I started this thread after seeing some posts in the Elon Musk thread about Twitter files indicating that the US military conducted covert strategic influence operations targeting foreign populations. They allegedly used fake social media accounts to disseminate information without disclosing its connections to the US Government. Without acknowledging whether these alleged activities took place as described or not, I'd like to start a discussion on this topic. What do you think of the US Government, should they decide to, conducting covert influence operations? Is it necessary to engage the terrorists groups in cyberspace to counter their very effective radicalization propaganda targeting the disaffected youth in various countries? Or do we simply yield the influence high ground to them, recognizing the fact that any information, no matter how true, associated with the US Government will be ignored or treated with suspicion?

In traditional wartime scenarios covert influence and deception operations are considered a standard tool in the wartime toolbox. But what about a war on terrorism that has no start or end date, where the battle for the hearts and minds of the younger generations is waged over years and decades? Does that change the acceptability of covert tools, or make them more vital than ever?

What do you think?

the liberal tabloid news and mis-informed professors have been doing this brain washing for decades before the internet or social media came along to promote left wing terrorist acts.

So why wouldn't the US government get involved to promote US agenda's in other countries.
BTW why would they disclose its from the US government

The Democratic party and ISIS have been very successful in getting recruits by being anti US government .
showing my age "remember Hanoi Jane"


remember

"targeting the disaffected youth"

It's a good thing that they aren't allowed to use propaganda domestically.

People are self-auditing mere moments after any suspicious encounter with language or ideas

There are definite legal restrictions prohibiting psyop forces from conducting ops in the US. The standing joke was that's what the Public Affairs Office is for.

Not sure what you mean by that. Could you explain a bit more pls? Thanks

I remember the bumper stickers:

I AIN'T FONDA JANE

how about completely ineffective and mostly just paranoid delusions?

I don't know about the paranoid delusions part. As to effectiveness, every psyop campaign develops a set of measurable Impact Indicators prior to execution in order to get feedback which then feeds into the product development process to refine products, then the cycle repeats itself. Very long term, strategic level psyop is very difficult to assess given the long time frames involved and the difficulty in getting direct access to the target populations. So often you must rely on what are called indirect impact indicators for feedback.

Psyop products are pretested on a sample group of the target population prior to dissemination. But even so, sometimes they work as expected but other times they are not effective at all, or the desired message is not communicated as desired. It's a tricky business for sure.

I am curious how people here consider Hanoi Jane, given the context of history? And this question is not limited to the specific 'act' or 'photo' that got her that nickname, and that she admits was a mistake, but rather her vehement 'anti-war', 'anti-that-war', stance.

- was less correct but i understand her objections?
- was absolutely out of line and wrong?
- more correct than not for her stance?
- was absolutely correct and history has substantiated that?
- other?

My view

- was less correct but I understand her objections.

It took me a while to decide where i would land but given the context of the era and my belief the 'Cold War' was one that NEEDED to be fought, and the expansion of Communism, and Soviet Union influence arrested, I think historically this as a first step to the Cold War, which would eventually arrest the expansion and topple the USSR was a needed one.

That is not to say US and Western abuses were not present. This is not to say US and the West were good guys. This is my view that the world would be a much more horrendous place overall, if the USSR had been able to rise to position of the worlds chief super power thru its expansionist goals.

I believe every form of that type of 'communism', 'authoritarianism', is doomed to failure and requires continued expansion and taking of resources from elsewhere to hide the inherent failures (see Russia/Ukraine) and thus a war, sooner or later, would be forced on to the West, so better the Cold War and how that mostly ended the threat.

You have to keep in mind that with Fonda there was also a very widespread rumor about her betraying POWs she met with, long since debunked as I far as I'm aware. But I recall it being told everywhere and no doubt shaped a lot of opinions about her.

The gun photo itself is just kind of a bad look maybe but enough to make the nickname fair by itself, but obviously it goes well beyond that.

Overall I think a strong anti-Vietnam War stance itself isn't (or shouldn't be) a problem. I'm not going to go listen to her old broadcasts and evaluate them so someone else can comment on, but at least some of of it was enemy propaganda and she owns that now. There's definitely a line somewhere between protest and being a full-on POS, which there were plenty of also, to include a lot of elected officials who absolutely **** on a lot of the troops after they returned home. Where exactly she falls on the scumbag scale I don't know but I don't think she did anyone any favors.

A zillion other folks protested the Vietnam War and that the whole thing was horseshit, we know. Subtract the probably small number of dipshits spitting on returning troops in airports and yelling baby killer at some poor sack who most likely got drafted, and I can't see any problem.

For me the biggest issue is how there can be a draft and then afterwards have a citizenry who doesn't demand proper care for returning personnel. Even today you talk to people and they're under the impression that care an VA programs are much better then they actually are. To some degree for folks like myself at least you can say a person volunteered and make part of a reasonable argument there, but to drag some 18-year-old fresh out of high school and send them into a war, I think you put whatever you need to in the budget to care for them when they get back, period. Halve their income taxes and free comprehensive medical care for life or something extreme (and imo the nation is still getting the better end of the deal). It should hurt enough so that a draft never happens unless absolutely critical which I don't see likely to occur in the US case. Jane Fonda not really to blame for that end, people did that.

this is of course unacceptable:




and that is why elon wants fauci proscecuted btw as his name popped up and he was the one giving the orders.

Let's preface the debate by saying that trying to be covert on social media is in itself an error. Social media giants are literally digital platforms meant to "finger-print" users, monitor human behavior, identify motivation and track movement. They are better at this and better equipped to do this than any intelligence agency has ever been.

I know there are people in the intelligence community that realize this, but I am less certain if the ones making the decisions and deciding the budgets realize it. Insofar as the motive behind a covert operation is to be able to deny it (as opposed to a clandestine operation, where the motive is not be noticed, often an easier task), this goal is not possible to achieve on social media. This isn't the 90s anymore where hiding your origin was enough. The combined weight of modern Big Data techniques for identification, finger-printing and traffic analysis is almost impossible to beat.

Also, and this is a big also, even if you could beat Big Data, your tracks are digitally stored. This means as these incredible surveillance techniques are refined and improved, they can have another go at your perfectly preserved digital footprint. So even if you can fool them now, can you fool them in one year? Five years? Ten years?

So when you do these operations, they need to be able to withstand the light of day. A fake account that tells facts some regime does it damnedest to hide is not the worst thing. A fake account that just sprouts lies, repeats banal propaganda or tries to create unrest for short-term gain is going to make you look immoral and stupid when revealed. It might even make you look worse than your intended targets.

It is of course easy to make the comparisons to Russian intelligence efforts that do similar things. However, the Russian effects are actually pretty different in scope. Their goal is to create chaos and discord, aka destabilization. For them it does not really matter if they are revealed. If anything, the heated debates, partisan quarrels and discussions on acceptable responses when their efforts are revealed will just be icing on the cake.