Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media (2011)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
What I don't understand is how the US military can say, oh this is illegal (and thus unethical) to do in the US to Americans, but foreigners are exempt, so let's create a world of false personas and disinformation for them.
The only argument for using tactics like this and others, like spying on people, is in a time of temporary war.
We Americans are a nation built on the acknowledgement of natural rights and to deny that all humans have these rights against any oppressive government, is absurd and wrong.
Endless ambiguous and 'total war' is more dangerous than radicals posting on a message board or even the threat of terrorism. The existential risk to human freedom is far greater when we have an infinite budget military mandated with doing unjust and immoral things forevermore with no sense of what made America great or what will eventually make the whole world great; natural rights and secular governments.
Thing is that the methods of propaganda tend to lean on psychological manipulation more than rational arguments - it's effective and the military is generally tasked with persuading people of whatever idea their superiors want to forward and there might not be any rational argument in favor it. One can consults psy-ops manuals and such for confirmation.
To play devil's advocate, doesn't a state possess a greater obligation to it's own people than to those outside of it?
You (perhaps naïvely) expect your government to protect you from foreign threats. You don't expect (and probably don't want) your government to protect everyone, everywhere.
If putting out worldwide propaganda is expected to have a long-term effect of degredation of public discourse, I would expect my government to take this into account and temper their actions. In fact, whether or not it is known today to have this effect, I'd hope my government would analyse these things and take them into account when making policy.
Can the NSA, say, alter/create Facebook posts in order to disseminate domestic propaganda in the name of national security? We know the Chinese do this. Does the US?
I'm not entirely sure if that's true, but there are several places online claiming this. Wikipedia mentions it as well [0].
Anecdotally, around that time Google News started indexing Voice of America, which is funded by the US government [1].
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorizati...
The 2013 NDAA amended the law to allow the State Department and the Broadcasting Board Of Governors to disseminate material meant for foreign audiences domestically, using domestic services like Youtube, &c.
Fun fact: the Broadcasting Board of Governors also pays for free crypto audits (from some very strong firms) for privacy and anonymity tools. Virtually all the privacy tools you've heard about have had several tens of thousands of dollars worth of audit dollars spent by the BBG to make sure they're not endangering people.
So far as I know --- I've participated in a couple of these audits, but never been a recipient of one --- these are no-strings-attached.
Are the reports from these audits publicly available? Seems like it would be an interesting bit of data to read through.
Our audit is here: https://secfirst.org/blog.html
I think Cryptocat and a few others have published their audits also. The companies who conducted them have them on their site if I recall.
He[1] said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.
Despite that I think your question is still relevant. Although the article states that it would be unlawful to target US citizens I don't doubt that the NSA is not beholden to this based on their use of questionable tactics in the past.
[1] He being Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks
By not using English, first of all, they're limiting which non-US audiences they can propogandize (for better or for worse).
Furthermore, not only is English not the only language used in the US, it's not even our OFFICIAL language! So they can impact US residences and Americans without using English at all. What an odd statement for them to make.
I personally don't think it's right regardless but I also thought the discussion was devolving quickly with comments about them doing it in the US when the article clearly states otherwise.
Yes they say that this is targeted towards foreign audiences and yes they say it's an attempt to balance out conversations. I'm sure the Russian and Chinese governments say the same things too.
Propaganda is still propaganda.
Or, maybe I just perceive them differently because of how they're reported.
The article mentioned nothing about manipulating "social media" (like reddit or HN as the headline would lead you to believe), in fact it mentions that none of the correspondence will even be in English. All this is is creating fake personas on extremist/underground forums as a source of intelligence.
This Internet is so quick to outrage.
Haven't we known, or assumed, this is the case all along?
But it does beg the question: if we knew it then, and it bothered us, why didn't we do something about it then?
'raising awareness' does nothing as the snowden incident showed us. 1984 is the SOP now.
Not saying some other program doesn't potentially exist but this particular program is aimed at sites in the Middle East and Asia. From the article: languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.
tldr: If they have the ability, you can depend on them finding a credible(sic) excuse for using it just that one, initial time. Thus starts the tide of more rationalizations and the ultimate abuses to follow.
First, it is mocked and ridiculed.
Second, it is vehemently/violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.
Will sock puppets one day be the greatest "participants" on social networks?