Hashtag Propaganda. Secret UK govt tactics for post-terror planning | Hacker News Reader

Hashtag Propaganda. Secret UK govt tactics for post-terror planning

middleeasteye.net

39 pointsthinkingemote54 comments

The third sentence of the article makes the claim of the title without the scary headline.

"In operations that contingency planners term “controlled spontaneity”, politicians’ statements, vigils and inter-faith events are also negotiated and planned in readiness for any terrorist attack."

So that's the story, the govt. has prepared some statements, vigils and inter faith events in the case of a terrorist attack.

Read this way, and compared against the alternative of not making such plans, it's not such shock.

No, it is not that. The government hasn't prepared some statements in their own name. They prepared coordinated plans for astroturfing, simulating organic, grassroots response, with fake actors and accounts. The whole "War of the worlds" scenario, government-operated.

"Crisis actors" - for real, this time around!

this time?

This reminds me of this great article I found on HN a while back about the Las Vegas incident:

https://story.californiasunday.com/las-vegas-shooting

Whilst not entirely the same, there are some strong similarities - although it was a PR agency that had co-oridinated that social media response. It was eye opening because I did genuinely believe a lot of this kind of thing was spontaneous, but then again I guess it makes sense for _someone_ to organise it at some level..

The last few paragraphs give opinions about what alternative emergency planning tactics they could use. The article could really do with more detail about this. The choice is not this or nothing it's this or something that's better.

For example instead of arranging for fake media stunts they could focus on comforting and consoling the people directly affected. To me the current policy is run by marketeers and is all "optics" . Marketing works but it may not be the best , kindest or authentic response

> So that's the story, the govt. has prepared some statements, vigils and inter faith events in the case of a terrorist attack.

They are doing what every major corporation does and even does dry runs for. To claim the masses and get people back on board.

I wonder if people would be shocked to hear that the government, broadcasters and companies have plans in place and ready to run in case the Queen dies suddenly?

"If you ever hear Haunted Dancehall (Nursery Remix) by Sabres of Paradise on daytime Radio 1, turn the TV on"

>Radio 1

I don’t foresee that happening to me any time soon ;-)

But yeah, I get your point. All the big broadcasters have ready to roll setups for things like Royal deaths and “OMFG... This is really happening events”.

I feel that the UK and Commonwealth states are the worst offenders in digital privacy violations and "inauthentic behavior" programs. "Porn law", known information operations campaigns, and now this... It's one thing when Russia or China do this, and another when a supposedly free and democratic state does.

Now all dictatorships in the world, when confronted about their own propaganda and manipulation campaigns, will shrug it with "UK does that, so what?"

(Update: the article is a little low on sources and confirmations, so I would fact check the information there before leaping to any conclusions).

>when a supposedly free and democratic state does

Create social media campaigns to promote social cohesion? I'm, er, actually okay with this?

The article says "politicians’ statements, vigils and inter-faith events are also negotiated and planned in readiness for any terrorist attack". Nothing about that strikes me as particularly harmful; a government promoting social cohesion during times of turmoil is standard fare. What's upsetting about that?

With fake accounts, bot networks and hashtag stuffing?

Welcome to Russia.

Where in this article does it allege "fake accounts" or "bot networks" are employed?

This article is from a dubious source, and is rather light on sources. Nowhere is it alleged the UK government is abusively creative accounts on social media.

"pre-planning social media campaigns that are designed to appear to be a spontaneous public response"

Can this be interpreted in any other way?

Yes...? I'm amazed if you drew from that single sentence that the UK is creating fake accounts on social media and using bot networks. There's 'filling in the gaps', but that leap you've managed to make is egregious.

The third sentence further explains the false spontaneity: "In operations that contingency planners term 'controlled spontaneity', politicians’ statements, vigils and inter-faith events are also negotiated and planned in readiness for any terrorist attack."

Basically: the UK government coordinates social media campaigns to promote social cohesion in the wake of terror attacks, and additionally coordinates with community leaders and politicians. That's all you can draw from the article, unless you have additional information or sources to the contrary.

These are not "spontaneous public response". Hiring people to distribute flowers to look like spontaneous bystanders is. Marching with fake posters with fake hashtags to look like spontaneous gatherings is, these are already fake personas. If you add "on social media", you can infer all the rest.

...Aaand its gone. In 5 minutes. Not on HN main page anymore. So much transparency!

I find the UK gov unbelievably sneaky. The NSA, China and Russia get most of the publicity, meanwhile the UK spies are very hard at work out of sight behind a facade of PR.

A very good point generally, but not particularly relevant here. All this article is alleging is that the UK government coordinates social media campaigns with politicians and community leaders to promote social cohesion in the wake of terrorist atrocities. They're, somehow, attempting to portray this in a negative light.

I can't help but note the complete lack of sources in the article, and we have to question[1] the source itself.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Eye#Links_to_Hamas...

The whole attitude is what allowed grooming and rape gangs to go on interfered with for so long though.

This is all very interesting, and I can quite believe it... but it's an article seemingly without much - if any? - exposition of sources or evidence?

- ed

in fact, I've never come across this ‘Middle East Eye’ and when I go to find out more about them, it's surprisingly sparse on information? https://www.middleeasteye.net/about-middle-east-eye

As I was once taught, many many years ago - of any article, always ask: “Why are these bastards lying to us?”

Yes, I would take this information with a few grains of salt. A strange source.

According to Wikipedia[1] it's an online news outlet that covers the ME. It's been accused of a pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias, and Saudi Arabia (amongst others) allege that it's controlled by Qatar with links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Eye#Links_to_Hamas...

I also looked on Wikipedia before submitting this and it didn't scream fake news site. There was also a fair few articles submitted here from that site before.

As for the sources, reading between the lines and based on some experience it feels like it is based on presentations by the marketing companies at an emergency planning conference. So not exactly secret but not for public eyes.

Were this to occur in an authoritarian state people would harp on about a brainwashed population.

Get the suspicion no one feels as strongly when it happens in the UK despite being the exact same ballgame.

This is a dangerous article. It seems to be engineered to produce a knee-jerk anti-government reaction, as can be seen in this comment section. The article does not seem to provide any sources for any of its claims. Furthermore, I have never heard of middleeasteye.net before and it would be safe to be skeptical of any claims posted by them.

Even if the allegations are true, is it such a bad thing after all? Terrorist attacks leave people vulnerable and afraid. Those feelings can easily turn into violence against those who are perceived to be the "cause" of the attack. Taking preemptive, albeit underhanded action to ensure mass violence does not occur seems like a good thing to me.

I could see two sides to it. On the one hand, if you're in a position of trying to reduce harm in the society, it makes sense. On the other hand... it is a direct betrayal of the most foundational principles of democracy itself. It is a reversion to pre-democratic principles where the general public are seen as a teeming mass of resources to be manipulated by their betters for goals chosen by those betters, and where influence and participation of the public is to be prevented. Where do you stop once you have decided that the general public generally has bad ideas and shouldn't play a role in their own governance? We did persist, as a species, for thousands of years with governments based upon the notion that those in the government were inherently superior, chosen by a god, from special bloodlines, etc, and I don't see any reason we couldn't get back there. But for the past couple hundred years, we've been trying out this democratic bent where we don't believe there are any specially anointed people destined by mystic forces to be leaders. And actively manipulating the public opens doors to lots of dangerous practices that were previously barred solely upon the principle that it would prevent public participation. Why not suspend elections if it looks like your party will lose power if you earnestly and honestly believe that the other parties won't continue the efforts you started to 'protect the public from themselves'? You can no longer form an argument against it.

> a knee-jerk anti-government reaction, as can be seen in this comment section.

Oh don't worry, we don't need an article like this to bad mouth the UK government. Go into pretty much any pub in the evening, wait about 30 mins and someone will be slagging off the UK Government (Doesn't matter who is in power or what their polices are about, we will find something to bitch about them over).

> Furthermore, I have never heard of middleeasteye.net before and it would be safe to be skeptical of any claims posted by them.

You should be skeptical of claims posted by any media, especilly if what this article describes is true.

I'm not sure it's a bad thing. It gives ammunition to the "fake news" crowd, though. Because the running narrative there is that establishment is trying to artificially manufacture some narrative, while the reality is that country X is in danger from Y.

It's not just the UK. The US, China, Russia, EU, New Zealand, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc.

The first thing you see after a terrorism incident is a controlled government+media propaganda campaign. They all use the same mindless talking points.

The second thing the government+media does is advocate for stealing your rights and more surveillance.

Someone does something bad, everyone else gets punished. It's true of "free" societies or authoritarian societies. Same tactics. Same terminologies. It's for our benefit and it's to keep us safe. Big brother loves us after all and knows best.

> Someone does something bad, everyone else gets punished ... It's true of "free" societies or authoritarian societies. Same tactics. Same terminologies.

I'm not so sure the reasons are the same in each case. A totalitarian regime obviously would love the opportunity to limit rights because it gives them more control over the populace.

But free societies often do so (in my opinion) because of the politician's fallacy[1]. There's a public outcry to "do something" so the politicians scramble to "do something". Like scramble to ban bump stocks after the Vegas domestic terrorist event even though a bump stock ban would have a near negligible effect on future domestic terrorist attacks.

Then again, it's hard to tell if the public outcry is because of the media intentionally stirring the pot, and if so, it's hard to tell if the media is intentionally stirring the pot because of some hidden political agenda or if they are just optimizing for clicks/eyeballs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

This reminds me of the time I accidentally participated in a genuinely spontaneous reaction to a bomb attack against civilians by insurgents (or whatever the neutral term should be: somebody's "freedom fighters", I expect).

About an hour after the attack, a huge crowd of people had sat down blocking the streets in the European city, chanting slogans. I was near a group of teenagers, mostly, fairly photogenic, I suppose, so a television crew turned up to film them. When one of the journalists started trying to direct the young people, telling them where they should sit and what they should chant, there was an interesting reaction: they got very angry with the television crew and refused to cooperate, basically shouting at the television crew until it went way.

Unfortunately I only had a basic knowledge of the local language and could only get a rough idea of what was being said.

In view of all that, perhaps I should approve of the UK government's plans: they are directing how naive people react to the violence while at the same time giving less naive people an opportunity to learn about manipulation. Everyone benefits!

Europeans generally have less trust in the media when encountering them in the street than Brits or Americans.

They are often seen directly as tools of the state or partisan at best or where footage will be used against them. During riots in European cities the TV crews often get attacked and have to stay behind police lines.

No one wants an ongoing debate about any difficult issues that the government has already determined the answers to. That would be messy and perhaps force them to change their plans.

The exposure of this also makes more plausible the claims that many "spontaneous" street demonstrations that turn violent are carefully planned using similar elements, though perhaps not by the government.

Yeah, flagged, since we can only discuss the social media manipultion if the bad guys do it.

This isn't social media manipulation, its downright social engineering directly from the state. If it were a branch of the military or intelligence - performing something like this in a foreign country, it would have been labelled as a PSYOP.

Is this article seriously arguing that governments trying to prevent a terrorist attack from sparking rioting and tit-for-tat revenge attacks is a bad thing?

Its a bad thing when it is this dishonest. They aren't actively fighting terrorists, or deradicalizing anyone. They are just obscuring truth and seeding public opinion under false premises.

Do you honestly think that staging "muslims handing out roses" and paying imams to say one thing in public, while they continue to say something else entirely in the mosques, will help anyone?

With all the recent years of attacks in Europe, I would say that a little bit of outrage over terrorism would be more healthier than the current response with facebook filters and staged "organic" protests.

Take a look at countries in Africa and Asia. Anger turns into rioting, revenge attacks and all out civil war. Preventing this by encouraging harmony is a good thing.

Except it doesn't encourage harmony. I would say it has the opposite effect for people intelligent enough to see through the bullshittery. In the long run it just harms the relationship between state and citizens. The special treatment that radical islamism gets in Europe is no less than bizarre. You get media appraisal in the UK for throwing milkshakes at center-right politicians and ousted by the same media for saying that Europe has an islamism problem.

I think we have very different definitions of the term "center-right".

Steering the public to be upset, rather than rioting and beating people up, seems sensible.

They want to continue mass publicizing the attacks, allowing them to continue their often hostile foreign policy, while minimizing the anger locals feel that could cause domestic issues. Not much of s surprise.

David Cameron's Tory government is the undoing of freedom

Sadly these freedoms were under attack even during Labour’s time in power. They also want more restrictions and windfall taxes on tech firms then we do already. GCHQs Mastering the internet program started under Labour.

I’m not saying that the Tories are angels in all this, far fucking from it (Their current porn law is more fucking stupid than the last). But Labour laid the ground work and the Tories fucking ran with it. Labour's stance on Article 11 and 13(renamed 17) was to pass them. In my area only one MEP from the "mainstream" parties voted against Article 11, 13/17 and he is conservative, the others who voted against in my area were independent and UKIP. Not a single Labour MEP in my area voted against them.

IMO They are both as bad as each other.

Tory cuts have massively increased poverty and is currently causing a spike in prostitution due to delayed benefits payments. knife crime is at all-time high due to theresa may's cuts to police force

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