Are Fact Checkers Really Fact-Checkers…or Something Else?
Read More »Tag: inoculation theory
Rant About How Tech Companies Use Your Data to Hack Your Mind
Dr. Steven Hassan, the cult expert, interviewed Dr. Dustin Rozario Steinhagen on “How Tech Companies Use Your Data to Hack Your Mind.” It was interesting for a while. His guest started talking about Cambridge Analytica, romances scams, and privacy rights. They lost me at China and surveillance capitalism, though. It’s as if they’ve never heard of the Snowden disclosures or the National Security Agency. COINTELPRO? FBI infiltration of mosques? FYI, the social credit system doesn’t exist! How’s your credit score, BTW? Have you bought your luxury condo and sports car, yet?
Read More »An Introduction to Fifth Generation Warfare
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love 5GW
We type these words travelling through the Swiss Alps on high-speed rail. As the world becomes smaller, we at The Radio Research Group have witnessed firsthand how nearly everything we knew about modern conflict is changing, under the shadow of Fifth Generation Warfare. The incredible, exponential, accelerating pace of technology has overturned centuries of standard operating procedure. Diplomats and military leaders alike have been thrust into uncharted domains, disrupted by an invisible enemy that makes us question our reality.
Related:
5GW: 2012 NDAA – Propaganda – MISO – InfoOps – PsyOps
Cambridge Analytica and the Right-Wing Populist Movements
To Be Updated: USAID is sponsoring YouTube channels
How Democracy Can Win: The Right Way to Counter Autocracy
The most important step the United States can take to counter foreign influence campaigns and disinformation is to help our partners promote media and digital literacy, communicate credibly with their publics, and engage in “pre-bunking”—that is, seeking to inoculate their societies against disinformation before it can spread. In Indonesia, for example, USAID has worked with local partners to develop sophisticated online courses and games that help new social media users identify disinformation and reduce the likelihood that they will share misleading posts and articles.
The United States has also helped Ukraine in its fight against the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation. For decades, USAID has worked to enhance the media environment in the country, encouraging reforms that allow greater access to public information and supporting the emergence of strong local media organizations, including the public broadcaster Suspilne. After Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, our work expanded to help the country’s local journalists produce Russian-language programming that could reach into Kremlin-occupied territories, such as Dialogues With Donbas, a YouTube channel that featured honest conversations with Ukrainians about life behind Russian lines. We also helped support the production of the online comedy show Newspalm, which regularly racks up tens of thousands of views as it skewers Putin’s lies. And even before Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, we worked with the government of Ukraine to stand up the Center for Strategic Communications, which uses memes [memetic warfare], well-produced digital videos, and social media and Telegram posts to poke holes in Kremlin propaganda.
I still need to look into Newspalm. I’ll update if I find anything. As I don’t know Ukrainian, or Russian, I’m using Google translate for the following information. Note, this is all speculation!
Speculation:
Read More »Google to expand misinformation ‘prebunking’ in Europe
Google to expand misinformation ‘prebunking’ in Europe
The tech giant plans to release a series of short videos highlighting the techniques common to many misleading claims. The videos will appear as advertisements on platforms like Facebook, YouTube or TikTok in Germany. A similar campaign in India is also in the works.
…
Google will announce its new German campaign Monday ahead of next week’s Munich Security Conference. The timing of the announcement, coming before that annual gathering of international security officials, reflects heightened concerns about the impact of misinformation among both tech companies and government officials.
Perfect timing!
State Department tells staff abroad to promote anti-populist ‘disinformation’ game in schools
The same State Department office that partnered with a Department of Homeland Security-backed private consortium that reported purported election misinformation to tech platforms for removal in the 2020 and 2022 cycles is also using internet games to affect elections abroad.
State Department tells staff abroad to promote anti-populist ‘disinformation’ game in schools (archived)
The game was originally meant for foreign countries to combat populist sentiment. FFO explains how it actually ‘boomerangs’ to the US. ⬇️
Related:
US Gov’t Funding ‘Disinformation’ Video Game ‘Cat Park,’ Leaked State Dept Memo Reveals
Global Engagement Center Fighting Russian Propaganda with American Propaganda
Massive Study Involving YouTube Finds ‘Pre-Bunking’ Inoculates People Against Misinfo
Massive Study Involving YouTube Finds ‘Pre-Bunking’ Inoculates People Against Misinfo
One question that naturally springs to mind is: who gets to determine what counts as a false or “manipulative” narrative? Is it the government? A corporation like Google? A select panel of academic experts? In short: who gets to be the arbiter of this very important epistemological function? And how do you maintain confidence in that arbiter when so much of the misinformation crisis is driven by public distrust in official narratives?
When you look at recent examples of “pre-bunking,” you can see that it hasn’t always gone so smoothly. One of the most prominent instances of “pre-bunking” occurred during the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the State Department controversially announced that Russia was planning to distribute a professionally produced propaganda video that involved pyrotechnics and “crisis actors.” The video would be used to blame Ukraine for terroristic attacks on civilians and would help to justify the invasion, the U.S. said.
Unfortunately, not everybody bought what the State Department was selling: an Associated Press reporter expressed incredulity at the claims and blatantly called out the government for spreading “Alex Jones” style bunkum.Even more problematically, the video never materialized. Was it because America’s “pre-bunking” efforts stopped the Russians from releasing their video? Or was it because the video never existed in the first place? Under the circumstances, it’s impossible to say—and, therefore, it’s also impossible to gauge whether the U.S. was being a good-faith “pre-bunker” or was actually spreading its own disinformation.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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