How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations

[Makalakumu]

This story was published by Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who received the Snowden documents. It was published on the 24th of February 2014, so it's relatively recent.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

I'm going to pull out a couple of paragraphs for discussion, but I think that anyone who participates in online discussions on the internet should probably read the whole piece.

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums.

This is something that many people suspected was happening, but laughed it off as paranoia...or were laughed off as paranoid. Well, here is the bonafide proof. How many articles, memes, "posters" and websites you've interacted with are part of this program?

Then there is the use of psychology and other social sciences to not only understand, but shape and control, how online activism and discourse unfolds. Today’s newly published document touts the work of GCHQ’s “Human Science Operations Cell,” devoted to “online human intelligence” and “strategic influence and disruption”:

Under the title “Online Covert Action”, the document details a variety of means to engage in “influence and info ops” as well as “disruption and computer net attack,” while dissecting how human beings can be manipulated using “leaders,” “trust,” “obedience” and “compliance”:





The documents lay out theories of how humans interact with one another, particularly online, and then attempt to identify ways to influence the outcomes – or “game” it:

I think this section relates most closely to our MT community. Here we see theories of online social interaction and strategies to manipulate it. I'm not sure what else to say. This post is more of a FYI to the community than anything else. What do you think?