in my case one of the factors for making me "see it" was the fact that almost all of the anti-corruption campaigns from my EU-member country were connected to a US governmental agency one way or another, be it the State Department or some other entities that are most probably the front for something that Langley is doing. The US ambassador visiting our Justice Ministry [1] a few years ago when almost all of the middle-class electorate was out in the streets protesting against the Government's direct influence on some justice-related stuff was the cherry on cake. I didn't realise it back then, because I was busy protesting against my own government, but in retrospect I started wondering how come it's ok for a foreign entity to control the justice system from my (supposedly sovereign) country. [1] https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/actualitate/ambasadorul-sua-hans-klemm-in-vizita-la-ministrul-justitiei-tudorel-toader.html https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/actualitate/ambasadorul-sua-ha...
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    Upvote / downvote are almost always emotional on HN ;-)
  - michael1999 4y ago
    Influence is not control. I have absolute confidence that Canada's elections are sound. But I have strong suspicions that the USA applies influence to our processes of developing candidates. So do Russia, China, and Europe. How could it be different?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
      - the_jesus_villa 4y ago
    - hoseja 4y ago
      When does it become control? It's become increasingly obvious that with total control of the narrative the people are simply incapable of voting in ways those in control don't want them to, whatever technical soundness of the election process.
- michael1999 4y ago
  Because US psy-ops against the domestic populate are illegal! And anyone who says you can draw a bright line between domestic and foreign social media activity is a crook.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    It’s been legal for a decade
    - michael1999 4y ago
      Ugh - really? What was the change? I found this, but it looks like a crack, but not a repeal - https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-...
      - michael1999 4y ago
        There's a long way between allowing VoA onto domestic cable and allowing spooks to sock-puppet in domestic politics.
    - maybelsyrup 4y ago
      Legality never stopped them anyway.
- throwrqX 4y ago
  I like the sarcasm but if you read the report that originally started this review (you can find it in the attached link) you'll find the propaganda in this specific case didn't seem particularly effective. Quoting: > It also reveals a somewhat damning tidbit when talking about the reach and impact of these campaigns; according to the report, “the vast majority of posts and tweets we reviewed received no more than a handful of likes or retweets, and only 19% of the covert assets we identified had more than 1,000 followers.” What’s more, the two accounts with the most followers explicitly said they were tied to the US military. I’ll try not to think about how much all this cost when I’m paying my taxes next year. Had US social media agencies been fully in bed with the feds such a report would have never been produced in the first place. Remember, conspiracists always talk about shadowy organizations or groups of people with near omnipotent power - an idea these agencies themselves would like perpetuated to make it seem resistance is futile. https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/25/23322214/us-government-propaganda-campaign-twitter-facebook https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/25/23322214/us-government-pr...
  - the_jesus_villa 4y ago
    >an idea these agencies themselves would like perpetuated to make it seem resistance is futile. Quite the opposite - the conspiratorial reaction is that these agencies want to be mistaken for bumbling bureaucracies, so they let reports of small-level stuff get out. That way we underestimate the real degree of their control and believe that if they ever tried to manipulate us, they would get caught anyway, and besides, they're just making unsuccessful tweets, right? Or even deeper, that these organizations are meant to distract us from much more powerful entities who they don't even realize they are controlled by. I don't believe any of this, but the conspiracy theorists deserve more credit for creativity that you are giving them!
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    That's because it's meant to disrupt conversations, not be liked. None of it is liked, you just have to wade through mountains of it to follow a conversation. The content is shitty US propaganda that maybe 5% of people agree with without reservations. None of those people are on the threads where they're asking a woman how much she likes Putin's dick. The most damaging thing that they do is inflate the like counts and apparent engagement of government thinktank employees and unaware nationalists drunk on the dopamine hits of botted upvotes. I'm absolutely certain that the removal of downvotes from social platforms in general was a long term government project. edit: does anyone believe that this behavior can't be easily detected algorithmically? I don't know about other platforms, but Twitter is obviously a government partner, not a victim.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Ligma123 4y ago
- goodpoint 4y ago
  > We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it. You were doing well until this last sentence. No, propaganda and psychological manipulation is completely incompatible with a democratic society.
  - eastbound 4y ago
    Is it? What leads you to believe that democracy is a stable state? My take: Democracy is not the natural state, therefore requires a lot of psyops to remain in place. It’s not democratic, but well, can you speak up about it? No. Or if you can, will you? Probably not worth it. You’re “happy enough”. My converging evidence: France’s 1789 democracy was set up by gillotining the very person who would have gotten all the majority votes (He was organizing a referendum and the parliament couldn’t let this happen); The EU wasn’t born as a democracy and we only ask people’s opinions when it’s trending up; etc. there are so many examples that actually-democratic systems are an unstable mess and superficially-democratic systems are the norm. The idea is that people believe they live in democracy, and psyops the only way to reach this state. True democracy might be a naive dream.
    - FpUser 4y ago
      >"True democracy might be a naive dream." If the democracy leads to a tyranny of a majority it does not deserve to be a dream either. To me what has the most value is the recognition and protection of the individual rights.
      - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
        While the subject is serious, I want to offer a quote from Pratchett: “Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.”
    - goodpoint 4y ago
- TheBlight 4y ago
  The problem is when it's used on its own population.
  - the_optimist 4y ago
    It has been. Nakashima (author) is effectively a stenographer for the intelligence agencies. She does not have authority, she’s merely a writer.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  >Effective propaganda is one of the US's strongest competitive advantages - extensive and well funded national security apparatus, think tanks with global reach, compliant media publishers with global reach and big tech platforms used throughout the world, which can amplify and dampen messages, based on whether they suit US foreign policy objectives. We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it. Government propaganda is anathema to a free and democratic society. Our government is purportedly granted its authority by the consent of the masses. Having this consent influenced (or completely manufactured by government propaganda) nullifies the whole idea of democracy. The absurd contention that propaganda being spread by US military and government operatives on Facebook and social media is only targeted at (much less only influences) "foreigners" is patently absurd. Millions of Americans (myself included) vehemently oppose our currently stated "US foreign policy objectives" devised by the CIA, the Pentagon and the various government-funded "think tanks" that set policy and direct these propaganda efforts. "Full spectrum narrative control" has been the wet dream of every dictator, king and authoritarian government since the dawn of time, and it should be something that every thoughtful, decent person recognizes as toxic and incompatible with a free and open society.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it. Corruption? Abuse of power?
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    corruption is just the terminology the powerful deny to others what they do for themselves. Look at Congressional inside stock trading, look at legalised lobbying, look at campaign donations. All ok under democracy
lioeters 4y ago
Off-topic: The featured photograph for the article I believe uses a technique called "tilt and shift effect". It makes the buildings and cars look like miniature toys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking
- e40 4y ago
  Tilt-shift lens are wonderful things. There are lots of time-lapsed videos on youtube made with them and they are so cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVsDjGwFImc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVsDjGwFImc is an intro.
- FpUser 4y ago
  I might have some perception irregularities as this "tilt and shift" never looks like any kind of "miniature" to me.
  - daveslash 4y ago
    I might be way off here, but here's what I always assumed. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong, this is just what I've always guessed, but haven't really thought too hard about it.... I think Tilt Shift photography doesn't make the subject look like a miniature, but rather makes the photo look like a photo of a miniature. When photographing a miniature, the subject is so close that you have a much narrower depth of field and you end up with thin slices of the miniature subject being in focus. I think that this was probably more common in the days of film than digital photography. In other words: the photos of miniatures look like that because of limitations in the photography process, whereas tilt-shift is emulating those limitations at a macro scale.
  - jacobolus 4y ago
    A tilt–shift lens can make the focus plane no longer parallel to the plane of the film. This can help make a narrower range of focus for a scenes at middle distances than would be possible with a typical lens. A narrow depth of field is more characteristic of photographs of nearby objects, so people who are used to looking at photographs end up with the impression that the tilt–shift photograph is a picture of a much closer (and thus smaller) scene. This is not the only use of tilt–shift lenses. They can e.g. also be used to keep more of the scene in focus than would be possible with a typical lens.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Zealotux 4y ago
https://archive.ph/SA49A https://archive.ph/SA49A
kornhole 4y ago
Why would we put much credibility into an organization investigating itself? This review is itself probably centralized narrative control. It goes something like this: Through social media monitoring, the Pentagon sees an uptick in people questioning the narrative and seeing the Pentagon behind pysops campaigns. So they commission a study and review that finds a couple supposedly rogue persons in their ranks which they scapegoat and nominally punish. The main apparatus is preserved in the shadows and more resilient after they have probed and fortified all its weaknesses.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Why would we put much credibility into an organization investigating itself? That's kind of a bizarre question, and I think you're misunderstanding what this is. This sounds like it's a story on the organization's internally-focused management, not some kind of external accountability thing meant to convince you of anything.
  - kornhole 4y ago
    It is kind of hard to tell what the real goals are after reading different reports of the review. It does seem to be an internal only review and not something that will enlighten the public much. It shouldn't be any surprise that the Pentagon and its branches do what they do to push their narrative, but they screw up when they are too obvious. That seems to be what they are trying to address.
- halJordan 4y ago
  You can ask that question about any org. Ultimately people do lie, but the fact is that the world does these self-investigations all the time and the world hasnt stopped. The dod in particular has very strong boundaries and rules to follow, which people honest to God, believe in; as well as actually independent minders. So if you're fine with Twitter self-reporting bot numbers when it's obviously a conflict of interest to do so, you should be fine with the DoD investigating one of its combatant commands.
pueblito 4y ago
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > I’m with Greenwald on this: all mass media in the US, including social media, is staffed by and ran entirely for the benefit of the IC/DoD. This is just Deep State Kabuki Do you have any evidence for that? That's an extraordinarily strong claim, and would need evidence much stronger than "here's a cherry-picked set of articles I'm interpreting like tea leaves."
  - pueblito 4y ago
    - ginko 4y ago
      Didn't know Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2021.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      One year before Russia invaded Ukraine.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        > One year before Russia invaded Ukraine. And I also think he misread my karma score as comment count.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      >> Do you have any evidence for that? That's an extraordinarily strong claim, and would need evidence much stronger than "here's a cherry-picked set of articles I'm interpreting like tea leaves." > Given your near 10,000 comments in the time since you signed up literally on the day Russia invaded the Ukraine, I suspect you have the time to do your own homework. Making a extraordinarily strong claim, then expecting others to prove it for you, is a pretty strong indication you do not have evidence for it. I won't mention the other glaring errors in your one-sentence comment, since they've already been called out.
neilv 4y ago
When I was a kid in the 1980s, we heard about Soviet government propaganda to its citizens, including via Pravda. We were also taught how great the US is, by contrast, that it doesn't do those things. Later, I thought I'd learned (maybe misheard?) that US could engage in propaganda or psyops, but that there were strict rules not to do it against US citizens. That seems like good guidance, and I'd welcome an honest review that checks whether we're living up to standards that have been an inspiring part of our national character in the past, and leads to any corrective action. Maybe US collective leadership realizes a way here that we can build upon our ancestors' great ideals, and follow through further, not drop the ball.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > Later, I thought I'd learned (maybe misheard?) that US could engage in propaganda or psyops, but that there were strict rules not to do it against US citizens. That law was repealed in 2010. Since then its all out propaganda.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > That law was repealed in 2010. Since then its all out propaganda. Cite? I'm aware there was some kind of awkward law that meant to block domestic access to VOA-type stuff (IIRC, because it was feared the VOA or State Department was infiltrated by Communists or something like that) that got repealed, but that's a far cry from "since then its all out propaganda." I mean, I don't think I've even seen a single VOA article in our local newspaper.
    - black6 4y ago
      The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 opened the door for materials produced by the US Department of State and the Broadcast Board of Governors to be spread within the borders of the US.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        > The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 opened the door for materials produced by the US Department of State and the Broadcast Board of Governors to be spread within the borders of the US. What's been the actual effect of that? It's been 10 years, and I can't recall seeing a VOA story reposted in a local outlet or radio stations switching to a VOA-based format.
vmoore 4y ago
This is a bit too late. PSYOP campaigns have plagued Twitter & Facebook from the beginning. Twitter cracked down multiple times on fake accounts, but the operators change their modus operandi each time. It's basically whack-a-mole against the troll farm operators. Requiring phone numbers might slow them down, but then they just acquire a bunch of SIMs and continue registering. The only way to stop this is verifying people's passports and their account has to be held in their legal name. Just like a bank. It might be over the top, but it's the only way to drastically reduce the amount of propaganda, spam, astroturfing, disinfo, and artificially inflated metrics of Twitter & Facebook.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  Part of the problem is that Twitter and Facebook deliberately traded away effective moderation in the pursuit of scale. They are not just bad at moderation, they explicitly oppose it. Remember how Twitter gave Trump exemption from their own rules from 2017 thru 2021? They called it the World Leaders Policy, as in, "these world leaders provide so much value to our platform that we are going to give them a pass on our rules in the name of free speech". If I remember correctly, this even extended to DMCA 512 takedowns, which is an absolutely stupid level of risk to take on to protect a handful of users. The Mudge disclosure also revealed that several Twitter admins - as in, people with control over all the servers and databases - are actually foreign agents of India or China's current governments. This is absolutely ludicrous levels of risk to take on for any company, but social media is so addicted to scale that this was deemed acceptable. So even if Twitter were to enforce identity verification on everyone, they would still let the trolls through. Because the whole org is compromised and their incentives are to compromise themselves at every step.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > This is absolutely ludicrous levels of risk to take on You have it all wrong. Pissing off world leaders is taking on serious level of risk.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
Isn’t all lobbying and advertising psy-ops?
- nerpderp82 4y ago
  One of the major qualities of psyops is to not have those lines of control be known. Gaslighting is not lobbying.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    That brings to mind Instagram influencers, many who do not explicitly call out they are being paid to influence by certain organizations (in the fashion or luxury market area). This also brings to mind the movies like ‘the avengers’ which gets lots of military support to drive recruiting.
kmeisthax 4y ago
>Significantly, they found that the pretend personas — employing tactics used by countries such as Russia and China — did not gain much traction, and that overt accounts actually attracted more followers. Because America is fundamentally not peddling the same kind of narrative that Russia or China does. What America wants is freedom[0]. Russia is run by ethnofascists and China is run by near-textbook tankies. These ideologies are pariahs, and honest propaganda of this bent cannot survive contact with the background radiation of politics. In other words, when America is overt, people complain that we aren't living up to our own standards. When Russia or China is overt, people laugh at them and ignore them. So, instead, they have to co-opt other concerns and lie about what their ideological opponents are doing. Hence shit like "the CDC created COVID" or "NATO is creating supersoldiers in Ukranian labs[1]". The job is not to prove that China or Russia is right, but to distract from what they are doing. The more they can piss off Americans against their own government, the better. Americans do not need to do this, because... who is their target audience, here? Hardline Iranian theocrats or the Taliban aren't going to be distracted by covert propaganda. Neither will Russians who think Ukraine is run by the corpse of Adolf Hitler or Chinese who think America created COVID in a lab. People who aren't shitheaded will either respond well to American overt propaganda, or at least point out how America falls short of their own ideals. You don't need to lie to them. Since America's interests are not furthered by covert propaganda, we should abandon it, since the only interest such propaganda could serve would be fifth-columning the country. [0] As defined through a liberal lens; i.e. we accept and embrace private capital accumulation and business ownership. Other non-shitheaded definitions of freedom are free to reject this. [1] Which is literally just the premise of Captain America with extra steps. Every time someone claims this we should reply, "Is this the new MCU movie"?
- cpursley 4y ago
  > Russia is run by ethnofascists Regarding the "ethno" part, do you see evidence of this? Russia is quite diverse in terms of ethnic/cultural groups. The richest woman there is ethnically Korean, for just one example. And other groups like Jewish, Armenian, Tartar, Chechen etc play important roles in government, biz and cultural life there. - https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/334417-how-many-ethnic-groups https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/334417-how-many-ethnic-groups - https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Minority_cultures_of_Russia#:~:text=Russia%20is%20home%20to%20as,groups%20scattered%20across%20the%20country https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Minority_cultures_of_Russia#:....
unethical_ban 4y ago
Here is a good quote from a State Dept. diplomat: >One diplomat put it this way: “Generally speaking, we shouldn’t be employing the same kind of tactics that our adversaries are using because the bottom line is we have the moral high ground. We are a society that is built on a certain set of values. We promote those values around the world and when we use tactics like those, it just undermines our argument about who we are.” This is my position as well. Going forward in a world where more and more of what we hear and even see can be fake, trust will become more important. Trust is hard to build and easy to break. I understand the need to reach out to hesitant populations, and the desire to advance our national interests through persuasion and propaganda. However, actual lying, fake accounts, and disinformation that is deployed in a blanket fashion will be a long-term detriment to our government's credibility. In shorter form: Bias and "targeted messaging" is one thing. Literally fake people and lies are another. We should act better than our adversaries, because we are better.
- stefantalpalaru 4y ago
- mistrial9 4y ago
  US citizen here - I believe that "we" is not possible, due to structural associations, misaligned incentives and tension between social forces. "We" America is not one thing.. the dollar and the vote and Bill of Rights are unifying, but not completely. Meanwhile, there are intelligent actors in every language group, despite no-dollar, no-vote and no-Bill of Rights. A system of systems has to have flexibility to evolve; calling one team uniform as "better" is just more of the same
- CyanBird 4y ago
  > We should act better than our adversaries, because we are better While I "appreciate the candor", it is ofc "hilarious" that there are still people like you out there Before you write such blatant naivety, I would recommend you to at least read Killing Hope by Blum, you feelings of candor and emotional need of belonging clearly lack any sort of historical foundation
ouid 4y ago
>“There are some who think we shouldn’t do anything clandestine in that space. Ceding an entire domain to an adversary would be unwise. But we need stronger policy guardrails.” I don't think this point is entirely without merit. We shouldn't opt to lose this battle on ideological grounds. Blaming the US govt for conducting psyops is somewhat analogous to blaming Robert Oppenheimer for the strong nuclear force, with the caveat that the laws of physics in this situation are somewhat actively controlled by the companies that host these "social media platforms".
swayvil 4y ago
They're investigating themselves?
BrainVirus 4y ago
- fortuna86 4y ago
  Reminder: there is 0 evidence Bezos has interfered with editorial concerns at WaPo or anywhere else. WaPo themselves confirmed this several times. https://www.cjr.org/public_editor/washington-post-public-editor-bezos-has-been-hands-off-what-if-that-changes.php https://www.cjr.org/public_editor/washington-post-public-edi...
  - asdff 4y ago
    OTOH Wapo themselves are probably the least credible source on this matter. That being said, just because bezos isn't dictating what is and isn't to be published, that doesn't mean the editorial room isn't biased towards U.S. foreign policy interests (1, further reading on how this model works: 2) 1. https://fair.org/home/washington-post-editorial-page-meet-noam-chomsky/ https://fair.org/home/washington-post-editorial-page-meet-no... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
    - fortuna86 4y ago
      What's a more credible source, people on the internet with theories ? That's all i'm seeing here. There is plenty of precedent for Chinese or Russian state editorial interference in media, or the Murdoch's dictating Fox news talking points, I still see no evidence (that thing you are supposed to base your beliefs on) for Bezos interfering with WaPo. I do see a lot of conspiracies by people that don't like what WaPo publishes (Trump among them).
      - asdff 4y ago
        I just think its a little naive to assume that there would not be any influence until some academic comes in with a meta analysis that suggest that there is a statistically significant degree of influence. It's best to believe that there could be influence one way or another with anything you read in media, because influence is massively profitable.
encryptluks2 4y ago
A sweeping review?!?! Americans have been targeted and impacted by government-funded propaganda. They have been caught up in the fake drama and emotionally manipulated in ways that may impact them for the rest of their lives. It is time that they do a truth and reconciliation and start talking about money available to victims.
greenhearth 4y ago
The U.S. has been doing this with VOA for almost a century. This is basically the same tactics, but in a new information space. The main point is marketing and propagation of ideology to render it competitive. The vehicles and the methods are incidental, and depend on info consumption preferences, really.
- fortuna86 4y ago
  VOA was one of the only sources for accurate reporting behind the iron curtain. You are discrediting them by referring to them only as propaganda.
  - asdff 4y ago
    You can report things accurately and still be serving propaganda. Its about what you are choosing to highlight, what language you use to describe something, and what you choose to omit from your narrative.
    - fortuna86 4y ago
      Agreed. What's an example of VOA misrepresenting the truth in the way you describe ?
      - asdff 4y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX-kkNWlrrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX-kkNWlrrA
        fortuna86 4y ago
        I didn't ask for Noam Chomsky's opinion I asked for an example.
  - greenhearth 4y ago
    Where did I say they were only propaganda? I agree that they were factual. But the main purpose was to pump Western culture into the Soviet Bloc. This was my point.
bookofjoe 4y ago
https://archive.ph/qFnls https://archive.ph/qFnls
CSMastermind 4y ago
The actual report that triggered this investigation is interesting: https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford_internet_observatory_report_unheard_voice.pdf https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford... The first thing to note is that it's relatively benign in terms of propaganda. > Assets in the group heavily promoted narratives supportive of the U.S. on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Telegram. These posts primarily focused on U.S. support for Central Asian countries and their people, presenting Washington as a reliable economic partner that would curb the region’s dependence on Russia. Other posts argued that the U.S. was the main guarantor of Central Asia’s sovereignty against Russia, frequently citing the war in Ukraine as evidence of the Kremlin’s “imperial” ambitions. Interestingly, the assets also promoted U.S. humanitarian efforts, mentioning the United States Agency for International Development 94 times on Twitter and 384 times on Facebook in the respective datasets. It's funny that they felt the need to do this in a "clandestine" way at all since almost certainly these are messages the US would happily say outloud as official statements. The second thing to note is how ham-handedly they did this: > The sham media outlet Intergazeta repeatedly copied news material with and without credit from reputable Western and pro-Western sources in Russian, such as Meduza.io and the BBC Russian Service. ... Typically, these sections were literal “word-to-word” translations into Russian, as opposed to more-advanced semantic translations, resulting in non-native sounding language.
- dundarious 4y ago
  It’s always minor and no big deal when it’s agreeable, but is disinformation, interference, and Big Brother style propaganda when it presents any kind of challenge, or comes from an official enemy, no matter how trivial in extent. The fact that such things are done domestically and covertly is the issue. And it’s pure speculation on my part, but there is cause to suspect this is but one facet of a much larger program. https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-secret-undercover-army-1591881 https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-secret-u... > The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the one created by the Pentagon over the past decade. Some 60,000 people now belong to this secret army, many working under masked identities and in low profile, all part of a broad program called "signature reduction." The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies. ... > The newest and fastest growing group is the clandestine army that never leaves their keyboards. These are the cutting-edge cyber fighters and intelligence collectors who assume false personas online, employing "nonattribution" and "misattribution" techniques to hide the who and the where of their online presence while they search for high-value targets and collect what is called "publicly accessible information"—or even engage in campaigns to influence and manipulate social media. I’m not paranoid about such programs being everywhere and doing all things, but do consider them a totally undemocratic roadblock to proper civil society.
photochemsyn 4y ago
It looks like it's limited to the very recent past. Apparently the creation of highly coordinated propaganda efforts by the US government dates back to World War I, and there were similar British and German programs of the same era: > "Once the United States had entered the war, the U.S. government saw a need formally to enter the propaganda arena. The U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI) was created to both centralize wartime communication and avoid restrictive European-style censorship... the CPI labored to create a homogeneous public opinion that accepted the war as a struggle of good versus evil waged to promote democracy around the world. The list of promotional activities undertaken by the Committee is impressive: a vast system of news handouts for journalists, tens of millions of copies of its pamphlets, wide circulation of war posters, several films, millions of advertisements donated by business organizations, war expositions in several states, "Americanization" Committees for each ethnic minority group, and 75,000 Four Minute Men speakers, who presented short appeals between features at the nation's movie houses. Through the work of the CPI, the official view of a just and idealistic war became ever present." Source: Propaganda studies in American social science: The rise and fall of the critical paradigm, Sproule (1987) https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00335638709383794 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00335638709383794 History's judgement of WWI is varied, but many think it was entirely avoidable, and that the imperial desire by the 'Great Powers' (Britain, France, Germany, Russia) to control as many shipping and rail routes as possible, as well as oil fields and other overseas resources, was the main driving force behind the conflict, and diplomatic talks could have avoided the war. Trying to sell WWI as a war to prop up the British and French imperial projects, as well as to help keep the Russian czar in power, would not have been so easy.
wrp 4y ago
Would it be productive to talk about how much this shows up on HN? There have always been topics that seem to attract sponsored influencers. In the recent past, China seemed to be the biggest one, though Ukraine is now a major competing topic. I've wondered about the best way to respond to such.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  HN is made up, was seeded by, a lot of Linux guys who share a Stallmanist view of any data being in the hands of large corporations where you can’t control it. All of the dystopian fears that entails. So this is expected. China just eclipsed the US government as biggest bad in the recent years as it’s asserted itself as a technological superpower along with the obvious Russia stuff. It’s only natural we see more of those posts as at least we have a way in our government however minor
moistly 4y ago
Psyop became a science just before & during WWII. The techniques and technologies were imported to the west. They have been studied and improved, and put to use for and against the civilian population ever since, ranging from the good (nod at Sesame Street) to evil (a motion indicating ‘most everything else’).
lukas099 4y ago
This raises my hope that platforms can successfully catch other nation states trying to do this to my country.
perihelions 4y ago
Maybe "only talking about the title" is an anti-pattern in social media; and maybe HN even explicitly warns about complaining about titles; but, this wording difference is astounding enough to be interesting in its own right: Washington Post: "Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological operations" New York Times: "Pentagon Orders Review of Its Overseas Social Media Campaigns" https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/us/politics/pentagon-social-media.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/us/politics/pentagon-soci... Just how flexible are we with language, exactly, that these two headlines can coexist? It's not even as if these two papers' editors have particularly different ideologies or mindsets. They just looked at the same story, separately; selected a framing; turned the language intensity up to 11; and this is the absurd result.
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  Logically it's impossible to have strictly overseas social media campaigns because the material is not bound to a physical region, so there is arguably obvious "collateral damage." How much collateral damage is within the legal limits of law? At what rate and percentage is it considered acceptable? Reminds me of the 2019 U.S Army public document on the need to shift tactics towards cyber space, and it being an unknown territory for all militaries world wide because in the past wars were kenetic, and in the future they are psychic. Including the diffilculty of what strategies of identifying friend and foe and whatever an identity/ego is. It is very much similar to an 'arms race' (in lieu of using technology as a form of narrative control for operational security). Unfortunately game theory optimizes us towards maximum escalation of risk in the hope of equal tension. Fortunately it has worked so far. Interestingly it is the first time in history as we know it that an individual or a small collection of individuals could have significant military power enough to affect billions of people with crafted messages. AI and Human-In-The-Loop systems are both incredibly fascinating and frightening. I must be optimistic though. Growing pains, right? :P
pranavmfungu 4y ago
Need to arrange without blame

272 points by haasted 4y ago

Effective propaganda is one of the US's strongest competitive advantages - extensive and well funded national security apparatus, think tanks with global reach, compliant media publishers with global reach and big tech platforms used throughout the world, which can amplify and dampen messages, based on whether they suit US foreign policy objectives. We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it.

dirtyid 4y ago
Celebrate in private, but pretend to investigate and be concerned about values in public like the drone program. Narratives like this is part of the propaganda.
halfmatthalfcat 4y ago
The US has overall amazing projection generally, be it propaganda, military, culture, etc. I find it funny, looking back a couple years ago, that people were outright dismissing American hegemony but it looks alive and well today imo.
- andy_ppp 4y ago
  The issue I have is things could be substantially worse than US hegemony - for example there could be a lot more wars/nuclear proliferation if the US failed.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    It's the worst hegemony...except for all of the others. It doesn't have to be perfect.
    - FpUser 4y ago
      Says the hegemon. The victims of which there are plenty might have something resembling "fuck you" instead.
      - SyzygistSix 4y ago
        The US has indeed done a lot of damage abroad. However I can't really see anyone else using a gentler approach. Far more the opposite.
  - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
    Are you sure? Where do you think the current path of the US is taking its citizens and the rest of the world? Wars are awful and a nuclear war would especially be so, but taking the slow road to an authoritarian state controlled by unknown forces hidden from view has the potential to be much worse. Think of your ideological worldview, now think of those who are the opposite. What happens if that group ends up in control without you even noticing it happening until it becomes a capital offense to point it out?
    - thfuran 4y ago
      It can't possibly be the case that we're currently headed to a secret takeover by a cabal exactly ideologically opposed to every reader.
      - feet 4y ago
        It's a thought experiment to try and point out the negative aspects of the current situation that could resonate with any reader
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      Realism predicts more war in a multipolar world.
      - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
        War isn't the only evil in the world.
        hackerlight 4y ago
        Other types of evil are also worse in a multipolar world.
  - troops_h8r 4y ago
    This is much easier to say if you're not living in any of its victim states, or under the boots of any of the vicious autocrats the US props up. Also, it's not like nuclear proliferation is solved. It's still breathing down our necks, we just don't talk about it anymore
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - asdff 4y ago
    Wouldn't there be no nuclear proliferation if the U.S. failed? Who designs weapons systems for NATO? The entire nuclear arms race wouldn't have happened if the U.S. didn't use the strategic bombing of citizens as a foreign policy platform 80 years ago.
- spamizbad 4y ago
  The US capitalized on the whole "US has declining global influence" meme* and used it to lay the groundwork for even more global influence. A real "Heads we win; tails you lose" sort of operation. *This is probably true in some areas but the opposite in others - our influence simply shifted.
  - okdood64 4y ago
    Interesting, elaborate?
    - pram 4y ago
      Seems to me shifting the narrative to an emerging 'multi-polar' world from the 'uni-polar' US hegemony might solidify alliances more than they otherwise would have been. Kinda like during the cold war you were on one team or another, no trying to play multiple sides.
      - erikerikson 4y ago
        Shifting to a multi-polar that in essence agrees to the best possible outcome, even as we explore it, seems perfectly within the interests of all. Such an alliance can be more stable and productive while guarding against misuse of the single point of control.
        spamizbad 4y ago
        Not sure I agree with that in practice, but maybe my understanding of history is flawed. Was the humanity better off during the Bi-polar era of the Cold War, with continuously escalating nuclear threats and proxy wars vs 1991-2010? What about the multi-polar world of 1919-1938?
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > a multi-polar that in essence agrees to the best possible outcome, even as we explore it, seems perfectly within the interests of all Multi-polarity is generally code for regional hegemony. That's great if you're the regional hegemon. Not so much if you're the hegemon's neighbor. America is a maritime power. These (think: Carthage, Venice, Portugal, the Dutch and Britain; counterfactual: Japan) have historically relied on trade, and trading outposts, to project power. As such, they're a natural friend of small countries resisting regional hegemony.
- adampk 4y ago
  Isn't China dictating Hollywood's scripts a challenge to this projection? Hollywood is the main exporter of American culture and values and that seems to have been compromised quite effectively in this last decade.
  - peteradio 4y ago
    > main exporter of American culture "foot-in-the-door" American culture maybe. I'd say it's a different projection of our culture at home.
  - steele 4y ago
    Complain about this in Mandarin
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Me: "Complain about China dictating Hollywood's scripts, but write the answer in Mandarin Chinese" GPT-3: 我覺得電影腳本被中國人牽制了 (Transition according to Google: "I think the movie script is being held back by the Chinese")
    - polytely 4y ago
      from what I've read it's perfectly fine to complain about stuff on the Chinese net, you start getting in trouble once you attempt to mobilize people
      - fortuna86 4y ago
        "Complain all you like, don't take steps to change or improve your situation." The biggest advocate for the fairness of a prison cell often is the prisoner.
        SyzygistSix 4y ago
        I don't feel like they were saying that was a good situation. Rather pointing it out as an instrument of control.
- concinds 4y ago
  While the U.S.'s core strength has always been propaganda (they got Operation Paperclip Nazis to becom American patriots, got the USSR to abolish itself, and the young Russian Federation to destroy itself with its infamous "shock therapy"), China also has quite strong propaganda, especially in Africa. And in Europe, go back 30 years and people still saw Americans as liberators; now, Europeans see it as a corrupt third-world country where people can't afford healthcare. And while it's true that U.S. cultural "force projection" hasn't weakened; they are being severely squeezed when it comes to trade dominance (https://merchantmachine.co.uk/china-vs-us/ https://merchantmachine.co.uk/china-vs-us/) and monetary dominance (see James Rickards' books). America still has its hegemony, but the notion that it's declining is very much mainstream in academia (https://www.routledge.com/Americas-Allies-and-the-Decline-of-US-Hegemony/Massie-Paquin/p/book/9781032086989 https://www.routledge.com/Americas-Allies-and-the-Decline-of...). Worse, its national security institutions have lost credibility among a significant portion of its electorate (MAGA people), and its military hegemony is now opposed by both populist left (pacifists) and populist right (non-interventionists). They're being squeezed both abroad and at home.
  - kilroy123 4y ago
    All empires eventually decline.
    - fortuna86 4y ago
      What colonies do the US maintain overseas? Or is the word "empire" just slang in this case ?
      - sargerage 4y ago
        Any country hosting US military bases and aligning itself with US foreign policy: Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc. Pretty standard definition of an empire.
        jonnybgood 4y ago
        They could kick the US out at anytime. They won't because they want the US to be there. Not the standard definition at all.
jasfi 4y ago
The points for not playing dirty, and making that public, are worth it. Hopefully other countries take note.
- adampk 4y ago
  Have our adversaries historically ever taken note and followed more "enlightened" behavior?
  - weard_beard 4y ago
    Let me ask you, if you heard that in the next town over they started a dog fighting ring would you start one in your town and take your own dog so that he might learn from such "enlightened" behavior? I sleep much better knowing my dog isn't taught such behavior is acceptable. I would hate for him to bite the hand that feeds him because he learned such, "enlightened" behavior is acceptable and condoned by his owner.
    - adampk 4y ago
      So you do not have an example of any of our adversaries changing their behavior because we are acting more "enlightened", but you want to do it anyway because you believe it is good
      - weard_beard 4y ago
        I believe democracies are like caring for an animal. I don’t care if my neighbor beats his dog and ends up getting bit, I’m not a cruel idiot so I’m not going to join him.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  But they are less than the points for playing dirty and not getting caught are. Then you reap both the rewards of the sketchy behavior and the perception of moral behavior. So the logical thing to do is dump resources into keeping yourself from being caught.
- 4y ago
Eumenes 4y ago
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Found the defense contractor/federal employee You seem new here, but what you wrote is pure noise and violates the site guidelines.
  - Eumenes 4y ago
    Meh, defending the use of propaganda by a nation state seems antithetical to the culture of "hackers" ... but agreed, I'll be more thoughtful moving forward.
nyokodo 4y ago
> We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it. Ignoring any moral qualms or suspicions, any powerful weapon that isn’t actively overseen will inevitably be abused.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  who watchers the watchers though, this is infinitive regress. Besides, who or what is being abused, and what qualifies as such, as also part of the program
  - nyokodo 4y ago
    > who watchers the watchers though, this is infinitive regress. Infinite regress is only contemplated when you aim for perfect oversight which is impossible. The best we can hope for is 'as good as possible'. We the People, as well as possible, oversee that the appropriate authorities are, independently as possible, overseeing the use of weapons and interventions. It's obviously imperfect just like any other human endeavor but that's why we as citizens should fight for strong whistleblower protections, regular investigations/audits and reasonable timeframes for declassification etc so that we can do our job.
  - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
    >who watchers the watchers though We all should - one of many arguments for complete transparency. Democracy dies behind closed doors. All the claims about the need for government secrecy, "national security", protecting "methods and sources" are trash when compared against the importance of transparency in a society purportedly governed by elected representatives of the people. The so-called "risks" posed by radical and complete government transparency are far less than the actual and tangible harms caused by the ever-growing secrecy afforded and demanded by those holding the levers of power.
banannaise 4y ago
The tools of warfare and colonialism become the tools of suppressing one's own people. Foucault's boomerang. "These tools are good for us when we use them against our enemies" breaks down very fast when your apparatus starts to find "enemies" within its borders, a line we crossed a very long time ago.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  yes, I think actually it is other way round - one must first suppress your own population (via propaganda, ideally), so that they can be recruited to suppress the other.
realce 4y ago
Your conception of Public Relations and mass manipulation is shallow: investigating these programs is part and parcel of the overall psychological manipulation program the US employs. Part of our marketing includes this whole "integrity" aspect that's supposed to give us "moral authority" over other nations.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  4D chess. I am naive!
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    No, just 2D chess. Humor the possibility that spies might have some degree of guile.
paganel 4y ago
Not sure why you're being down-voted, because once you see it is very, very hard to un-see it. For example in my case one of the factors for making me "see it" was the fact that almost all of the anti-corruption campaigns from my EU-member country were connected to a US governmental agency one way or another, be it the State Department or some other entities that are most probably the front for something that Langley is doing. The US ambassador visiting our Justice Ministry [1] a few years ago when almost all of the middle-class electorate was out in the streets protesting against the Government's direct influence on some justice-related stuff was the cherry on cake. I didn't realise it back then, because I was busy protesting against my own government, but in retrospect I started wondering how come it's ok for a foreign entity to control the justice system from my (supposedly sovereign) country. [1] https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/actualitate/ambasadorul-sua-hans-klemm-in-vizita-la-ministrul-justitiei-tudorel-toader.html https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/actualitate/ambasadorul-sua-ha...
- hunglee2 4y ago
  Upvote / downvote are almost always emotional on HN ;-)
- michael1999 4y ago
  Influence is not control. I have absolute confidence that Canada's elections are sound. But I have strong suspicions that the USA applies influence to our processes of developing candidates. So do Russia, China, and Europe. How could it be different?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
    - the_jesus_villa 4y ago
  - hoseja 4y ago
    When does it become control? It's become increasingly obvious that with total control of the narrative the people are simply incapable of voting in ways those in control don't want them to, whatever technical soundness of the election process.
michael1999 4y ago
Because US psy-ops against the domestic populate are illegal! And anyone who says you can draw a bright line between domestic and foreign social media activity is a crook.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  It’s been legal for a decade
  - michael1999 4y ago
    Ugh - really? What was the change? I found this, but it looks like a crack, but not a repeal - https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-...
    - michael1999 4y ago
      There's a long way between allowing VoA onto domestic cable and allowing spooks to sock-puppet in domestic politics.
  - maybelsyrup 4y ago
    Legality never stopped them anyway.
throwrqX 4y ago
I like the sarcasm but if you read the report that originally started this review (you can find it in the attached link) you'll find the propaganda in this specific case didn't seem particularly effective. Quoting: > It also reveals a somewhat damning tidbit when talking about the reach and impact of these campaigns; according to the report, “the vast majority of posts and tweets we reviewed received no more than a handful of likes or retweets, and only 19% of the covert assets we identified had more than 1,000 followers.” What’s more, the two accounts with the most followers explicitly said they were tied to the US military. I’ll try not to think about how much all this cost when I’m paying my taxes next year. Had US social media agencies been fully in bed with the feds such a report would have never been produced in the first place. Remember, conspiracists always talk about shadowy organizations or groups of people with near omnipotent power - an idea these agencies themselves would like perpetuated to make it seem resistance is futile. https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/25/23322214/us-government-propaganda-campaign-twitter-facebook https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/25/23322214/us-government-pr...
- the_jesus_villa 4y ago
  >an idea these agencies themselves would like perpetuated to make it seem resistance is futile. Quite the opposite - the conspiratorial reaction is that these agencies want to be mistaken for bumbling bureaucracies, so they let reports of small-level stuff get out. That way we underestimate the real degree of their control and believe that if they ever tried to manipulate us, they would get caught anyway, and besides, they're just making unsuccessful tweets, right? Or even deeper, that these organizations are meant to distract us from much more powerful entities who they don't even realize they are controlled by. I don't believe any of this, but the conspiracy theorists deserve more credit for creativity that you are giving them!
- pessimizer 4y ago
  That's because it's meant to disrupt conversations, not be liked. None of it is liked, you just have to wade through mountains of it to follow a conversation. The content is shitty US propaganda that maybe 5% of people agree with without reservations. None of those people are on the threads where they're asking a woman how much she likes Putin's dick. The most damaging thing that they do is inflate the like counts and apparent engagement of government thinktank employees and unaware nationalists drunk on the dopamine hits of botted upvotes. I'm absolutely certain that the removal of downvotes from social platforms in general was a long term government project. edit: does anyone believe that this behavior can't be easily detected algorithmically? I don't know about other platforms, but Twitter is obviously a government partner, not a victim.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Ligma123 4y ago
goodpoint 4y ago
> We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it. You were doing well until this last sentence. No, propaganda and psychological manipulation is completely incompatible with a democratic society.
- eastbound 4y ago
  Is it? What leads you to believe that democracy is a stable state? My take: Democracy is not the natural state, therefore requires a lot of psyops to remain in place. It’s not democratic, but well, can you speak up about it? No. Or if you can, will you? Probably not worth it. You’re “happy enough”. My converging evidence: France’s 1789 democracy was set up by gillotining the very person who would have gotten all the majority votes (He was organizing a referendum and the parliament couldn’t let this happen); The EU wasn’t born as a democracy and we only ask people’s opinions when it’s trending up; etc. there are so many examples that actually-democratic systems are an unstable mess and superficially-democratic systems are the norm. The idea is that people believe they live in democracy, and psyops the only way to reach this state. True democracy might be a naive dream.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    >"True democracy might be a naive dream." If the democracy leads to a tyranny of a majority it does not deserve to be a dream either. To me what has the most value is the recognition and protection of the individual rights.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
      While the subject is serious, I want to offer a quote from Pratchett: “Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.”
  - goodpoint 4y ago
TheBlight 4y ago
The problem is when it's used on its own population.
- the_optimist 4y ago
  It has been. Nakashima (author) is effectively a stenographer for the intelligence agencies. She does not have authority, she’s merely a writer.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
>Effective propaganda is one of the US's strongest competitive advantages - extensive and well funded national security apparatus, think tanks with global reach, compliant media publishers with global reach and big tech platforms used throughout the world, which can amplify and dampen messages, based on whether they suit US foreign policy objectives. We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it. Government propaganda is anathema to a free and democratic society. Our government is purportedly granted its authority by the consent of the masses. Having this consent influenced (or completely manufactured by government propaganda) nullifies the whole idea of democracy. The absurd contention that propaganda being spread by US military and government operatives on Facebook and social media is only targeted at (much less only influences) "foreigners" is patently absurd. Millions of Americans (myself included) vehemently oppose our currently stated "US foreign policy objectives" devised by the CIA, the Pentagon and the various government-funded "think tanks" that set policy and direct these propaganda efforts. "Full spectrum narrative control" has been the wet dream of every dictator, king and authoritarian government since the dawn of time, and it should be something that every thoughtful, decent person recognizes as toxic and incompatible with a free and open society.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> We should celebrate this full spectrum narrative control, not 'investigate' it. Corruption? Abuse of power?
- hunglee2 4y ago
  corruption is just the terminology the powerful deny to others what they do for themselves. Look at Congressional inside stock trading, look at legalised lobbying, look at campaign donations. All ok under democracy

lioeters 4y ago

Off-topic: The featured photograph for the article I believe uses a technique called "tilt and shift effect". It makes the buildings and cars look like miniature toys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking

e40 4y ago
Tilt-shift lens are wonderful things. There are lots of time-lapsed videos on youtube made with them and they are so cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVsDjGwFImc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVsDjGwFImc is an intro.
FpUser 4y ago
I might have some perception irregularities as this "tilt and shift" never looks like any kind of "miniature" to me.
- daveslash 4y ago
  I might be way off here, but here's what I always assumed. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong, this is just what I've always guessed, but haven't really thought too hard about it.... I think Tilt Shift photography doesn't make the subject look like a miniature, but rather makes the photo look like a photo of a miniature. When photographing a miniature, the subject is so close that you have a much narrower depth of field and you end up with thin slices of the miniature subject being in focus. I think that this was probably more common in the days of film than digital photography. In other words: the photos of miniatures look like that because of limitations in the photography process, whereas tilt-shift is emulating those limitations at a macro scale.
- jacobolus 4y ago
  A tilt–shift lens can make the focus plane no longer parallel to the plane of the film. This can help make a narrower range of focus for a scenes at middle distances than would be possible with a typical lens. A narrow depth of field is more characteristic of photographs of nearby objects, so people who are used to looking at photographs end up with the impression that the tilt–shift photograph is a picture of a much closer (and thus smaller) scene. This is not the only use of tilt–shift lenses. They can e.g. also be used to keep more of the scene in focus than would be possible with a typical lens.

deleted 4y ago

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Zealotux 4y ago

https://archive.ph/SA49A https://archive.ph/SA49A

kornhole 4y ago

Why would we put much credibility into an organization investigating itself? This review is itself probably centralized narrative control. It goes something like this: Through social media monitoring, the Pentagon sees an uptick in people questioning the narrative and seeing the Pentagon behind pysops campaigns. So they commission a study and review that finds a couple supposedly rogue persons in their ranks which they scapegoat and nominally punish. The main apparatus is preserved in the shadows and more resilient after they have probed and fortified all its weaknesses.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Why would we put much credibility into an organization investigating itself? That's kind of a bizarre question, and I think you're misunderstanding what this is. This sounds like it's a story on the organization's internally-focused management, not some kind of external accountability thing meant to convince you of anything.
- kornhole 4y ago
  It is kind of hard to tell what the real goals are after reading different reports of the review. It does seem to be an internal only review and not something that will enlighten the public much. It shouldn't be any surprise that the Pentagon and its branches do what they do to push their narrative, but they screw up when they are too obvious. That seems to be what they are trying to address.
halJordan 4y ago
You can ask that question about any org. Ultimately people do lie, but the fact is that the world does these self-investigations all the time and the world hasnt stopped. The dod in particular has very strong boundaries and rules to follow, which people honest to God, believe in; as well as actually independent minders. So if you're fine with Twitter self-reporting bot numbers when it's obviously a conflict of interest to do so, you should be fine with the DoD investigating one of its combatant commands.

pueblito 4y ago

tablespoon 4y ago
> I’m with Greenwald on this: all mass media in the US, including social media, is staffed by and ran entirely for the benefit of the IC/DoD. This is just Deep State Kabuki Do you have any evidence for that? That's an extraordinarily strong claim, and would need evidence much stronger than "here's a cherry-picked set of articles I'm interpreting like tea leaves."
- pueblito 4y ago
  - ginko 4y ago
    Didn't know Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2021.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    One year before Russia invaded Ukraine.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > One year before Russia invaded Ukraine. And I also think he misread my karma score as comment count.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    >> Do you have any evidence for that? That's an extraordinarily strong claim, and would need evidence much stronger than "here's a cherry-picked set of articles I'm interpreting like tea leaves." > Given your near 10,000 comments in the time since you signed up literally on the day Russia invaded the Ukraine, I suspect you have the time to do your own homework. Making a extraordinarily strong claim, then expecting others to prove it for you, is a pretty strong indication you do not have evidence for it. I won't mention the other glaring errors in your one-sentence comment, since they've already been called out.

neilv 4y ago

When I was a kid in the 1980s, we heard about Soviet government propaganda to its citizens, including via Pravda. We were also taught how great the US is, by contrast, that it doesn't do those things. Later, I thought I'd learned (maybe misheard?) that US could engage in propaganda or psyops, but that there were strict rules not to do it against US citizens. That seems like good guidance, and I'd welcome an honest review that checks whether we're living up to standards that have been an inspiring part of our national character in the past, and leads to any corrective action. Maybe US collective leadership realizes a way here that we can build upon our ancestors' great ideals, and follow through further, not drop the ball.

unity1001 4y ago
> Later, I thought I'd learned (maybe misheard?) that US could engage in propaganda or psyops, but that there were strict rules not to do it against US citizens. That law was repealed in 2010. Since then its all out propaganda.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > That law was repealed in 2010. Since then its all out propaganda. Cite? I'm aware there was some kind of awkward law that meant to block domestic access to VOA-type stuff (IIRC, because it was feared the VOA or State Department was infiltrated by Communists or something like that) that got repealed, but that's a far cry from "since then its all out propaganda." I mean, I don't think I've even seen a single VOA article in our local newspaper.
  - black6 4y ago
    The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 opened the door for materials produced by the US Department of State and the Broadcast Board of Governors to be spread within the borders of the US.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 opened the door for materials produced by the US Department of State and the Broadcast Board of Governors to be spread within the borders of the US. What's been the actual effect of that? It's been 10 years, and I can't recall seeing a VOA story reposted in a local outlet or radio stations switching to a VOA-based format.

vmoore 4y ago

This is a bit too late. PSYOP campaigns have plagued Twitter & Facebook from the beginning. Twitter cracked down multiple times on fake accounts, but the operators change their modus operandi each time. It's basically whack-a-mole against the troll farm operators. Requiring phone numbers might slow them down, but then they just acquire a bunch of SIMs and continue registering. The only way to stop this is verifying people's passports and their account has to be held in their legal name. Just like a bank. It might be over the top, but it's the only way to drastically reduce the amount of propaganda, spam, astroturfing, disinfo, and artificially inflated metrics of Twitter & Facebook.

kmeisthax 4y ago
Part of the problem is that Twitter and Facebook deliberately traded away effective moderation in the pursuit of scale. They are not just bad at moderation, they explicitly oppose it. Remember how Twitter gave Trump exemption from their own rules from 2017 thru 2021? They called it the World Leaders Policy, as in, "these world leaders provide so much value to our platform that we are going to give them a pass on our rules in the name of free speech". If I remember correctly, this even extended to DMCA 512 takedowns, which is an absolutely stupid level of risk to take on to protect a handful of users. The Mudge disclosure also revealed that several Twitter admins - as in, people with control over all the servers and databases - are actually foreign agents of India or China's current governments. This is absolutely ludicrous levels of risk to take on for any company, but social media is so addicted to scale that this was deemed acceptable. So even if Twitter were to enforce identity verification on everyone, they would still let the trolls through. Because the whole org is compromised and their incentives are to compromise themselves at every step.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > This is absolutely ludicrous levels of risk to take on You have it all wrong. Pissing off world leaders is taking on serious level of risk.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

Isn’t all lobbying and advertising psy-ops?

nerpderp82 4y ago
One of the major qualities of psyops is to not have those lines of control be known. Gaslighting is not lobbying.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  That brings to mind Instagram influencers, many who do not explicitly call out they are being paid to influence by certain organizations (in the fashion or luxury market area). This also brings to mind the movies like ‘the avengers’ which gets lots of military support to drive recruiting.

kmeisthax 4y ago

>Significantly, they found that the pretend personas — employing tactics used by countries such as Russia and China — did not gain much traction, and that overt accounts actually attracted more followers. Because America is fundamentally not peddling the same kind of narrative that Russia or China does. What America wants is freedom[0]. Russia is run by ethnofascists and China is run by near-textbook tankies. These ideologies are pariahs, and honest propaganda of this bent cannot survive contact with the background radiation of politics. In other words, when America is overt, people complain that we aren't living up to our own standards. When Russia or China is overt, people laugh at them and ignore them. So, instead, they have to co-opt other concerns and lie about what their ideological opponents are doing. Hence shit like "the CDC created COVID" or "NATO is creating supersoldiers in Ukranian labs[1]". The job is not to prove that China or Russia is right, but to distract from what they are doing. The more they can piss off Americans against their own government, the better. Americans do not need to do this, because... who is their target audience, here? Hardline Iranian theocrats or the Taliban aren't going to be distracted by covert propaganda. Neither will Russians who think Ukraine is run by the corpse of Adolf Hitler or Chinese who think America created COVID in a lab. People who aren't shitheaded will either respond well to American overt propaganda, or at least point out how America falls short of their own ideals. You don't need to lie to them. Since America's interests are not furthered by covert propaganda, we should abandon it, since the only interest such propaganda could serve would be fifth-columning the country. [0] As defined through a liberal lens; i.e. we accept and embrace private capital accumulation and business ownership. Other non-shitheaded definitions of freedom are free to reject this. [1] Which is literally just the premise of Captain America with extra steps. Every time someone claims this we should reply, "Is this the new MCU movie"?

cpursley 4y ago
> Russia is run by ethnofascists Regarding the "ethno" part, do you see evidence of this? Russia is quite diverse in terms of ethnic/cultural groups. The richest woman there is ethnically Korean, for just one example. And other groups like Jewish, Armenian, Tartar, Chechen etc play important roles in government, biz and cultural life there. - https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/334417-how-many-ethnic-groups https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/334417-how-many-ethnic-groups - https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Minority_cultures_of_Russia#:~:text=Russia%20is%20home%20to%20as,groups%20scattered%20across%20the%20country https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Minority_cultures_of_Russia#:....

unethical_ban 4y ago

Here is a good quote from a State Dept. diplomat: >One diplomat put it this way: “Generally speaking, we shouldn’t be employing the same kind of tactics that our adversaries are using because the bottom line is we have the moral high ground. We are a society that is built on a certain set of values. We promote those values around the world and when we use tactics like those, it just undermines our argument about who we are.” This is my position as well. Going forward in a world where more and more of what we hear and even see can be fake, trust will become more important. Trust is hard to build and easy to break. I understand the need to reach out to hesitant populations, and the desire to advance our national interests through persuasion and propaganda. However, actual lying, fake accounts, and disinformation that is deployed in a blanket fashion will be a long-term detriment to our government's credibility. In shorter form: Bias and "targeted messaging" is one thing. Literally fake people and lies are another. We should act better than our adversaries, because we are better.

stefantalpalaru 4y ago
mistrial9 4y ago
US citizen here - I believe that "we" is not possible, due to structural associations, misaligned incentives and tension between social forces. "We" America is not one thing.. the dollar and the vote and Bill of Rights are unifying, but not completely. Meanwhile, there are intelligent actors in every language group, despite no-dollar, no-vote and no-Bill of Rights. A system of systems has to have flexibility to evolve; calling one team uniform as "better" is just more of the same
CyanBird 4y ago
> We should act better than our adversaries, because we are better While I "appreciate the candor", it is ofc "hilarious" that there are still people like you out there Before you write such blatant naivety, I would recommend you to at least read Killing Hope by Blum, you feelings of candor and emotional need of belonging clearly lack any sort of historical foundation

ouid 4y ago

>“There are some who think we shouldn’t do anything clandestine in that space. Ceding an entire domain to an adversary would be unwise. But we need stronger policy guardrails.” I don't think this point is entirely without merit. We shouldn't opt to lose this battle on ideological grounds. Blaming the US govt for conducting psyops is somewhat analogous to blaming Robert Oppenheimer for the strong nuclear force, with the caveat that the laws of physics in this situation are somewhat actively controlled by the companies that host these "social media platforms".

swayvil 4y ago

They're investigating themselves?

BrainVirus 4y ago

fortuna86 4y ago
Reminder: there is 0 evidence Bezos has interfered with editorial concerns at WaPo or anywhere else. WaPo themselves confirmed this several times. https://www.cjr.org/public_editor/washington-post-public-editor-bezos-has-been-hands-off-what-if-that-changes.php https://www.cjr.org/public_editor/washington-post-public-edi...
- asdff 4y ago
  OTOH Wapo themselves are probably the least credible source on this matter. That being said, just because bezos isn't dictating what is and isn't to be published, that doesn't mean the editorial room isn't biased towards U.S. foreign policy interests (1, further reading on how this model works: 2) 1. https://fair.org/home/washington-post-editorial-page-meet-noam-chomsky/ https://fair.org/home/washington-post-editorial-page-meet-no... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
  - fortuna86 4y ago
    What's a more credible source, people on the internet with theories ? That's all i'm seeing here. There is plenty of precedent for Chinese or Russian state editorial interference in media, or the Murdoch's dictating Fox news talking points, I still see no evidence (that thing you are supposed to base your beliefs on) for Bezos interfering with WaPo. I do see a lot of conspiracies by people that don't like what WaPo publishes (Trump among them).
    - asdff 4y ago
      I just think its a little naive to assume that there would not be any influence until some academic comes in with a meta analysis that suggest that there is a statistically significant degree of influence. It's best to believe that there could be influence one way or another with anything you read in media, because influence is massively profitable.

encryptluks2 4y ago

A sweeping review?!?! Americans have been targeted and impacted by government-funded propaganda. They have been caught up in the fake drama and emotionally manipulated in ways that may impact them for the rest of their lives. It is time that they do a truth and reconciliation and start talking about money available to victims.

greenhearth 4y ago

The U.S. has been doing this with VOA for almost a century. This is basically the same tactics, but in a new information space. The main point is marketing and propagation of ideology to render it competitive. The vehicles and the methods are incidental, and depend on info consumption preferences, really.

fortuna86 4y ago
VOA was one of the only sources for accurate reporting behind the iron curtain. You are discrediting them by referring to them only as propaganda.
- asdff 4y ago
  You can report things accurately and still be serving propaganda. Its about what you are choosing to highlight, what language you use to describe something, and what you choose to omit from your narrative.
  - fortuna86 4y ago
    Agreed. What's an example of VOA misrepresenting the truth in the way you describe ?
    - asdff 4y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX-kkNWlrrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX-kkNWlrrA
      - fortuna86 4y ago
        I didn't ask for Noam Chomsky's opinion I asked for an example.
- greenhearth 4y ago
  Where did I say they were only propaganda? I agree that they were factual. But the main purpose was to pump Western culture into the Soviet Bloc. This was my point.

bookofjoe 4y ago

https://archive.ph/qFnls https://archive.ph/qFnls

CSMastermind 4y ago

The actual report that triggered this investigation is interesting: https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford_internet_observatory_report_unheard_voice.pdf https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford... The first thing to note is that it's relatively benign in terms of propaganda. > Assets in the group heavily promoted narratives supportive of the U.S. on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Telegram. These posts primarily focused on U.S. support for Central Asian countries and their people, presenting Washington as a reliable economic partner that would curb the region’s dependence on Russia. Other posts argued that the U.S. was the main guarantor of Central Asia’s sovereignty against Russia, frequently citing the war in Ukraine as evidence of the Kremlin’s “imperial” ambitions. Interestingly, the assets also promoted U.S. humanitarian efforts, mentioning the United States Agency for International Development 94 times on Twitter and 384 times on Facebook in the respective datasets. It's funny that they felt the need to do this in a "clandestine" way at all since almost certainly these are messages the US would happily say outloud as official statements. The second thing to note is how ham-handedly they did this: > The sham media outlet Intergazeta repeatedly copied news material with and without credit from reputable Western and pro-Western sources in Russian, such as Meduza.io and the BBC Russian Service. ... Typically, these sections were literal “word-to-word” translations into Russian, as opposed to more-advanced semantic translations, resulting in non-native sounding language.

dundarious 4y ago
It’s always minor and no big deal when it’s agreeable, but is disinformation, interference, and Big Brother style propaganda when it presents any kind of challenge, or comes from an official enemy, no matter how trivial in extent. The fact that such things are done domestically and covertly is the issue. And it’s pure speculation on my part, but there is cause to suspect this is but one facet of a much larger program. https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-secret-undercover-army-1591881 https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-secret-u... > The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the one created by the Pentagon over the past decade. Some 60,000 people now belong to this secret army, many working under masked identities and in low profile, all part of a broad program called "signature reduction." The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies. ... > The newest and fastest growing group is the clandestine army that never leaves their keyboards. These are the cutting-edge cyber fighters and intelligence collectors who assume false personas online, employing "nonattribution" and "misattribution" techniques to hide the who and the where of their online presence while they search for high-value targets and collect what is called "publicly accessible information"—or even engage in campaigns to influence and manipulate social media. I’m not paranoid about such programs being everywhere and doing all things, but do consider them a totally undemocratic roadblock to proper civil society.

photochemsyn 4y ago

It looks like it's limited to the very recent past. Apparently the creation of highly coordinated propaganda efforts by the US government dates back to World War I, and there were similar British and German programs of the same era: > "Once the United States had entered the war, the U.S. government saw a need formally to enter the propaganda arena. The U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI) was created to both centralize wartime communication and avoid restrictive European-style censorship... the CPI labored to create a homogeneous public opinion that accepted the war as a struggle of good versus evil waged to promote democracy around the world. The list of promotional activities undertaken by the Committee is impressive: a vast system of news handouts for journalists, tens of millions of copies of its pamphlets, wide circulation of war posters, several films, millions of advertisements donated by business organizations, war expositions in several states, "Americanization" Committees for each ethnic minority group, and 75,000 Four Minute Men speakers, who presented short appeals between features at the nation's movie houses. Through the work of the CPI, the official view of a just and idealistic war became ever present." Source: Propaganda studies in American social science: The rise and fall of the critical paradigm, Sproule (1987) https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00335638709383794 https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00335638709383794 History's judgement of WWI is varied, but many think it was entirely avoidable, and that the imperial desire by the 'Great Powers' (Britain, France, Germany, Russia) to control as many shipping and rail routes as possible, as well as oil fields and other overseas resources, was the main driving force behind the conflict, and diplomatic talks could have avoided the war. Trying to sell WWI as a war to prop up the British and French imperial projects, as well as to help keep the Russian czar in power, would not have been so easy.

wrp 4y ago

Would it be productive to talk about how much this shows up on HN? There have always been topics that seem to attract sponsored influencers. In the recent past, China seemed to be the biggest one, though Ukraine is now a major competing topic. I've wondered about the best way to respond to such.

edgyquant 4y ago
HN is made up, was seeded by, a lot of Linux guys who share a Stallmanist view of any data being in the hands of large corporations where you can’t control it. All of the dystopian fears that entails. So this is expected. China just eclipsed the US government as biggest bad in the recent years as it’s asserted itself as a technological superpower along with the obvious Russia stuff. It’s only natural we see more of those posts as at least we have a way in our government however minor

moistly 4y ago

Psyop became a science just before & during WWII. The techniques and technologies were imported to the west. They have been studied and improved, and put to use for and against the civilian population ever since, ranging from the good (nod at Sesame Street) to evil (a motion indicating ‘most everything else’).

lukas099 4y ago

This raises my hope that platforms can successfully catch other nation states trying to do this to my country.

perihelions 4y ago

Maybe "only talking about the title" is an anti-pattern in social media; and maybe HN even explicitly warns about complaining about titles; but, this wording difference is astounding enough to be interesting in its own right: Washington Post: "Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological operations" New York Times: "Pentagon Orders Review of Its Overseas Social Media Campaigns" https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/us/politics/pentagon-social-media.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/us/politics/pentagon-soci... Just how flexible are we with language, exactly, that these two headlines can coexist? It's not even as if these two papers' editors have particularly different ideologies or mindsets. They just looked at the same story, separately; selected a framing; turned the language intensity up to 11; and this is the absurd result.

pyinstallwoes 4y ago
Logically it's impossible to have strictly overseas social media campaigns because the material is not bound to a physical region, so there is arguably obvious "collateral damage." How much collateral damage is within the legal limits of law? At what rate and percentage is it considered acceptable? Reminds me of the 2019 U.S Army public document on the need to shift tactics towards cyber space, and it being an unknown territory for all militaries world wide because in the past wars were kenetic, and in the future they are psychic. Including the diffilculty of what strategies of identifying friend and foe and whatever an identity/ego is. It is very much similar to an 'arms race' (in lieu of using technology as a form of narrative control for operational security). Unfortunately game theory optimizes us towards maximum escalation of risk in the hope of equal tension. Fortunately it has worked so far. Interestingly it is the first time in history as we know it that an individual or a small collection of individuals could have significant military power enough to affect billions of people with crafted messages. AI and Human-In-The-Loop systems are both incredibly fascinating and frightening. I must be optimistic though. Growing pains, right? :P

pranavmfungu 4y ago

Need to arrange without blame