7 ms·

How much warfare is currently happening on social media sites, nationally operated or otherwise? Are sites like 4chan, facebook, reddit or twitter very influen

How much warfare is currently happening on social media sites, nationally operated or otherwise? Are sites like 4chan, facebook, reddit or twitter very influenced by governmental PsyOp operations, national or foreign? To the average bloke like me it would seem like discussions on these pages are being "managed" A LOT, but i could not tell if that is the effects of standard propaganda on the population like the news or from deliberate/strategic postings. Obviously the phrasing of my question is limited to platforms that operate in my known languages, but the question applies in a general sense to all social media platforms. As many of us know, one of the most successful PsyOp propaganda tactics is that of controlled dissent. Funding organizations that present a fashionable yet controlled form of dissent in order to sway public opinion. How much of that is from private actors like Soros, Buffet, Gates, etc and how much is Govt funded? The state defends the interests of those with power, so is there a lot of overlap or is there a lot of internal disagreements?

tediousdemise 5y ago
The answers to your leading questions are probably classified at the TS/SCI level. I think it's safe to assume that there are a non-trivial amount of psyops happening on those platforms, since those sites are among the main sources of information for almost all people. It would be foolish to not target such low hanging fruit to manufacture consent if you are trying to influence populations. I would go further and add wikipedia and google results to the list. Conflict of interest edits on wikipedia by companies and legislatures are nothing new. Check out CongressEdits[0] and the slew of bots that it inspired, which enabled monitoring of IP address ranges that edit wikipedia. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CongressEdits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CongressEdits
- boston_clone 5y ago
  > It would be foolish to not target such low hanging fruit to manufacture consent if you are trying to influence populations. While I agree at a conceptual level, I don't believe US Army Psyop to have a hand in any of that. However, the government as a whole is not exempt from that claim - see Operation Mockingbird, for example [0]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
  - acapybara 5y ago
    "US Army Psyop" is a subset of a subset of US government agencies. https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/members-of-the-ic https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/members-of-the-ic
    - jonnybgood 5y ago
      It doesn’t work like that. You have to understand what set of laws an organization falls under. For example, even though NSA and Army is part of the DoD, they fall under different Titles of US Code which defines their authority.
    - boston_clone 5y ago
      AFAIK, US Army Psyop does not belong to or is considered an "intelligence element" of the Army. We were often reminded that we don't do intelligence work, but rather information work / warfare.
      - Ajef 5y ago
        Being a civilian, what does this distinction mean/imply? [Edit] wording For -> Being.
        pyinstallwoes 5y ago
        I assume the distinction is: 1. Intelligence: building database. Lakes of warehousing metadata and then analysis of it. 2. Psyops: weaponized intelligence. Memetic warfare. Directly affecting the thoughts of clusters to whatever end is strategized.
K7PJP 5y ago
I'm fairly certain that /r/worldnews is gamed by western intelligence and diplomatic agencies. The top stories and top comments on said stories are invariably towing the US State Department line.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  All things being equal, this doesn't seem like the most likely explanation. It's more likely that there are just a large number of people who agree with what you think are the US State Department's positions. Whether those people have been in turn influenced is a separate question.
  - pastacacioepepe 5y ago
    It's probably a mix. There's a number of fake accounts creating the volume of fake news, while the regular users then pick it up from there. I've never seen such an influx of fake news coming from literally every source. When even newspapers blindly lie it's hard for the regular person to understand what's going on.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      > I've never seen such an influx of fake news coming from literally every source. When even newspapers blindly lie it's hard for the regular person to understand what's going on. That's a common tactic of propagadists: To paraylze people - make people feel powerless by convincing them that everything is a lie. Everyone lies, but that doesn't mean there aren't honest people, sociopathic liars, and a big chasm between them. No publication is perfect, but there are plenty of very credible ones.
      - graderjs 5y ago
        information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view. Everything really is propaganda, tho. Nearly. It's also a basic tactic of propagandists to convince people that only approved narratives are good, and the forbidden ones are propaganda. To try normalize themselves a the self-anointed authority that decides which is which. Just like the liars, criminals and corrupt who say, "trust me, I'm honest. Some people lie a lot, but me, you can trust." > sociopathic liars, Like spies, conwomen/conmen and other professional liars? > No publication is perfect, but there are plenty of very credible ones.[0] "A bland, and in this case, meaningless statement." ;) Safest bet is, as I said earlier: read widely!!! [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30550970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30550970
boston_clone 5y ago
> How much warfare is currently happening on social media sites, nationally operated or otherwise? Plenty. Likely more than you or even I realize. That said... > Are sites like 4chan, facebook, reddit or twitter very influenced by governmental PsyOp operations, national or foreign? Foreign gov't, certainly. Ours? As honestly as I can claim, I never knew of any Psyop folks conducting operations on those sites, nor did I ever hear of any directives for Psyop folks to use those platforms as viable mediums. US citizens are eternally out of scope for Army psychological operations, but I have almost no experience with influence operations conducted by a few Virginia-based agencies. Not saying CIA or NSA do such things, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were. > one of the most successful PsyOp propaganda tactics is that of controlled dissent I would mildly disagree here. Personally, in-group / out-group mentality is the easiest to manufacture and exploit, and serves as a fantastic emotional distraction from other areas.
- _ofdw 5y ago
  >Personally, in-group / out-group mentality is the easiest to manufacture and exploit, and serves as a fantastic emotional distraction from other areas. My personal conspiracy theory is that the current shit storm of identity politics is the product of exactly this sort of psyop.
  - throwaway10242 5y ago
    That's an evidenced conspiracy. Check out Space Communes "Will the revolution be funded?" It is a research piece about think thanks that do exactly this, although it focuses on the "leftist" liberal ones there are also the right wing, conservative or libertarian ones to play as the counter strike to these. Creating a cycle of culture war that serves to distract the population from more pressing perspectives.
  - raffraffraff 5y ago
    That conspiracy theory could be accurate, but humans are perfectly suited to lapping up tribal shit. You don't need to do any serious work after casually throwing a landmine into a peaceful debate. Social media is the worst drug.
qnsi 5y ago
Guys please stop falling for this psyops comment. I work in PsyOps and he was ordered to speak like there is no psyops against American citizens. Dont believe him believe me

tediousdemise 5y ago

The answers to your leading questions are probably classified at the TS/SCI level. I think it's safe to assume that there are a non-trivial amount of psyops happening on those platforms, since those sites are among the main sources of information for almost all people. It would be foolish to not target such low hanging fruit to manufacture consent if you are trying to influence populations. I would go further and add wikipedia and google results to the list. Conflict of interest edits on wikipedia by companies and legislatures are nothing new. Check out CongressEdits[0] and the slew of bots that it inspired, which enabled monitoring of IP address ranges that edit wikipedia. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CongressEdits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CongressEdits

boston_clone 5y ago
> It would be foolish to not target such low hanging fruit to manufacture consent if you are trying to influence populations. While I agree at a conceptual level, I don't believe US Army Psyop to have a hand in any of that. However, the government as a whole is not exempt from that claim - see Operation Mockingbird, for example [0]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
- acapybara 5y ago
  "US Army Psyop" is a subset of a subset of US government agencies. https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/members-of-the-ic https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/members-of-the-ic
  - jonnybgood 5y ago
    It doesn’t work like that. You have to understand what set of laws an organization falls under. For example, even though NSA and Army is part of the DoD, they fall under different Titles of US Code which defines their authority.
  - boston_clone 5y ago
    AFAIK, US Army Psyop does not belong to or is considered an "intelligence element" of the Army. We were often reminded that we don't do intelligence work, but rather information work / warfare.
    - Ajef 5y ago
      Being a civilian, what does this distinction mean/imply? [Edit] wording For -> Being.
      - pyinstallwoes 5y ago
        I assume the distinction is: 1. Intelligence: building database. Lakes of warehousing metadata and then analysis of it. 2. Psyops: weaponized intelligence. Memetic warfare. Directly affecting the thoughts of clusters to whatever end is strategized.

K7PJP 5y ago

I'm fairly certain that /r/worldnews is gamed by western intelligence and diplomatic agencies. The top stories and top comments on said stories are invariably towing the US State Department line.

woodruffw 5y ago
All things being equal, this doesn't seem like the most likely explanation. It's more likely that there are just a large number of people who agree with what you think are the US State Department's positions. Whether those people have been in turn influenced is a separate question.
- pastacacioepepe 5y ago
  It's probably a mix. There's a number of fake accounts creating the volume of fake news, while the regular users then pick it up from there. I've never seen such an influx of fake news coming from literally every source. When even newspapers blindly lie it's hard for the regular person to understand what's going on.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > I've never seen such an influx of fake news coming from literally every source. When even newspapers blindly lie it's hard for the regular person to understand what's going on. That's a common tactic of propagadists: To paraylze people - make people feel powerless by convincing them that everything is a lie. Everyone lies, but that doesn't mean there aren't honest people, sociopathic liars, and a big chasm between them. No publication is perfect, but there are plenty of very credible ones.
    - graderjs 5y ago
      information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view. Everything really is propaganda, tho. Nearly. It's also a basic tactic of propagandists to convince people that only approved narratives are good, and the forbidden ones are propaganda. To try normalize themselves a the self-anointed authority that decides which is which. Just like the liars, criminals and corrupt who say, "trust me, I'm honest. Some people lie a lot, but me, you can trust." > sociopathic liars, Like spies, conwomen/conmen and other professional liars? > No publication is perfect, but there are plenty of very credible ones.[0] "A bland, and in this case, meaningless statement." ;) Safest bet is, as I said earlier: read widely!!! [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30550970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30550970

boston_clone 5y ago

> How much warfare is currently happening on social media sites, nationally operated or otherwise? Plenty. Likely more than you or even I realize. That said... > Are sites like 4chan, facebook, reddit or twitter very influenced by governmental PsyOp operations, national or foreign? Foreign gov't, certainly. Ours? As honestly as I can claim, I never knew of any Psyop folks conducting operations on those sites, nor did I ever hear of any directives for Psyop folks to use those platforms as viable mediums. US citizens are eternally out of scope for Army psychological operations, but I have almost no experience with influence operations conducted by a few Virginia-based agencies. Not saying CIA or NSA do such things, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were. > one of the most successful PsyOp propaganda tactics is that of controlled dissent I would mildly disagree here. Personally, in-group / out-group mentality is the easiest to manufacture and exploit, and serves as a fantastic emotional distraction from other areas.

_ofdw 5y ago
>Personally, in-group / out-group mentality is the easiest to manufacture and exploit, and serves as a fantastic emotional distraction from other areas. My personal conspiracy theory is that the current shit storm of identity politics is the product of exactly this sort of psyop.
- throwaway10242 5y ago
  That's an evidenced conspiracy. Check out Space Communes "Will the revolution be funded?" It is a research piece about think thanks that do exactly this, although it focuses on the "leftist" liberal ones there are also the right wing, conservative or libertarian ones to play as the counter strike to these. Creating a cycle of culture war that serves to distract the population from more pressing perspectives.
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  That conspiracy theory could be accurate, but humans are perfectly suited to lapping up tribal shit. You don't need to do any serious work after casually throwing a landmine into a peaceful debate. Social media is the worst drug.

qnsi 5y ago

Guys please stop falling for this psyops comment. I work in PsyOps and he was ordered to speak like there is no psyops against American citizens. Dont believe him believe me