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“Timed action: When needed, the operator has an army of avatars which can be configured and timed. Thus a huge group is created, who can echo the negative messa

by ianai 4y ago

“Timed action: When needed, the operator has an army of avatars which can be configured and timed. Thus a huge group is created, who can echo the negative message on all networks” This article is a really interesting, detailed piece on what I suspect many have suspected.

giantg2 4y ago
Seems unlikely to work in the US given that we are already highly polarized and dug in to our positions. It's also hard to tell who is a bot and who is not on most forums discussing politics due to the low quality.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Those are the best possible conditions. Ideologically committed people are easier to manipulate, in my experience.
- ianai 4y ago
  One of their examples is from California.
- FredPret 4y ago
  If you are right, it's ironic that the dirty information environment is effectively inoculating us against psy-ops
  - brookst 4y ago
    Zero trust. Getting there is painful but it seems to be the answer to huge systems with known actors.
- brookst 4y ago
  I’m not sure it would affect total opinion reversals in the US, but it might serve to radicalize existing opinions in the hopes of inciting violence. It might also help reinforce existing extremism by providing the appearance of unanimity within a subgroup (e.g. pick a random Republican and punish them for an insufficiently extreme view by creating a false consensus that “everyone knows” they are OK with Shakespeare casting men in drag).
  - giantg2 4y ago
    The out of context and oversensationalized use of a candidate's positions has been used forever. At this point, it could exacerbate the existing opinions, as you point out. My comment was about affecting voting outcomes. I don't see this sort of thing causing people to flip, just digging in more.
- m000 4y ago
  It sounds like you consider it as disruption only when people change their vote from A to B? That's only one type of disruption. Reinforcing polarization is also a disruption.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    As is fomenting nihilism and thus disengagement.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    True, I was talking about negative comments online affecting vote choices. There are other destabilizing things that can work to a degree.
- vinyl7 4y ago
  I believe all the discord and polarization that has happened over the past 10+ years have been because of psyops. I came to that realization when I read a paper from the CIA about memetics and naturally propagating ideas through a population. Social media makes it extremely easy to do. It could be russia, it could be china...but the goal is to destabilize the US
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I'm not sure that all of it is. I know there has been some. One of the biggest known examples is Russia playing both sides of the Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter issue to drive violence. My comment was mostly about voting outcomes and not other types of disruption. Following the prior example, the vast majority of people dug into the side they already supported and didn't really affect party choice.
    - r721 4y ago
      >Following the prior example, the vast majority of people dug into the side they already supported and didn't really affect party choice. In case you missed it there was a recent paper on this topic: >Exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency foreign influence campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US election and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35576-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35576-9 Summary thread: https://twitter.com/CSMaP_NYU/status/1612449687218397194 https://twitter.com/CSMaP_NYU/status/1612449687218397194
    - HybridCurve 4y ago
      I'm glad you mentioned this. Everyone should take a bit of time and look through the media they were disseminating to familiarize themselves with what their approach looked like. You can find it here (Sorry, large zip files, but straight from the source): https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/social-media-advertisements.htm https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-media-conten... A lot of this is related to reflexive control theory applied to psyops where you are conditioning a target to respond with anger (negative emotions work best, but any emotional response is valid). The goal being to divide groups and prevent them from establishing a constructive dialogue between themselves and by eliciting predictable (again, often negative) responses to certain stimuli. This allows a malign actor to effectively paralyze a governing body by preventing the two sides from working together to accomplish even the most basic of goals. It's often used in concert with other forms of subversion such as political/legal manipulation and warfare to achieve the desired outcome. RAND and CSIS have a number of good reports and articles on this type of thing if you wish to know more.
2Gkashmiri 4y ago
I've literally done this myself. I had a specific number of profiles that I was able to leverage them during 2010 and If I remember correctly during 2016 as well. This is not really news in India because you have the current ruling party involved with https://www.bingedaily.in/article/here-s-how-the-bjp-it-cell-creates-twitter-storms-and-fake-news https://www.bingedaily.in/article/here-s-how-the-bjp-it-cell... https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/1.html https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/1.html And this isn't even some secret, it is in the open. Everyone knows it
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  The Wire article has been retracted.

by ianai 4y ago

giantg2 4y ago

Seems unlikely to work in the US given that we are already highly polarized and dug in to our positions. It's also hard to tell who is a bot and who is not on most forums discussing politics due to the low quality.

anigbrowl 4y ago
Those are the best possible conditions. Ideologically committed people are easier to manipulate, in my experience.
ianai 4y ago
One of their examples is from California.
FredPret 4y ago
If you are right, it's ironic that the dirty information environment is effectively inoculating us against psy-ops
- brookst 4y ago
  Zero trust. Getting there is painful but it seems to be the answer to huge systems with known actors.
brookst 4y ago
I’m not sure it would affect total opinion reversals in the US, but it might serve to radicalize existing opinions in the hopes of inciting violence. It might also help reinforce existing extremism by providing the appearance of unanimity within a subgroup (e.g. pick a random Republican and punish them for an insufficiently extreme view by creating a false consensus that “everyone knows” they are OK with Shakespeare casting men in drag).
- giantg2 4y ago
  The out of context and oversensationalized use of a candidate's positions has been used forever. At this point, it could exacerbate the existing opinions, as you point out. My comment was about affecting voting outcomes. I don't see this sort of thing causing people to flip, just digging in more.
m000 4y ago
It sounds like you consider it as disruption only when people change their vote from A to B? That's only one type of disruption. Reinforcing polarization is also a disruption.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  As is fomenting nihilism and thus disengagement.
- giantg2 4y ago
  True, I was talking about negative comments online affecting vote choices. There are other destabilizing things that can work to a degree.
vinyl7 4y ago
I believe all the discord and polarization that has happened over the past 10+ years have been because of psyops. I came to that realization when I read a paper from the CIA about memetics and naturally propagating ideas through a population. Social media makes it extremely easy to do. It could be russia, it could be china...but the goal is to destabilize the US
- giantg2 4y ago
  I'm not sure that all of it is. I know there has been some. One of the biggest known examples is Russia playing both sides of the Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter issue to drive violence. My comment was mostly about voting outcomes and not other types of disruption. Following the prior example, the vast majority of people dug into the side they already supported and didn't really affect party choice.
  - r721 4y ago
    >Following the prior example, the vast majority of people dug into the side they already supported and didn't really affect party choice. In case you missed it there was a recent paper on this topic: >Exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency foreign influence campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US election and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35576-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35576-9 Summary thread: https://twitter.com/CSMaP_NYU/status/1612449687218397194 https://twitter.com/CSMaP_NYU/status/1612449687218397194
  - HybridCurve 4y ago
    I'm glad you mentioned this. Everyone should take a bit of time and look through the media they were disseminating to familiarize themselves with what their approach looked like. You can find it here (Sorry, large zip files, but straight from the source): https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/social-media-advertisements.htm https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/social-media-conten... A lot of this is related to reflexive control theory applied to psyops where you are conditioning a target to respond with anger (negative emotions work best, but any emotional response is valid). The goal being to divide groups and prevent them from establishing a constructive dialogue between themselves and by eliciting predictable (again, often negative) responses to certain stimuli. This allows a malign actor to effectively paralyze a governing body by preventing the two sides from working together to accomplish even the most basic of goals. It's often used in concert with other forms of subversion such as political/legal manipulation and warfare to achieve the desired outcome. RAND and CSIS have a number of good reports and articles on this type of thing if you wish to know more.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago

I've literally done this myself. I had a specific number of profiles that I was able to leverage them during 2010 and If I remember correctly during 2016 as well. This is not really news in India because you have the current ruling party involved with https://www.bingedaily.in/article/here-s-how-the-bjp-it-cell-creates-twitter-storms-and-fake-news https://www.bingedaily.in/article/here-s-how-the-bjp-it-cell... https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/1.html https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/1.html And this isn't even some secret, it is in the open. Everyone knows it

slowmovintarget 4y ago
The Wire article has been retracted.