VS bespioneert haar EU lakeien en steelt daarbij bedrijfsgeheimen: ach de VS is een bondgenoot dus waarom zou je je druk maken……….

Posted on June 5, 2021 by Telmo Claro

Komende week zal Joe Biden de EU bezoeken o.a. om de banden aan te halen met deze bondgenoten van de VS, echter dit bezoek heeft al een fikse dreun gekregen door nieuwe onthullingen die aangeven dat de VS onder Obama (en Biden als vicepresident) grootschalig deze bondgenoten heeft bespioneerd en dat gegarandeerd nog doet…….

De eerste onthullingen over het bespioneren door de VS van haar bondgenoten kwamen van klokkenluider Edward Snowden, die in 2013 o.a. aan het licht bracht dat de VS zelfs de smartphone van de Duitse premier Merkel heeft gehackt…… Weinig ophef destijds over deze schandelijke zaak en ook nu zijn de EU lidstaten en hun media opvallend stil over de nieuwe onthullingen, vergelijk dat eens met de fake news (nepnieuws) berichten over Russische en Chinese spionage, bij elk nieuw bericht daarover staat de boel op de kop, ook al kan er geen flinter aan bewijs worden geleverd voor de beschuldigingen…..* De openbaringen van klokkenluiders als Snowden worden weggezet als landverraad daar deze mensenlevens in gevaar zouden hebben gebracht……. Totaal belachelijk en ook hiervoor worden geen bewijzen gegeven dit onder het mom dat daardoor bepaalde mensen gevaar zouden lopen….. ha! ha! ha! ha! Hoe krom wil je het hebben??!!! Ondanks dat onderschrijven de westerse media en politiek deze beschuldigingen keer op keer……

Dezelfde leugen die ook tegen de gelauwerde onderzoeksjournalist Julian Assange werd en wordt gebruikt, de man die schandalig genoeg al meer dan 2 jaar in isolatiefolter zit en dan durft men zich in het westen druk te maken over de misdadige neonazi Navalny……. (het ergst is wel dat ‘collega journalisten’ het gore lef hebben om Assange weg te zetten als een onverantwoordelijke charlatan…..)

Vorig jaar nog was er ophef daar Rusland door spionage de onderzoeken naar een vaccin tegen COVID-19 zou hebben gestolen, deze aanklacht was dermate belachelijk dat die binnen een paar dagen verdween uit de media…….

ASML stelt dat China haar bedrijfsgeheimen voor chipmachines heeft gestolen, echter iedereen die een dergelijke machine in het bezit heeft kan uitzoeken hoe e.e.a in elkaar steekt en dan zelf zo’n machine namaken. Uiteraard gaat het hier om de nieuwste chipmachines en gezien de westerse agressie tegen China kan ik me er wel iets bij voorstellen als men daar probeert alvast de nieuwste technologieën binnen te slepen, immers men wil China meer en meer buitensluiten van nieuwe technologieën…. Voorts moet je niet vergeten dat bij de spionage door de VS van haar bondgenoten op zeker ook informatie over innovatieve producten en uitvindingen op gebied van informatietechnologie en defensie worden toegespeeld aan de grote bedrijven in de VS, denken dat dit niet gebeurt is uiterst naïef, maar omdat het om de VS gaat maakt men zich er amper druk om……

Wat betreft het voorgaande: figuren als de ex-chef van de AIVD, Rob Bertholee, stellen zelfs dat de VS nu eenmaal een bondgenoot is waarbij men China nog net geen vijand noemt, dus waarom zou je je druk maken over spionage door ‘onze bondgenoot VS…??’ Trouwens over de AIVD gesproken: deze dienst heeft in het recente verleden samen met de MIVD Nederlandse metadata doorgespeeld aan de VS, daarvoor was Denemarken niet eens nodig (de Deense geheime dienst werkte samen met de NSA in het nu hernieuwd opgelaaide spionageschandaal uit 2013 en nogmaals >> reken maar dat dit nog steeds gebeurt!!) Terecht merkt Finian Cunningham op, hij is de schrijver van het hieronder opgenomen artikel, dat er niets nieuws onder de zon is, daar het bijvoorbeeld al heel lang bekend is dat de Britse geheime dienst Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) de ogen en oren zijn van geheime diensten in de VS, iets waarover men zich ook al niet druk heeft gemaakt en maakt in de EU en haar lidstaten…….. (zoals de AIVD en MIVD gegevens hebben doorgespeeld aan de geheime diensten in de VS, een schandaal van enorme proporties, waar men zich belachelijk genoeg ook amper druk om maakte en maakt; ‘maakt’ daar het vrijwel zeker is dat ook de AIVD en MIVD nog steeds samenwerken met de geheime diensten van de EU lidstaten en die in de VS [en de NAVO]….)

Nee, Rusland en China worden in het westen gedemoniseerd en dat zoals gezegd voor het overgrote deel zonder enig bewijs, terwijl de VS de grootste spion en agressor is op onze kleine planeet >> zie de illegale oorlogen die dit land alleen deze eeuw al is begonnen en waarbij met hulp van andere NAVO-partners meer dan 5 miljoen mensen zijn vermoord…. Voorts legt de VS ieder land dat niet gewillig aan haar hand loopt illegaal sancties op (zonder VN resolutie) waardoor grote aantallen mensen omkomen (alleen in Venezuela al meer dan 50.000 mensen!!!)…… Om nog maar te zwijgen over door de VS: -gevoerde geheime militaire operaties, -op grote schaal vermoorden van verdachten met drones (waarbij meer dan 90% van de slachtoffers niet eens werd verdacht), plus door de VS opgezette opstanden en staatsgrepen in landen waar de VS niets te zoeken heeft…… (vooral ingegeven door de zucht naar grondstoffen als olie, gas en diverse mijnbouwproducten, verder kan ook de strategische ligging van een land een grote rol spelen in deze agressie door het VS imperium, dat intussen meer dan 800 militiarie bases heeft over de wereld…..)

Finian Cunningham stelt dat de EU in feite niet onafhankelijk is, maar danst naar de pijpen van de VS (en dat met grote graagte omarmt door de westerse politiek en media…..)….. Volkomen terecht dan ook dat Cunningham zegt dat de EU en haar lidstaten geen bondgenoten zijn van de VS, maar haar lakeien!!

Het artikel van Cunningham werd eerder gepubliceerd op Sputnik News en door mij overgenomen van Information Clearing House:

US Spying on EU Lackeys

By Finian Cunningham

May 02, 2021 “Information Clearing House” – – “ Sputnik News “- Joe Biden’s attempts to rally the transatlantic alliance have just got a punch in the nose after media reports of American spying on European leaders.

President Biden is due to arrive in Europe next week for two major summits with so-called allies. It will be his first in-person meeting with European leaders since becoming president. But it’s going to be awkward given new revelations about the Americans tapping private communications among senior European Union politicians.

What’s more, Biden is personally implicated in the scandal. The latest media reports found that the Danish intelligence services colluded with the American National Security Agency (NSA) to hack into phone calls and emails of other European governments. This was said to be during the previous Obama administration in which Biden was vice president. There is no reason to believe that the illicit surveillance has stopped despite Washington’s claims to the contrary.

The latest reports have added credibility because the same kind of spying by US intelligence on European leaders was revealed earlier by American whistleblower Edward Snowden. Among Snowden’s bombshell disclosures back then was that the Obama administration was implicated in spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Edward Snowden @Snowden

Biden is well-prepared to answer for this when he soon visits Europe since, of course, he was deeply involved in this scandal the first time around. There should be an explicit requirement for full public disclosure not only from Denmark, but their senior partner as well.

DW News @dwnews

BREAKING: Denmark’s secret service has helped the United States spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European politicians. p.dw.com/p/3uC6P

10:27 PM · May 30, 2021

Likes: 6.9K

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Now it emerges that the Americans were collaborating with Denmark to spy on other European leaders, including those of Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, and no doubt others. This is hardly new. The British intel agency, GCHQ, has long been known to act as America’s eyes and ears over Europe.

It’s all cringingly embarrassing as can be gleaned from the shameful silence among the EU governments over the scandal. As when the US spying on Merkel was reported back in 2013, there is the same pathetic European response: silent acceptance of what is outrageous transgression by the Americans.

What this clearly demonstrates beyond any equivocation is that the European governments are quislings and vassals under Washington’s control. They are not “allies” as that word implies a mutual partnership of equals. They are abject lackeys to American power who cheat on themselves. Talk about treacherous!

This explains why Russia and China have both seen their relations with Europe deteriorate so badly. Under the prevailing EU governments, it is virtually impossible for Moscow or Beijing to conduct productive relations with Europe. That would require the European Union to have a modicum of independence and autonomy. As it is, however, the Europeans are mere subordinates to Washington’s diktat. And so America’s renewed Cold War hostility towards Russia and China is reflected unquestioningly by the European bloc. Because the Europeans are nothing but satellites of the US imperium.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel © REUTERS / Fabrizio Bensch

It follows therefore that Russia and China are wasting their political energy by appealing to the Europeans to improve relations. Maybe sometime in the future relations will make progress but that will be when the EU really has independence from American hegemony. And that will require the present status quo among European politics to be overhauled by popular revolt.

A day of reckoning is long overdue. The people of Europe are sick of the non-stop pandering to Washington by European lackey leaders. Washington’s endless criminal wars are indulged and facilitated by the EU. America’s reckless aggression towards Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and any other independent nations is aided and abetted by Europe’s spineless politicians. And yet the Americans and EU governments have the audacity to accuse Russia and China of hacking and other malign conduct.

Still, even with that servility to American imperialism, the US rulers are not sure about their European flunkies. That’s the sign of a paranoid tyrant who doesn’t even trust his slaves. Spying on European governments really demonstrates the absolute contempt Washington has for them. All the talk about “shared values”, “allies”, “transatlantic alliance”, “rules-based order”, and so on, is seen to be cynical platitudes.

When Biden was placed in the White House his top priority has been to re-engage the Europeans in proper vassalage function after the years of chaotic policy under Trump. That re-engagement is all for the purpose of aligning the EU with American hostility towards Russia and China. Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken keep repeating how important the US “allies” are. What they really mean is how important European subordination is for facilitating American aggression around the globe.

If the latest spying scandal has any benefit, it could be that Biden’s ploy to corral the Europeans just got derailed. The equivalent of a president running up the steps of Air Force One and falling on his face.

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. –

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* Al moet ik toegeven dat de ophef in de media over zogenaamde Chinese en Russische spionage (en manipulaties) vermindert, iets wat ongetwijfeld te maken heeft met het feit dat er bijna dagelijks nieuwe loze beschuldigingen bijkomen over Russische en Chinese spionage en manipulaties (het laatste van verkiezingen en referenda)…….

Zie ook: ‘Navalny wordt geprezen terwijl Assange wordt gemarteld‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht!!)

‘Marietje Schaake (D66 dir. Cyber Policy Center Stanford University) roert volkomen lachwekkend de anti-Chinese propaganda trommel‘

‘Jan Paternotte (D66 Tweede Kamer) maakt zich druk om Chinese spionage, terwijl de VS alweer door de mand valt als spion‘

‘‘Russische manipulaties uitgevoerd’ door later vermoord staflid Clintons campagneteam Seth Rich……… AIVD en MIVD moeten hiervan weten!!‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht) zie voorts:

‘Clinton te kakken gezet: Brazile (Democratische Partij VS) draagt haar boek op aan Seth Rich, het vermoorde lid van DNC die belastende documenten lekte‘

‘Een gelekt memo uit 2017 geeft aan dat de VS werkelijk mensenrechten misbruikt om landen als China te demoniseren‘

‘Julian Assange bijna 2 jaar lang in isolatiefolter voor het openbaren van oorlogsmisdaden…….‘ (intussen, 5 juni 2021 zit Assange al meer dan 2 jaar in isolatiefolter en ook Assange wordt totaal belachelijk uitgemaakt voor spion…..) (zie ook de links in dat bericht!!)

‘AIVD onderzoek naar spionage door Huawei, Huib Modderkolk uit de bocht met 5 km/u…. OEF!!!‘ (een bericht van mei 2019…..)

‘CIA deed zich voor als het Russische Kaspersky Lab, aldus Wikileaks Vault 8….‘ (de Vault 8 documenten zijn ook te vinden in de Vault 7 documenten)

‘Google, Facebook en Twitter gaan nu zelfs de geschiedenis manipuleren en censureren‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht)

‘Marietje Schaake (D66) wil EU leger, zodat ‘we’ eindelijk de politieke unie kunnen doordrukken en Oekraïne bij kunnen staan…….‘

”Geheime diensten in westen geven toe dat spioneren via het G5 netwerk praktisch onmogelijk is……..‘

‘VS waarschuwt Groot-Brittannië het G5 netwerk niet aan te laten leggen door Huawei, maar door VS firma’s‘ zie voorts ook:

‘Intel processors al 10 jaar zo lek als een mandje, Intel niet een bedrijf uit Rusland of China, maar uit….. de VS!‘

‘Marietje Schaake (D66 EU neoliberalen) doet naar eigen zeggen niet aan protectionisme…. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!‘

‘Volkskrant en Nieuwsuur Fake News over ‘Russische hacks…..’‘

‘Dutch ‘Cozy Bear’ Farce Does Not Show DNC Emails Were Hacked By Russians‘

‘10 Reasons The Dutch-Russia Hacking Story Is Fake News‘ (via Stan van Houcke: ‘Volkskrant Fake News 3’)

‘Pompeo (CIA opperhoofd met koperen fluit): heeft alle aanwijzingen dat Rusland de midterm verkiezingen zal manipuleren……‘ (zie het grote aantal links in dat bericht, betreffende de leugensoap ‘Russiagate’)

‘Sleepwet: vrijgegeven documenten bewijzen dat de VS gewone burgers bespioneert >> zie ons voorland…….‘

‘‘Fake News’ hysterie willens en wetens gelanceerd om sociale media tot zwijgen te brengen, Rusland te demoniseren en daarmee de waarheid te verbergen……..‘

‘Bertholee (AIVD): Rusland is een gevaar voor onze democratie…….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!‘

‘Aanslag Borussia Dortmund gepleegd door een lid van de aandelenmaffia…….‘

‘Rutte en Bertholee bezorgd over veiligheid voetbalwedstrijden na terreuraanslag op spelersbus Dortmund……….‘

‘Rob Bertholee, topgraaier AIVD, angstzaaier en grossier in nepnieuws, slaat ‘Russische cyberaanvallen’ af…….. OEI!!!‘

‘Rob Bertholee (AIVD), liep ‘geheel open’ leeg in Buitenhof, ach die 170 mensen die weg moesten, dat valt allemaal ‘erg’ mee…….‘

‘AIVD Bertholee ziet grote kansen voor jihad aanslagplegers…….. OEI!! Zandzakken voor de deur!‘

‘Plasterk legt ‘wetenschappelijk’ uit, waarom advocaten wel afgeluisterd moeten worden……. AAAAJAAAJAAAAAAJ!!!!!!‘

VS gebruikt sociale media om ‘fake comment’ te verspreiden en de bevolking te hersenspoelen met leugens, ofwel ‘fake news….’

Posted on March 24, 2018April 8, 2026 by Telmo Claro

De algehele hysterie over ‘fake news’ (of: ‘nepnieuws’) is compleet en al dik meer dan een jaar gaande, waarbij de sociale media werden aangewezen als de verspreiders, terwijl de echte makers en verspreiders van nepnieuws juist de reguliere media zijn, zie de berichtgeving voorafgaand aan de illegale oorlogen tegen Afghanistan, Irak, Libië en Syrië, plus de berichtgeving over Oekraïne (en ga nog maar een tijd door…….)

Nu is er nieuws opgedoken over de VS overheid (en het leger) die al actief negatief nieuws over de overheid en bijvoorbeeld het leger te lijf gaan met een fiks aantal verzonnen personen, die meerdere identiteiten hebben op het internet, personages die het echte nieuws onderuit moeten halen. Het leger van de VS heeft al een klein legertje aan personen samengesteld om hun werk te doen. Overigens heeft Israël al eerder aangekondigd kritiek en negatief nieuws op/over deze fascistische apartheidsstaat aan te zullen vallen met een ‘snelle reactiemacht…..’*

Overigens dient opgemerkt te worden dat de VS en Israël nog iets verder gaan dan alleen kritiek aan te vallen, daar ze actief nepnieuws zullen verspreiden die bijvoorbeeld de uitgeoefende staatsterreur (in binnen en buitenland) moeten rechtvaardigen……

Topmilitairen van de VS zien in deze vorm van volksverlakkerij een belangrijk wapen om de bevolking te beïnvloeden, bijvoorbeeld (weer) met het schoonpraten van de grootschalige terreur die dit leger op meerdere plaatsen in de wereld uitoefent…….

Lees de volgende stap in het vervolmaken van de Big Brother staat zoals door George Orwell beschreven, alleen gaat de werkelijkheid straks nog veel verder dan hij ooit had kunnen dromen…….
(door de immense technologische vooruitgang nadat zijn boek 1984 in 1949 werd gepubliceerd)

What the Media Isn’t Telling You About Social Media

March 20, 2018 at 9:12 pm

Written by Corbett Report

(CORBETT) — Now openly admitted, governments and militaries around the world employ armies of keyboard warriors to spread propaganda and disrupt their online opposition. Their goal? To shape public discourse around global events in a way favourable to their standing military and geopolitical objectives. Their method? The weaponization of social media.

TRANSCRIPT:

It didn’t take long from the birth of the world wide web for the public to start using this new medium to transmit, collect and analyze information in ways never before imagined. The first message boards and clunky “Web 1.0” websites soon gave way to “the blogosphere.” The arrival of social media was the next step in this evolution, allowing for the formation of communities of interest to share information in real time about events happening anywhere on the globe.

But as quickly as communities began to form around these new platforms, governments and militaries were even quicker in recognizing the potential to use this new medium to more effectively spread their own propaganda.

Their goal? To shape public discourse around global events in a way favourable to their standing military and geopolitical objectives.

Their method? The Weaponization of Social Media.

This is The Corbett Report.

Facebook. Twitter. YouTube. Snapchat. Instagram. Reddit. “Social media” as we know it today barely existed fifteen years ago. Although it provides new ways to interact with people and information from all across the planet virtually instantaneously and virtually for free, we are only now beginning to understand the depths of the problems associated with these new platforms. More and more of the original developers of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter admit they no longer use social media themselves and actively keep it away from their children, and now they are finally admitting the reason why: social media was designed specifically to take advantage of your psychological weaknesses and keep you addicted to your screen.

SEAN PARKER: If the thought process that went into building these applications—Facebook being the first of them to really understand it—that thought process was all about “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever, and that’s gonna get you to contribute more content and that’s gonna get you more likes and comments. So it’s a social validation feedback loop. I mean it’s exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. And I think that we—the inventors/creators, you know, it’s me, it’s Mark, it’s Kevin Systrom at Instagram, it’s all of these people—understood this consciously and we did it anyway.

It should be no surprise, then, that in this world of social media addicts and smartphone zombies, the 24/7 newsfeed is taking up a greater and greater share of people’s lives. Our thoughts, our opinions, our knowledge of the world, even our mood are increasingly being influenced or even determined by what we see being posted, tweeted or vlogged. And the process by which these media shape our opinions is being carefully monitored and analyzed, not by the social media companies themselves, but by the US military.

MARINA PORTNAYA: When the world’s largest social media platform betrays its users, there’s going to be outrage.

ABC HOST: The study to see whether Facebook could influence the emotional state of its users on that news feed.

CNN ANCHOR: It allowed researchers to manipulate almost 700,000 users’ news feeds. Some saw more positive news about their friends, others saw more negative.

CNN GUEST: Well I’m not surprised. I mean we’re all kind of lab rat than the big Facebook experiment.

PORTNAYA: But it wasn’t only Facebook’s experiment. It turns out the psychological study was connected to the US government’s research on social unrest.

MORNING JOE GUEST: This is really kind of creepy.

PORTNAYA: And it gets worse. What you may not know is that the US Department of Defense has reportedly spent roughly $20 million conducting studies aimed at learning how to manipulate online behavior in order to influence opinion. The initiative was launched in 2011 by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, otherwise known as DARPA. The program is best described as the US media’s effort to become better at detecting and conducting propaganda campaigns via social media. Translation: When anti-government messages gain ground virally, Washington wants to find a way to spread counter opinion.

SOURCE: US military harnesses social media to manipulate online behaviour

The DARPA document that details the Pentagon’s plans for influencing opinions in the social media space is called “Social Media in Strategic Communication.” DARPA’s goal, according to their own website, is “to develop tools to help identify misinformation or deception campaigns and counter them with truthful information.”

Exactly what tools were developed for this purpose and how they are currently being deployed is unclear.

But Rand Walzman, the program’s creator, admitted last year that the project lasted four years, cost $50 million and led to the publication of over 200 papers. The papers, including “Incorporating Human Cognitive Biases in a Probabilistic Model of Retweeting,” “Structural Properties of Ego Networks,” and “Sentiment Prediction using Collaborative Filtering,” make the thrust of the program perfectly clear. Social media users are lab rats being carefully scrutinized by government-supported researchers, their tweets and Facebook posts and Instagram pictures being analyzed to determine how information spreads online, and, by implication, how the government and the military can use these social media networks to make their own propaganda “go viral.”

As worrying as this research is, it pales in comparison to the knowledge that governments, militaries and political lobby groups are already employing squadrons of foot soldiers to wage information warfare in the social media battlespace.

AL-JAZEERA ANCHOR: The Pentagon’s got a new plan to counter anti-American messages in cyberspace. It involves buying software that will enable the American military to create and control fake online personas—fake people, essentially—who will appear to have originated from all over the world. The plan is being undertaken by CENTCOM (US Central Command), and the objective of the online persona management service is to combat enemy propaganda by influencing foreign social media websites. CENTCOM has hired a software development company called “Ntrepid,” and, according to the contract, the California-based company will initially provide 50 user licenses, each of which would be capable of controlling up to 10 fake personas. US law forbids the use of this type of technology, called “sockpuppets,” against Americans, so all the personas will reportedly be communicating in languages like Arabic, Persian and Urdu.

SOURCE: Persona Online Management, Fake Online Personas, Sock Puppets, Astroturfing Bots, Shills

CTV ANCHOR: So is it okay to have the government monitor social media conversations and then to wade in and correct some of those conversations? With more on this, let’s go to technology expert Carmi Levy. He’s on the line from Montreal. Carmi, do you think the government’s monitoring what you and I are saying right now? Is this whole thing getting out of line, or what?

[…]

CARMI LEVY: It opens up a bit of a question. I’d like to call it a Pandora’s box about, you know, what exactly is the government’s aim here, and what do they hope to accomplish with what they find out? And as they accumulate this information online—this data on us—where does that data go? And so I think as much as we should applaud the government for getting into this area, the optics of it are potentially very Big Brother-ish. And the government really does need to be a little bit more concrete on what its intentions are and how it intends to achieve them.

SOURCE: CTV Confirms Government(s) employing Internet Trolls, Shills & PR Agents to ‘correct misinformation’

4WWL REPORTER: New evidence that government-owned computers at the Army Corps of Engineers office here in New Orleans are being used to verbally attack critics of the Corps comes in an affidavit from the former editor-in-chief of nola.com. Jon Donley, who was laid off this past February, tells us via satellite from Texas, in late 2006 he started noticing people presenting themselves as ordinary citizens defending the Corps very energetically.

JON DONLEY: What stuck out, though, was the wording of the comments was in many ways mirroring news releases from the Corps of Engineers.

[…]

SANDY ROSENTHAL: These commenters tried to discredit these people . . .

4WWL REPORTER: And when Rosenthal investigated, she discovered the comments were coming from users at the internet provider address of the Army Corps of Engineers offices here in New Orleans. She blamed the Corps for a strategy of going after critics.

ROSENTHAL: In the process of trying to obscure the facts of the New Orleans floodings, one of their tactics was just verbal abuse.

SOURCE: Government Sock Puppets

NAFTALI BENNETT: Mo’etzet Yesha, in conjunction with My Israel, has arranged an instruction day for Wiki editors. The goal of the day is to teach people how to edit in Wikipedia, which is the number one source of information today in the world. As a way of example, if someone searches the Gaza flotilla, we want to be there. We want to be the guys who influence what is written there, how it’s written, and to ensure that it’s balanced and Zionist in the nature.

SOURCE: Course: Zionist Editing on Wikipedia

These operations are only the visible and publicly-admitted front of a vast array of military and intelligence programs that are attempting to influence online behaviour, spread government propaganda, and disrupt online communities that arise in opposition to their agenda.

That such programs exist is not a matter of conjecture; it is mundane, established, documented fact.

In 2014, an internal document was leaked from GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA. The document, never intended for public release, was entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations” and bluntly stated that “We want to build Cyber Magicians.” It then goes on to outline the “magic” techniques that must be employed in influence and information operations online, including deception and manipulation techniques like “anchoring,” “priming” and “branding” propaganda narratives. After presenting a map of social networking technologies that are targeted by these operations, the document then instructs the “magicians” how to deceive the public through “attention management” and behavioural manipulation.

That governments would turn to these strategies is hardly a shocking development. In fact, the use of government shills to propagate government talking points and disrupt online dissent has been openly advocated on the record by high-ranking government officials for the past decade.

In 2008, Cass Sunstein, a law professor who would go on to become Obama’s information “czar,” co-authored a paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” in which he wrote that the “best response” to online “conspiracy theories” is what he calls “cognitive infiltration” of groups spreading these ideas.

“Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action. In one variant, government agents would openly proclaim, or at least make no effort to conceal, their institutional affiliations. […] In another variant, government officials would participate anonymously or even with false identities.”

It is perhaps particularly ironic that the idea that government agents are actually and admittedly spreading propaganda online under false identities is, to the less-informed members of the population, itself a “conspiracy theory” rather than an established conspiracy fact.

Unsurprisingly, when confronted about his proposal, Sunstein pretended to not remember having written it and then pointedly refused to answer any questions about it.

LUKE RUDKOWSKI: My name is Bill de Burgh from Brooklyn College, and I know you’ve written many articles. But I think the most telling one about you is the 2008 one called “Conspiracy Theories,” where you openly advocated government agents infiltrate activist groups of 9/11 Truth and also stifle dissent online. I was wondering why do you think it’s the government’s job, or why do you think the government should go after family members who have questions and 9/11 responders who are lied to about the air, survivors whose testimony conflicts, and also government whistleblowers that were gagged because they released information that contradicts the official story.

CASS SUNSTEIN: I think it was Ricky who said I’d written hundreds of articles and I remember some and not others. That one I don’t remember very well. I hope I didn’t say that. But whatever was said in that article, my role in government is to oversee federal rule-making in a way that is wholly disconnected from the vast majority of my academic writing, including that.

[…]

RUDKOWSKI: I just want to know is it safe to say that you retract saying that conspiracy theories should be banned or taxed for having an opinion online. Is it safe to say that?

SUNSTEIN: I don’t remember the article very well. So I hope I didn’t say either those things.

RUDKOWSKI: But you did and it’s written. Do you retract them?

SUNSTEIN: I’m focused on my job.

SOURCE: Obama Information Czar Cass Sunstein Confronted on Cognitive Infiltration of Conspiracy Groups

Now, a decade on from Sunstein’s proposal, we know that military psyops agents, political lobbyists, corporate shills and government propagandists are spending vast sums of money and employing entire armies of keyboard warriors, leaving comments and shaping conversations to change the public’s opinions, influence their behaviour, and even alter their mood. And they are helped along in this quest by the very same technology that allows the public to connect on a scale never before possible.

Technology is always a double-edged sword, and sometimes it can be dangerous to wield that sword at all. There are ways to identify and neutralize the threat of online trolls and shills, but the phenomenon is not likely to go away any time soon.

Each of us must find our own answer to the question of how best to incorporate these technologies into our life. But the next time you find yourself caught up in an argument with an online persona that may or may not be a genuine human being, it might be better to ask yourself if your efforts are better spent engaging in the argument or just turning off the computer.