Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological operations (social media influence)

[Amused]

"The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms’ rules."

One point I agreed with:

“Our adversaries are absolutely operating in the information domain,” said a second senior defense official. “There are some who think we shouldn’t do anything clandestine in that space. Ceding an entire domain to an adversary would be unwise. But we need stronger policy guardrails.”

Our enemies are definitely using social media as a propaganda battleground. Why shouldn't we?

Gifted article:

https://wapo.st/3DBpjD6

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/19/pentagon-psychological-operations-facebook-twitter/

 

[Captante]

Too bad this will be mostly ignored by those who need to read it most!

 

[Jaskalas]

Our enemies are definitely using social media as a propaganda battleground. Why shouldn't we?

Given the human condition, free speech is our greatest weakness and these days it is being exploited exquisitely. We need a thorough review of our vulnerabilities.
Unfortunately, an entire political party is wrapped up in endorsing our enemies and their propaganda.
The threat is not just real... it is realized. It is here now and we let it through the open door.

Not sure we are going to like the answers to the questions that need to be raised.

 

[dainthomas]

I just assumed they were doing this.

Unsurprisingly, they're apparently terrible at it. I can picture some general sticking his head in the door, "Hey, make a viral video!"

 

[Moonbeam]

Given the human condition, free speech is our greatest weakness and these days it is being exploited exquisitely. We need a thorough review of our vulnerabilities.
Unfortunately, an entire political party is wrapped up in endorsing our enemies and their propaganda.
The threat is not just real... it is realized. It is here now and we let it through the open door.

Not sure we are going to like the answers to the questions that need to be raised.

Your post, in my opinion begs an important question. When you say, 'we let it through the open door what do you imply. It sounds to me like you mean, 'we stupidly left the door open' so could you clarify for me, do you think we were mistaken to leave the door open or is an open door vital to the democratic and liberal ideals of our political system?

Is the open door a feature or a bug in your opinion?

Is our greatest weakness perhaps actually not also our one vital strength?

 

[ImpulsE69]

"The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms’ rules."

One point I agreed with:

“Our adversaries are absolutely operating in the information domain,” said a second senior defense official. “There are some who think we shouldn’t do anything clandestine in that space. Ceding an entire domain to an adversary would be unwise. But we need stronger policy guardrails.”

Our enemies are definitely using social media as a propaganda battleground. Why shouldn't we?

Gifted article:

https://wapo.st/3DBpjD6

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/19/pentagon-psychological-operations-facebook-twitter/

So what youa re saying is...any one of you could be spying russian commie scum.... -_-

 

[ImpulsE69]

I just assumed they were doing this.

Unsurprisingly, they're apparently terrible at it. I can picture some general sticking his head in the door, "Hey, make a viral video!"

Unfortunately, it's not so much they are bad at it (and yes..they are, but for a reason) but more because #'s is the name of the game. In the past, no one cared about fake accounts, it was about numbers and showing growth. The only people who were suspended were the extreme corner cases. Fake accounts while I'm sure they were at least partially aware of it, didn't matter because it padded the numbers. It wasn't until it was questioned in the 2016 election that people started to seriously look at it. The other part of the equation if you start looking at the bigger social media platforms is that their main goal is data collection. They don't care so much about what you say, but more that they can use you to collect more data. Even fake accounts help in that aspect.

As someone who has never had facebook, and really doesn't frequent any social media platforms other than a few oddball tech and hobby forums, I've tended to miss most of it, but I see it from friends all the time "I read on facebook"....and I usually just tune out at that point.

The problem the right has is that they feel like they were silenced for what they said during Trumps reign and COVID. To them, what they were speaking WAS truth, or at least a portion of them thought so. What I would really like to know is how much of the GOP actually believes what comes out of their mouths. I know Trump doesn't. He just says whatever comes to mind if he thinks it will get him clicks/views/votes. Tucker Carlson's show should come with a huge disclaimer that his show is a parody and should not be taken seriously by any living person.

 

[Amused]

So what youa re saying is...any one of you could be spying russian commie scum.... -_-

Whyitso?

 

[ImpulsE69]

Whyitso?

Jokes.

 

[Amused]

Jokes.

Yeah, I know. I replied with one. See the Ukraine invasion thread