I might not even be against this practice because if it is truly countering bad ideas, then it could be effective. Bad ideas can spread fast and influence people in subtle and profound ways. But obviously they should be countered in organic ways by moderates or skeptics or Neil deGrasse Tysons- in their countries.
What I don't understand is how the US military can say, oh this is illegal (and thus unethical) to do in the US to Americans, but foreigners are exempt, so let's create a world of false personas and disinformation for them.
The only argument for using tactics like this and others, like spying on people, is in a time of temporary war.
We Americans are a nation built on the acknowledgement of natural rights and to deny that all humans have these rights against any oppressive government, is absurd and wrong.
Endless ambiguous and 'total war' is more dangerous than radicals posting on a message board or even the threat of terrorism. The existential risk to human freedom is far greater when we have an infinite budget military mandated with doing unjust and immoral things forevermore with no sense of what made America great or what will eventually make the whole world great; natural rights and secular governments.
Ah, if the US military could distinguish the world's good ideas from the world's bad ideas, we could just discard all that messy democratic discussion and debate and just get our ideas from them. But somehow, that sound like a, uh, bad idea.
Thing is that the methods of propaganda tend to lean on psychological manipulation more than rational arguments - it's effective and the military is generally tasked with persuading people of whatever idea their superiors want to forward and there might not be any rational argument in favor it. One can consults psy-ops manuals and such for confirmation.
To play devil's advocate, doesn't a state possess a greater obligation to it's own people than to those outside of it?
You (perhaps naïvely) expect your government to protect you from foreign threats. You don't expect (and probably don't want) your government to protect everyone, everywhere.
Although I expect my government to have a greater obligation to its own people than those outside it, I also would prefer (sadly not expect) them to take a longer-term view than "what suits the situation at the moment."
If putting out worldwide propaganda is expected to have a long-term effect of degredation of public discourse, I would expect my government to take this into account and temper their actions. In fact, whether or not it is known today to have this effect, I'd hope my government would analyse these things and take them into account when making policy.
Question. Are there any laws/regulations that we know of which prevent the NSA from altering domestic discourse for security reasons? What is the oversight of this?
Can the NSA, say, alter/create Facebook posts in order to disseminate domestic propaganda in the name of national security? We know the Chinese do this. Does the US?
Not really. It remains unlawful to appropriate funds (or use appropriated funds) to influence US public opinion. The problem the legislation tried to solve was that material meant for foreign consumption is, in the Internet era, overwhelmingly likely to find its way to a domestic audience, and the plain text of the law prior to the NDAA forbad any such material --- it was a practical problem for State and the BBG.
The 2013 NDAA amended the law to allow the State Department and the Broadcasting Board Of Governors to disseminate material meant for foreign audiences domestically, using domestic services like Youtube, &c.
Fun fact: the Broadcasting Board of Governors also pays for free crypto audits (from some very strong firms) for privacy and anonymity tools. Virtually all the privacy tools you've heard about have had several tens of thousands of dollars worth of audit dollars spent by the BBG to make sure they're not endangering people.
So far as I know --- I've participated in a couple of these audits, but never been a recipient of one --- these are no-strings-attached.
>Fun fact: the Broadcasting Board of Governors also pays for free crypto audits (from some very strong firms) for privacy and anonymity tools. Virtually all the privacy tools you've heard about have had several tens of thousands of dollars worth of audit dollars spent by the BBG to make sure they're not endangering people.
Are the reports from these audits publicly available? Seems like it would be an interesting bit of data to read through.
The article says it was updated to note that the program is specifically not targeting Facebook and Twitter. It also states:
He[1] said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.
Despite that I think your question is still relevant. Although the article states that it would be unlawful to target US citizens I don't doubt that the NSA is not beholden to this based on their use of questionable tactics in the past.
[1] He being Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks
Wait. US audiences == English-speaking, and English-speaking == US audiences?
By not using English, first of all, they're limiting which non-US audiences they can propogandize (for better or for worse).
Furthermore, not only is English not the only language used in the US, it's not even our OFFICIAL language! So they can impact US residences and Americans without using English at all. What an odd statement for them to make.
Oh, I agree, it's weasel worded (on purpose, I'm sure). I just wanted to point out that they seem to be going to great lengths to ensure people it's not happening on FB, Twitter or other US social networks.
I personally don't think it's right regardless but I also thought the discussion was devolving quickly with comments about them doing it in the US when the article clearly states otherwise.
Just based on all the positive comments on this thread, I'd say it's already well underway.
Yes they say that this is targeted towards foreign audiences and yes they say it's an attempt to balance out conversations. I'm sure the Russian and Chinese governments say the same things too.
What I find interesting about this is the way it contrasts to Russia's use of comment trolls. While Russia uses their trolls to degrade the quality of all internet discourse (tragedy of the commons as a feature?), the US would rather exploit the implicit partial trust relationship that is assumed of purportedly real people discussing things.
Or, maybe I just perceive them differently because of how they're reported.
I love how headlines like this are supposed to incite anger and fear.
The article mentioned nothing about manipulating "social media" (like reddit or HN as the headline would lead you to believe), in fact it mentions that none of the correspondence will even be in English. All this is is creating fake personas on extremist/underground forums as a source of intelligence.
Why is this downvoted? This is an entirely rational explanation and probably far closer to the truth than something vaguely conspiratorial, such as the NSA trying to manipulate opinion on Facebook or Reddit. I say "vaguely" because depending on who you ask, you'll get a different answer as to what possible motive they could have.
a 2.7m contract is basically the exploration of the exploration of the idea of the possibility of a product. Healthcare.gov is essentially a standard html website and ti cost >800m. I am sure they (us gov't) is interested in this, and I am sure they are planning on it, but if a front end product can't get built for aroubnd 1 billion, it is unlikely they can beat the truing test for 2.3m.
Every time I see a revelation of what a spy agency does, I see someone making a statement like this. I'm not sure it is very helpful to the discussion, because it treats the situation as expected and dismisses people's concerns about it. It's a cynical thing to do, and begets more cynicism. And cynicism is appealing, because the revelations keep coming, keep getting worse, and efforts to counter them are outnumbered by efforts to make the situation worse. But I don't think we should give up in trying to raise awareness and understanding, and trying to fix the damage.
...speaking of 'unhelpful' to the conversation, please explain what 'We' can do about it? Nothing. The fact is that CONgress actually legalized domestic propaganda (which is what this is).
'raising awareness' does nothing as the snowden incident showed us. 1984 is the SOP now.
But it's not domestic. The article specifically states that this is not be used on US based sites. Posts are not in English.
Not saying some other program doesn't potentially exist but this particular program is aimed at sites in the Middle East and Asia. From the article: languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.
The problem, as I see it, is (the Alphabet Agency) has a proven ability and now authorization to do X to Y but promises to never to do it to Z. This is the point where trust comes into the equation. As has been shown via FISA courts, warrantless eavesdropping & sneak/peak ex post facto warrant abuses, trust no longer exists. Sorta like how the US vehemently denied torture until disclosures & evidence mounted so high they couldn't keep up appearances & now hem & haw about how somebody will be held accountable... some day.
tldr: If they have the ability, you can depend on them finding a credible(sic) excuse for using it just that one, initial time. Thus starts the tide of more rationalizations and the ultimate abuses to follow.
This is actually a good thing. Surely any opinion that a "sock puppet" holds is one that some actual tax-paying citizens hold. They are in effect protecting the minority opinion-holders by letting their arguments see the light of day.
Yes. And you can bet anything that the US government wants to manipulate it (or at least monitor it), especially with the general disdain of the NSA and their operations or comment threads about certain political articles.
What I don't understand is how the US military can say, oh this is illegal (and thus unethical) to do in the US to Americans, but foreigners are exempt, so let's create a world of false personas and disinformation for them.
The only argument for using tactics like this and others, like spying on people, is in a time of temporary war.
We Americans are a nation built on the acknowledgement of natural rights and to deny that all humans have these rights against any oppressive government, is absurd and wrong.
Endless ambiguous and 'total war' is more dangerous than radicals posting on a message board or even the threat of terrorism. The existential risk to human freedom is far greater when we have an infinite budget military mandated with doing unjust and immoral things forevermore with no sense of what made America great or what will eventually make the whole world great; natural rights and secular governments.