Reporting on Russia’s Troll Army, Western Media Forget West’s Much Bigger, Sophisticated Troll Army

[eridani]

http://fair.org/home/reporting-on-russias-troll-army-western-media-forget-wests-much-bigger-sophisticated-troll-army/

f this appears to be a coordinated messaging effort on behalf of a US military psychological operation, that’s because it almost certainly is. On cue, despite the anonymous sourcing, and the utter staleness of the “revelation” in question, the media uncritically ran with the US government-backed report. In all these stories, however, the rather glaring fact that the US has a long-documented history of manipulating social media is not mentioned once. In fact, the Pentagon’s efforts alone–to say nothing of other US intelligence agencies or other NATO nation states–spent at least 200 times more than Russia, according to the last available figures (Guardian, 3/17/11):

Revealed: US Spy Operation That Manipulates Social Media

The multiple persona contract is thought to have been awarded as part of a program called Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), which was first developed in Iraq as a psychological warfare weapon against the online presence of Al Qaeda supporters and others ranged against coalition forces. Since then, OEV is reported to have expanded into a $200m programI.

[djean111]

1. Everything is okay - if we do it. nt