Disinfo/Misinfo/"PR" as a Service

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Haven't seen a thread that's touched on this specifically yet, though many of the threads here implicitly reference this topic. The letter agencies' increasingly pervasive involvement/management of 'news' in the media (via compromised 'journalists'/'grassroots' organizations/social media 'influencers', etc.) may be well known in certain circles, but this M.O. isn't limited to govt agencies alone. Consulting/PR firms are also heavily involved in this trade, and below is but one example, as reported by -- the irony is rich -- the NY Times.

(full disclosure: I'm very familiar with the firm in question, given my 'day job' area of depth)

Here's a snippet of the article, and in particular, the descriptions of certain trolling profiles/tactics utilized to influence reactions/sentiment.

Excerpt:

‘Susan,’ the fake Facebook user

Within FTI, a group called StratCom, short for Strategic Communications, focuses on industry messaging campaigns. In the United States, the group is led by Brian Kennedy, former press secretary for the office of the House minority leader and a former spokesman for Transocean, the drilling contractor involved in the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The StratCom group studied environmental protesters on behalf of the driller Apache Energy. Apache was seeking to drill near Balmorhea State Park in Texas and was concerned that protesters were planning camps similar to those set up to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline, according to two people with direct knowledge of the work.

One FTI document prepared for Apache, dated Jan. 25, 2017, included a link to a list of groceries and camp supplies compiled by organizers, which the document said provided a hint of the proposed camp’s size.

The fictitious Facebook profile — of a Texas woman named Susan McDonald who likes ice cream, the movie “Annie” and her local farmers’ market — was also intended to help FTI keep tabs on activists, former FTI employees said. The “friends” list on the fake profile, which remained present on Facebook as of Wednesday, includes one current and one former FTI employee.

Mr. Bashalany of FTI said, “A Facebook profile was created by a former employee to monitor social media anonymously. This was wrong, and it is against our policy.”

Apache declined to comment on the substance of the reporting.

StratCom employees also studied and developed strategies designed to influence public discourse, according to five former employees. An internal document dated Nov. 20, 2015, laid out various techniques. The “Semantic Nitpicker,” the document explained, “asks an endless series of questions.” The “Dog Typing on a Keyboard” uses “very poor grammar, spelling and punctuation and posts frequently to clutter up the thread and make it hard to read.”

A successful effort, the document advised, might use several commenters, “each with an assigned role.”

Mr. Bashalany said senior managers were never aware of the document and it “never informed any activities or approaches to social or digital media engagement of any kind.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/clim ... ticleShare

[JackRiddler]

Thanks!

Now let's decide what each of us are.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Ha! I see myself incorporating more than one of the 'archetypes', in turns. Dog Typing on a Keyboard is how I sometimes consider my output.

Some of them have canny accuracy across platforms, eh.

[JackRiddler]

Since you're obviously not dog typing on keyboard, not as described, and since you know you're not, what are you really? What move did you just make?

By the way, I, of course, am the original Negative Commenter that all these disinfo artists rush to triple tag-team. Mwa ha ha! (Hey, how come we don't have devil smiley?)

[Belligerent Savant]

.

I don't see an archetype that includes a penchant for smarmy sarcasm, but in lieu of that, I'll say I hover between 'Semantic Nitpicker' and perhaps a 'more-sober Conspiracy Theorist Uncle'.

a variation of 'Skeptical Capitalist' was in play in the past, when there was suspicion that a (former) handle or two were operating under false pretenses.

.

[JackRiddler]

One indicator of RI's quality has been how little we've had of "Confused Time Traveler." I hate that one, for just cause as well as from the gut.

[dada]

Seeing a video of Bev Harris on voting booth hacking and a discussion of professional trolls has me time travelling back to around 2004. Although these were hot topics on the left then, now it's from the right, go figure.

Not that I'm a confused time traveller, I'm not confused. And these topics may have already been addressed, but they were never solved.

Kind of doubt they ever will. Give it another fifteen years, it will all be new again.

[Belligerent Savant]

.
How is the topic of this OP "from the right"?
It was sourced from the NYTimes.

(activating my 'derailleur' archetype here -- but a pertinent question, in this instance)
.

[JackRiddler]

.
How is the topic of this OP "from the right"?
It was sourced from the NYTimes.

(activating my 'derailleur' archetype here -- but a pertinent question, regardless)
.

If I may speak for him in this one case, dada means that the potential for vote fraud by electronic machine was a subject on the left but has now become one for the right.

Sort of like fucking everything we do here, to exaggerate. A familiar pattern, anyway, even if not always the case. Implausible hegemonic narratives about suspicious events are attacked from the left (often enough). A good case is often built but labeled "conspiracy theory." This gets the liberal blockade and online war of attrition going. Under pressure from the hegemonic treatment of anything going against what the establishment claims, there's a decay in these contrary narratives until they are left to the binary-world of the right wing and presented in forms that increasingly confirm the "conspiracy theory" labeling. Happened with 9/11, too.

So everyone knew what was possible with the machines, and countless hack tests (and that HBO documentary) demonstrated it, but it remained in limbo even as it may have been helping out the likes of Bush, e.g. via O'Dell's company in Ohio. This stuff isn't talked about in respectable company. Later Bush's former supporters take it up as a cartoon narrative to explain the mystery (to them) that Trump though popular somehow didn't get a plurality in enough states (even though the key ones in this case are under Republican control). And so the whole damn thing about how you can't trust privately-owned machines with opaque software is now discredited, and if you talk about it you are an idiot helping Trump, even though everyone knows what is possible with the machines... (repeat the last few lines ad infinitum). Just trust the authorities, okay?

.
.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Resoundingly, YES. Agreed on all of the above, and I was able to track the 'voter fraud' part, but the second piece, in bold below, is what confused me a bit:

dada: Seeing a video of Bev Harris on voting booth hacking and a discussion of professional trolls has me time travelling back to around 2004. Although these were hot topics on the left then, now it's from the right, go figure.

This suggests the OP topic is coming from a 'right' position (or at least whatever currently passes for 'right' talking points today), when in fact, the article was authored from a distinctly 'left-ward' position; the consulting firm referenced in the article was essentially being 'outed' for providing PR/misinfo campaigns on behalf of corps in the oil industry.

[dada]

Thanks, Jack, that was good.

That the above article came from the NYTimes is of no consequence to me. The Times may be a left-leaning journal to you. To me it's more a crossword puzzle inside a high end fashion catalogue.

As a pressman, I have to admire the hardcopy paper. Nice printwork, pictures look great.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Actually, you're wrong: I wouldn't characterize the NYTimes as a "left-leaning journal" though I would characterize it as one of the more blatant mouthpieces for State/letter agency propaganda.

You still haven't clarified how you believe the OP constitutes a "right"-leaning position.

[Harvey]

Seeing a video of Bev Harris on voting booth hacking and a discussion of professional trolls has me time travelling back to around 2004. Although these were hot topics on the left then, now it's from the right, go figure.

The above is indicating that most of the concern about vote rigging is being expressed from the right today, rather than as it was circa 2004 when it was mostly from the left. It seems clear to me the reference being made is self contained in that paragraph, not toward the OP.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Yes, i get the vote rigging part (then compared to now, etc), but the bit about 'professional trolls' was interpreted, by me, as a reference to the OP article, which i don't see as a 'right-leaning' topic.

Perhaps i misinterpreted. Vote rigging isn't the topic of this thread, in any event.

[dada]

Maybe 'of no consequence' was too strong.

To me, it is of little consequence. Of consequentiality, there is not so much.

The quality of consequence which the matter possesses, is low.