Greenwald drops the bomb on government trolling of internet

[Elvis]

Thinking someone is acting like an asshole and taking that as a challenge to be a bigger asshole

-- another Win!!

[brainpanhandler]

You're a typical bully. When it comes back at you, you whine like a little baby. Aw you poor liddell thing, your pussy hurts.

Wow. Did you really just say that?

That is really, really, really ugly man.

[luv2dive]

you know, this is all bullshit. I wish Jeff would just make a post once a year or so.

This place is becoming a big nowhere where everyone just bitches at each other over bullshit.

[JackRiddler]

This is what one gets as a response for deconstructing his nonsense on its merits, but in an oh-so mean way:

whine like a little baby. Aw you poor liddell thing, your pussy hurts.

(snip)

bitch.

It's always a personalized attack (can't call it personal, since it doesn't actually refer to me). He thinks it's equivalent. Be mean to his ideas, you deserve to have your pussy hurt. (How did the pussy end up hurting, in that metaphor?) A few people here agree: rape the truth, they do not even notice. Adopt a mean tone in responding: oh how terrible!

(Some of these agreements are opportunistic pile-ons, I suspect. Don't tell me there aren't people who resent, e.g., my work on this board in very directly attacking the persistent nonsense of the conspiracy merchandising industry, or of the magical grand-conspiracy narratives, both of which are impediments to understanding actual deep politics and the criminal behavior of real-life ruling institutions, either historically or today.)

What has this Nordic ever contributed to this board, besides variants of this kind of permanently vulgar rhetoric -- sometimes directed at deserving targets, but so what? This personal never does anything other than this. When did this Nordic produce research, or extended insights on anything much? What does it mean that it has a realistic back story? Has anyone here ever talked to this Nordic character? Quite a few people on this board know me personally, and I know for sure a number of others are real people, even if I haven't met them or talked to them personally.

[Luther Blissett]

Please don't lock this thread. It's an important ongoing story with a lot of intricate divergences.

Three separate slides in the presentation use images of UFOs, presumably to illustrate the infiltration of "conspiracy" cyber communities and those investigating coverups and the deep state:
http://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1 ... docs_with/

(Check comments for context and analysis)

[conniption]

Washingtons Blog

Why Trolls Start Flame Wars: Swearing and Name-Calling Shut Down the Ability to Think and Focus

Posted on February 25, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog

Internet Psychology 101

Psychological studies show that swearing and name-calling in Internet discussions shut down our ability to think.

2 professors of science communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison – Dominique Brossard and Dietram A. Scheufele – wrote in the New York Times last year:

In a study published online last month in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, we and three colleagues report on an experiment designed to measure what one might call “the nasty effect.”

We asked 1,183 participants to carefully read a news post on a fictitious blog, explaining the potential risks and benefits of a new technology product called nanosilver. These infinitesimal silver particles, tinier than 100-billionths of a meter in any dimension, have several potential benefits (like antibacterial properties) and risks (like water contamination), the online article reported.

Then we had participants read comments on the post, supposedly from other readers, and respond to questions regarding the content of the article itself.

Half of our sample was exposed to civil reader comments and the other half to rude ones — though the actual content, length and intensity of the comments, which varied from being supportive of the new technology to being wary of the risks, were consistent across both groups. The only difference was that the rude ones contained epithets or curse words, as in: “If you don’t see the benefits of using nanotechnology in these kinds of products, you’re an idiot” and “You’re stupid if you’re not thinking of the risks for the fish and other plants and animals in water tainted with silver.”

The results were both surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.

In the civil group, those who initially did or did not support the technology — whom we identified with preliminary survey questions — continued to feel the same way after reading the comments. Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology.

Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought.

While it’s hard to quantify the distortional effects of such online nastiness, it’s bound to be quite substantial, particularly — and perhaps ironically — in the area of science news.

So why do people troll in a rude way?

Psychologists say that many Internet trolls are psychopaths, sadists and narcissists getting their jollies. It’s easy to underestimate how many of these types of sickos are out there: There are millions of sociopaths in the U.S. alone.

But intelligence agencies are also intentionally disrupting political discussion on the web, and ad hominen attacks, name-calling and divide-and-conquer tactics are all well-known, frequently-used disruption techniques.

Now you know why … flame wars polarize thinking, and stop the ability to focus on the actual topic and facts under discussion.

Indeed, this tactic is so effective that the same wiseguy may play both sides of the fight.

Postscript: Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to isolate the trolls and stop their disruption … if we just point out what they’re doing.

For example, I’ve found that posting something like this can be very effective:

Good Number 1!

Or this might be better if the troll is a sociopath:

Isn’t that kind of “entertainment” more appropriate elsewhere?

(include the link so people can see what you’re referring to.)

The reason this is effective is that other readers will learn about the specific disruption tactic being used … in context, like seeing wildlife while holding a wildlife guide, so that one learns what it looks like “in the field”. At the same time, you come across as humorous, light-hearted and smart … instead of heavy-handed or overly-intense.

Try it … it works.

[seemslikeadream]

The Art of Deception: Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations

[divideandconquer]

Assuming there are no professional trolls on board here--who knows?--it appears there is no need to employ the devices described in the Greenwald report. The somewhat narcissistic psychometrically intelligent EGOs posting here do a fine job all by themselves.

Again, that is, assuming there are no professional trolls posting here....

[brainpanhandler]

Assuming there are no professional trolls on board here--who knows?--it appears there is no need to employ the devices described in the Greenwald report. The somewhat narcissistic psychometrically intelligent EGOs posting here do a fine job all by themselves.

Again, that is, assuming there are no professional trolls posting here....

No. The tried and true divide and conquer strategy seems sufficient. Find the wedge issues. Inflame the personality wars. Suck up to the useful idiots and get them to do your dirty work. That sort of stuff. No cyber magicians with their magic decoder rings necessary.

[82_28]

Nordic, come on, bro. That was way out of line and could very well be the historic moment that RI has indeed jumped the proverbial shark. I'll ask one more time that the remaining members let bygones be bygones, let it be water under the bridge, don't light fire to the bridges, paint yourself into a corner and every other cheesy cliche there is.

I sure don't want to lose RI. But we are collectively "losing it". In fact we are losing ourselves. I shouldn't even give a fuck. Yet I do. So can we refrain from hateful and derogatory aspertions just for the fuck of it? Everyone involved, apologize and recognize the merit in the other. That's it. Simple.

[82_28]

Another thing and speaking for myself, I sure didn't sign on here some seven or so years ago for this. RI helped get me out of a deep depression and it was "go-to" as far as everything.

I do think that Jeff must begin doing something as we were all lured here as if moths to a flame. But we're all kind of like the babysitter or Mr. Mom while the person in question is "away" in some wacky 80's movie. Clean it up. Keep up contributions. Remember you'll always find an interesting friend here. As again, I sure have.

[JackRiddler]

I have found friends here, that is for sure.

[TheBlackSheep]

Assuming there are no professional trolls on board here--who knows?--it appears there is no need to employ the devices described in the Greenwald report. The somewhat narcissistic psychometrically intelligent EGOs posting here do a fine job all by themselves.

Again, that is, assuming there are no professional trolls posting here....

I see no reason why there couldn't be psyops on this website and others of its kind. If anything it would seem such assets in places like these would be valuable. The majority of the population is already tuned into the line of the mass media and doesn't need a lot of coercing to put them in line... If anything it would be in places like these that it would become most useful to create confusion... And it wouldn't be hard to do, because it's very likely that very few people if anyone really knows what is going on in world events... so if a conversation seemed to be veering in an undesired direction all that would be needed is to create an atmosphere of uncertainty... and besides that to forment conflict which distracts from constructive thought and action...

`This is not to say that it is certain that these psyop specialists are here, I'm just saying there is no real reason to rule it out... If anything, after I began looking into this sort of 'forbidden information', documentaries, news articles, etc... it seemed as though I had never encountered so much disinformation before (which was surely an illusion, of course) but I think it would be precisely in these kinds of places where people are attempting to genuinely figure out what is going on that it would be most useful to obscure the reality...

That being said, I think it would be to go down a very bad road if everyone became suspicious of one another or else started name calling etc, but we have to take into consideration that maybe those kinds of things are exactly what might be part of the plan, do you get what I mean?

To put it another way, in a thought experiment, imagine you are an intelligence agent for a government investigating some deep political issue. Would it not be the case that you begin wondering who might be working for whom? I think that's a classic scenario in such cases, and if it did move itself into the everyday interations (particular net interactions) I think it would be a natural result of the growth of the intelligence community leaking over into the sphere of civil society... these reasons among others are why we are against these kinds of growing intelligence tactics against civilians in the first place... that and because if the society became like a stasi secret police state we might find ourselves thrown in the clicker for saying the wrong things or appearing with the wrong people...

I'm not going to name any names for the reason I stated above, but I actually had wondered if there was one of these figures on this website already by the way they use these very typical mainstream arguements in favor of US policy... it's not necessarily the case, they might just genuinely support US policy, it just seemed strange I guess because of what it seems was the purpose of this forum, to investigate and discuss deep politics (I might be wrong on that?)... in any case, it all comes down to the rights of free speech... which by the way is the law that justifies the use of propaganda... I think it's valid personally... in truth I'm not really sure what to do about such a possible situation... but I don't think it's an impossibility that such figures exist here.


*** I just want to add as a qualification, though I was using the US as an example above, the US is definitely not the only country that does this, as Russia no doubt has a huge intelligence infrastructure as well, as do other countries... And also corporations have these kinds of information operations as well, here is a book that is directed to corporations detailing how this is done for anyone who needs a reference on the veracity of this claim:

http://www.amazon.com/Global-Informatio ... 0849311144

[divideandconquer]

I think it would be to go down a very bad road if everyone became suspicious of one another or else started name calling etc, but we have to take into consideration that maybe those kinds of things are exactly what might be part of the plan, do you get what I mean?

I think you nailed it. This "reveal" will make the job of the professional troll much easier because everyone posting on the Internet becomes a suspected troll. Divide and conquer at its best.

Having said that, I agree with the rest of your post as well. It's extraordinarily naive to think that forums such as RI doesn't register on the government's radar. RI may not have the traffic that places like godlikeproductions and/or ATS have, but RI's elevated level of debate and discourse is, in and of itself, in my humble opinion, enough to warrant establishing a few pros right from the start.

One more thing. I'm almost positive that forums such as godlikeproductions and ATS are connected to the government in some way, whereas, I really don't think that's true of RI at all. I came across ATS before I found RI, and over half of the threads I started there were deleted. Although, I have not started that many threads here, the one thread that I did start, both here and at ATS, was deleted immediately at ATS, but not here. I know it's only one thread, but still..

[TheBlackSheep]

I have had some strange experiences on certain sites/locales of the net, but I'm not entirely positive what to attribute them to. By that I mean it wasn't necessarily because of government/corporate influence.

Before I found this website I had posted some on the libcom.org website about the bilderberg group asking for opinions. The responses I got were pretty hostile and ultimately the thread I had created was deleted. It didn't really seem like a place conductive to open discussion so I decided not to use it.

A few years ago now I was interested in the occupy protests. I went and checked out these occupy live streams where there was some times footage of the protests and people talking about them. It was kind of random because I was just searching the net about the occupy movement as well as the livestream channels (in order to link myself there) and I clicked open a blog that was criticising the livestream mods that they had taken donations but not used them to help the protests, I think they accused them of using the funds to enhance the livestream chats (actually at the time I hadn't even read through the blog that much) but then I went into the livestreams and asked people if anyone had seen that blog or knew anything about it, this was being pretty unfamiliar with the occupy movement in general...

Anyway the reaction I got was really intense. immediately a bunch of mods came out accusing me of being a troll and even psyops... my messages got deleted and then I was blocked from typing on the streams... I went back again another day and told people what happened. At first the mods seemed concerned and asked me about it (there were a number of different servers for countries) and after a little while these UK mods all came in and they started accusing me of being psyops and calling me names, like 4 of them all at once flooding the chatroom with insults... I actually had very little clue at the time what that blog was I had found... It kind of freaked me out at the time, because I am definitely not a psyop ... again I'm not sure if that reaction was because that occupy stream was something suspicious or they legitimately thought I was a psyop... the way they reacted did seem a bit extreme, and I noticed later that the podcasts began to become little anti-corporate flash videos... I'm not a fan of corporate policy whatsoever but it did seem like it was an attempt at propaganda from the other side, and my biggest issue with that in general is that it takes away from intelligent discussion by implanting memes... I see that as a problem because it creates a dependency on someone medium telling you what to think rather than contemplating it and looking at the facts for yourself.

Anyone else have an experience like that? any ideas of what it was I had experienced there? The reason it freaked me out as well is because I am sometimes affraid with protests and other activist groups that they will try to create an atmosphere of groupthink among the adherents and ultimately use the atmosphere to control the actions of large crowds... Crowd psychology (/herd psychology if you want to look at it that way) is one of the oldest manipulative forces, formally theorized by Gustav Le Bon over a century ago and more a little later by Wilfred Trotter in his Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War.

I'm interested in hearing some other peoples takes on these things.



(For anyone intereted in the above. I think the original blog I had found was taken down, but I remember that it was connected with a username called Tavistoccupy, because I had googled the blog trying to find out who had written it and why after my experience. I just now was trying to see if I could find it again, but I couldn't. At the time I had actually not looked into conspiracy theory much, but I have now moreso... Anyway I was just googling tavistock and occupy movement and it seems as though there was a connection between the two of them. There is a blog that seems to be associated with the Tavistock Institute that says they were doing these Social Dreaming Events there:

http://socialdreamingeventstentcityuniv ... press.com/)


I appologise for going on so long, but these things kind of freak me out... because if in truth there was a connection between tavistock and the occupy protests, I know that Noam chomsky was an advocate of them, so I am now beginning to wonder what his role in such things might be...