Hacker News Reader

>and I don't hear about them actively targeting their own citizens in "psyops" with the same fervor as the US.

Both countries are well versed in the topic but of course your media diet might affect how much you see on it.

Historically more than half the budget and employees of the IRA is dedicated to Russian speaking internet users and have been involved in way more elaborate schemes directed at Russian electors. They've physically impersonated journalists and gone to the door of anti-government activists for example. The Russian government also has a tighter media machine to encircle their propaganda targets by coordinating their attacks using TV, press and internet assets directly aligned with the state.

In the USA sockpuppetting and astroturfing by political entities is usually discovered due to healthy democratic tensions where both camps get to freely express themselves when they discover them.

The "alt-right" has been building a network of media organizations but have a harder time getting their propaganda laundered by the traditional media who tend to vet what they air/publish. The political fracture of the USA makes it harder to convince the entire country on 1 topic. The recent failed attempts by Jacob Wohl to create "offline" pressure on Robert Mueller or Elizabeth Warren and have them laundered in traditional media is a sign they're trying but not connecting yet.

Finally the example here is less about a political operative trying to trick the American constituents than giving the FCC a pretext (or biased analysis) to say their policy was popular.

Thanks for the comment, food for thought!

> Historically more than half the budget and employees of the IRA is dedicated to Russian speaking internet users and have been involved in way more elaborate schemes directed at Russian electors. They've physically impersonated journalists and gone to the door of anti-government activists for example. The Russian government also has a tighter media machine to encircle their propaganda targets by coordinating their attacks using TV, press and internet assets directly aligned with the state.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this were true. Russia's government viewed from a distance does seem like the kind of entity engaged in this kind of 'persuasion' and operations, even through third party 'private' entities.

> In the USA sockpuppetting and astroturfing by political entities is usually discovered due to healthy democratic tensions where both camps get to freely express themselves when they discover them.

I think there's danger in this kind of statement. If one truly believes one's country to have a healthy way of resolving such operations because the balance of powers is so great, that person is prime for getting manipulated as they are letting their guard down.

> Finally the example here is less about a political operative trying to trick the American constituents than giving the FCC a pretext (or biased analysis) to say their policy was popular.

I agree, however if you ask me this gives an even smaller group of people control of the majority than if the target would be directly influencing the average American constituent. I'm not sure if I understood the idea clearly, but it seems a lot more dangerous for an entity to just be able to justify its own actions in order to influence laws in a nation, than to have to go through the hurdle of influencing the masses.

> I think there's danger in this kind of statement.

I agree, my intention isn't to encourage people in the US to let their guard down but rather give an explanation on how structural differences between Russia and the USA lead to different propaganda and manipulation dynamics.

Citizens in democracies can and are manipulated by many different actors, it's just that these actors are more likely to be adversarial at some point. Healthy media competition and freedoms are a good antidote but not the silver bullet.

>traditional media who tend to vet what they air/publish

I think we see more than ever that this isn't the case. The reality is that traditional media simply doesn't share alt-right views and doesn't want to give them a free platform.

I am also not a resident of these countries but I also don't think you are that far off. Noam Chomsky talked about this[1] a long time ago. Lies of omission etc are more common in "free" societies. My own view of this is that if you are only presented one side of the story, you are not really free as you are not making an informed choice. Sadly, it is widely accepted everywhere ( even in "liberal" societies ) that certain elites should define what is good and bad and then present it to us in an absolute manner, through deception, if necessary.

[1]https://youtu.be/kusAX4Th4N8

while they are doing it to their own citizens!

That's not what the story is saying. The FCC didn't create any fake comments. From one we know so far, one "grassroots" marketing company has been identified as creating fake comments. Their client hasn't been identified, but likely is an ISP, or an ISP lobbying group. This is bad behavior, but far from the Government psyops on its own citizens.

edit: yes, multiple industry lobbying groups have been identified. The FCC wasn't behind this, this isn't an example of a government psyop against its own citizens.

> likely is an ISP, or an ISP lobbying group

The devil is in the details here- consider the current state of regulatory capture of the FCC, where Ajit Pai is arguably representing the interests of his previous employer, Verizon. It's not a giant leap to argue that the placement of Pai and the comments on the net neutrality board were 1) orchestrated by Verizon and 2) strategically use the government as a proxy to hide the exercise of their will.

I wouldn't say this is a case of `the government is doing psyops`, but rather `some entity is using the government to gaslight the people`. I don't blame the structure for this problem, but the people who corrupted it.

I certainly blame the structure, as in, the Citizens United supreme court decision that the constitution protects spending unlimited money convincing politicians to do what you want. It's just not something you can change without clarifying or modifying the constitution, and thus corruption is fundamentally a inevitable outcome of our current political structure.

I agree completely. And I'd go a little further, and say that allowing unaccountable commenting is incompetent or negligent. If there is going to be government sponsored public comment, there needs to a penalty for fraud.

Did you not read the article? It was two marketing companies, Media Bridge and LCX Digital, working for Broadband for America.

According to their site, they represent "the hundreds of millions of Americans who are literally connected through broadband", which is a flat out lie. They're a lobbyist group that works for AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, and Cox, among others.

Now it's easy to say it's not such a big deal because it's private businesses and their right to "free speech", except for one enormous glaring issue that makes all that moot. The actual human beings are the same, the private businesses and the government are theoretically separate, but literally the same people.

This isn't even up for argument, it's the "elephant in the room". Ajit Pai, head of the FCC, used to be a lawyer for Verizon, a member of Broadband for America. The group paying to fraudulently manipulate the FCC and subvert the democratic process is directly connected to the head of the FCC. Verizon is fucking regulated by one of it's former lawyers!

Now that the lines have been blurred between government and private business, we're also crossing the lines between advertising and propaganda, which is psyops.

Pai worked as Associate General Counsel at Verizon from 2001 to 2003, over 15 years ago. Neither Pai nor the FCC didn't orchestrated or have anything to do with the comment campaign. FCC paying the marketing company for fake comments would be psyops. What happened is a problem, but not what the OP was suggesting.

Of course the FCC didn't pay for it, they just looked the other way while it happened. There's just enough separation that people like you can make the argument that it's technically not "psyops".

The FCC is complicit in the whole damned thing, so the result is the same and the industry got it's way. We can argue semantics though...

FCC didn't plant it, didn't pay for it, didn't orchestrate it, so not really complicit. The worst you can say is they didn't do enough to stop it because it was supporting what they wanted. Guilty of confirmation bias, certainly. Psyops? no.

"it was supporting what they wanted"

Yeah, because the FCC and "Broadband for America" are only separate in theory. When you have the industry controlling the FCC to this point, the only difference between psyops and marketing is who's footing the bill.

You're technically right base upon a very literal definition of psyops, but missing the whole point.

If you look the other way while someone commits a crime, especially when you're a regulatory agency, that makes you a criminal. That makes you complicit, you're helping the criminals get away with it.

To me, you're acting like a jaw-dropping level of corruption is somehow excusable, perhaps because it's "normal"?

I think it says something about the world indirectly, in that the US and Russia are big enough to influence other parts of the world through ripple effects. However, there are many nations that aren't going through existential crises of faith in their government to effectively lead them without institutionalized corruption and subversion. So I think the actual effects are more local than global.

In many ways the political body is just a reflection of the citizenry. The US is part of a global cultural shift, and that has consequences. It's not nearly as dangerous as, say, the Protestant Reformation, but there are some parallels. Belief and trust in the authority of the state is waning, new ideas about the ethics of treating each other are becoming more entrenched, and technology is furthering the spread of these ideas.

The US political machine is slowly eating itself, and a very bad economic downtown could threaten its foundations. If the US is going to be hurt, it'll probably be by within more than without. But you also can't talk about politics anymore without geopolitics. As the US changes internally, that makes it vulnerable externally. The current administration has been systematically giving up international influence in favor of nationalism, a trend other Western nations are also going with, which will result in an international shift of power. China may not be fermenting revolution here, but they're obviously bolstering their role on the world stage. They will be ready to pick up any money and power we leave on the table, which weakens the US and the west in general.

So sure, these kinds of "oh no our government is subverting itself" posts are problematic, but I don't think nearly as problematic as just how the minds of the citizens are changing, and how that is then affecting its stability.

All media in the US is controlled by just a few companies. Both companies and military units are working on forums to control the discussions. Sometimes pretending to be on both sides to make a discussion deviate from the actual issues.

Some US "friend"-states also have a huge influence in the online discussions, and in the media. They have their own military units and action groups.

And this is just the beginning of the manipulation that is going on online by actors.

The foreign influence is just minor and is exaggerated by the internal influencers as a distraction. That way the internal influencers can pretend that they are doing good work.

And this is just the beginning.

A good solution is to detect logical fallacies in the stories. How much are they used to push a certain idea? Is there actual evidence? And/or is there possible manipulation by an involved party.

> I try to shy away from politics on this website but...

Who was it that said, "Those who don't do politics will have politics done to them"

I wholeheartedly agree, but this is a community where I would like to see less politics.

Outside of forums, I am involved in the low scale politics of where I live because, as that one person said, I like to at least have a say in the way I am governed.

What's so "geopolitically pragmatic" in the discussion coming from the mafia that gained access to nuclear weapons and now dreams that it should be accepted as a world power? Unless you view mob tactics as pragmatic in general.

Also, don't mix up the mafia that's in power there now with Russia itself. They don't represent the country and its people, they are usurpers.

Tangential, probably, but this is a great article on the subject of the IRA/troll farms: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html

>I don't hear Russia on the world stage as vocal about it as the US

Does that, matter?

Does your hearing one country talk about this topic, and you not hearing another country talk about it matter or mean something in some way?

For me it does.

For me it does as a major part of my opinion forming mechanism is actually listening to the official declaration of countries regarding matters of importance to me.

Is there a reason why you are asking me these questions? Should it not matter? Am I an idiot for listening to the official statements of countries regarding international matters?

Do you consider the buzzfeed article "official declaration of countries"?

I feel like you anthropomorphize this situation almost to irrelevance.

"This country complained, this one didn't." is such a simplification that I think you're missing the actual topic.

If two countries nuked each other and one complained more, would it matter?

> Do you consider the buzzfeed article "official declaration of countries"?

No.

> If two countries nuked each other and one complained more, would it matter?

For me, yes, the official statements on the nuking countries would matter.

Why though?

Countries make statements for internal audiences, external, etc. They're hardly a good indicator of much of anything.

Let alone that you'd be basing your opinion about what they said, not what they did.

I base my opinions on a multitude of factors including and with giving great importance to what is being said. It’s easier for me to identify a lie from what is said and done at the source than from some 3rd party conspiracy machination.

OK, It's hard to tell as most of your focus is on who says what here.

> than from some 3rd party conspiracy machination.

I've no idea what that means.

Sure the US pushes propaganda on Russia, but it doesn't go around shooting dissident reporters in the face and throwing them in jail on false charges.

Not only that but it's legit hilarious how the US spent decades influencing (some times by force even) foreign elections and governments but suddenly when someone does it to them it's unacceptable.

It's pathetic.

I wouldn't call it pathetic. Hypocrisy? Yes, but all countries do this. I'm a bit afraid for people living in any country believing their little piece of the planet doesn't engage in geopolitics.

It's pathetic when people from any country equate what a country's politicians do with what their people want. I am not the US government. The US government may love the idea of foreign influence and hacking but a big chunk of its people do not. Please do not confuse these two things.

What's the alternative though? Politicians are elected by the people to represent the people's needs and wants because as of yet we can't really ask everyone's opinion on every decision. I think the political decisions of a country can be equated to the will of the majority, because every election cycle the majority can change their government's body. Or protest. Or get involved in politics.

Maybe you're not part of the majority, and you disagree with the majority's views, but I think it's not at all pathetic to equate the country's politicians with what the people want. You are not the US government, the the US government represents the US people's interests; both domestic and externally.

The US president was elected by 25.7% of the public. US democracy is beyond broken, and pretending the government represents the will of the majority, especially on any given issue, is a joke.

> I am not the US government.

Yes, sadly, you are. "We the people" is the foundation of the US government.

Our failure to prevent the government from pursuing these actions makes us tacitly responsible for them, even though there is virtually no path available to prevent them.

Most Russians get psyops TV and little internet

I am not aware of this, but upon a quick google I see the penetration is not that bad; in the U.S. it seems to be 88.5% [0] whereas in Russia it's 71.3% [1], so it's not all that far off.

Unless you are talking about the quantity of 'psyops' on the media channels and that I couldn't quantify.

[0] https://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/russia/

[1] https://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/us/

This is not as bad as I imagined it. Can't imagine much free press is allowed in Russia. What's left must self-sensor pretty heavily, especially after Anna was shot.

> I am not a US citizen nor a resident, nor am I a Russian citizen or resident, so my opinions are absolutely subjective.

believe me, this doesn't make your opinions objective ;)

Looks like u didn't read the last word

dyslexia for the win