At least the Canadian Govt. has the stones to admit it.

[TalkingDog]

http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100523/government-online-forums-100523/20100523/?hub=OttawaHome


The next time you post an opinion in an online forum or a Facebook group message board, don't be surprised if you get a rebuttal from a federal employee.

The government is looking for ways to monitor online chatter about political issues and correct what it perceives as misinformation.

The move started recently with a pilot project on the East Coast seal hunt. A Toronto-based company called Social Media Group has been hired to help counter some information put forward by the anti-sealing movement.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has paid the firm $75,000 "to monitor social activity and help identify ... areas where misinformation is being presented and repeated as fact," Simone MacAndrew, a department spokesperson, said in an email.


/snip

So who would be surprised to find that our government does this too......anybody?

[Yeahyeah]

1. Mountie Mike

[TalkingDog]

4. You must have lurked for a while to know about our friend "Mike"

I didn't realize he was a multi-national....

Welcome to DU Yeahyeah

[dgibby]

2. Not only wouldn't I be surprised,

I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's happening right here on DU.


Edited for clarity.

[PufPuf23]

5. I am sure that at DU and other forums federal /military /intelligence /political /business

operatives have been active.

I believe there are deliberate "honeypots" from personal experience.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[btrflykng9]

6. wait...

let me prepare my shocked and surprised face.

[TalkingDog]

7. ha!

Welcome to DU btrflykng9!

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Go2Peace]

9. We have a close to 1 BILLION $$ budget for "non-defense" Propaganda

what exactly are we spending it on?

http://mediacitizen.blogspot.com/2006/02/bush-budget-pu...

And that is just the non-military budget.

[treestar]

10. Why should the government not be allowed to explain its side?

It's as if some people believe the government is inherently evil. Like Libertarians.

The government would have as much freedom of speech as anyone else.

If they are not using info against anyone (how can they on anonymous message boards) I would say they have the same right to use the web as anyone else.

[TalkingDog]

13. Well, there's a problem with that.

Actually a really HUGE problem. It's called propaganda and it's considered highly unethical.

You see, my opinion is mine. Nobody is forcing me to hold it. Nobody is threatening my life or my livelihood if I don't say what the government wants me to say. Also, I'm not being bribed with taxpayer money to promote a position that the taxpayers may or may not agree with.

When GW Bush gave money to various news paper columnists so that the value Administration's agenda could be validated by a "neutral" party or "authority", the squalling on this board was something to behold.

Human psychology being what it is, people will allow the position of an authority or authorities to sway their opinion (think Rush Limbaugh). If those who are trying to do the convincing are up front about who they are and where the funding is coming from, I have no issue with them pushing their agenda. But to use taxpayer money to strong arm others into silence, to stifle dissent, to create a hostile environment for those with views that don't align with the majority, that kind of behavior has no place in a Democracy.

If the government want to promote their agenda, they should have no problem revealing who they are, who is paying for their ability to proselytize and what they hope to gain from it.

I would suggest you do a little exploration of the history and (mis)uses of propaganda. Then you may just reconsider what you have said.

[laughingliberal]

15. Perfectly explained. nt

[Echo In Light]

20. +1 ... it's obvious that The 'Trivializers' will be out full tilt re this subject

[applegrove]

11. The NRA certainly monitors internet talk on guns and then they show up in big numbers whenever there

is discussion on gun control. Surely these cannot be the only two groups 'topic mining' on the internets.

[TalkingDog]

14. I wrote a blog-entry on a recipe I created and made passing mention of teflon

in a negative light. (not fond of it...too many iffy reports on how much of that stuff ends up in your food)

Now, I don't blog for fame and fortune. It's a way to share info with friends and family. I've got, what...2 subscribers?

So about a week after I posted the recipe, I get a comment on that particular post. The guy worked for DuPont (is that right, DuPont makes teflon?) I think....anyway, his IP was out of London. I'm in NC USA.

He provided "corrections" to my "misconceptions" about Teflon.

I didn't block the post, cause that's not the point. Instead I thanked him for his comments and recommended that my vast readership research for themselves and make their own decision.


It was bizarre. And a little scary. There was no reason for my blog to show up anywhere on anybody's radar unless they had bots out scanning for the word teflon.

[Confusious]

17. or they were doing a search for teflon

It does show up in google, you know.

[TalkingDog]

18. Wow....that is just so outrageously ludicrous, I am rendered speechless.

Why would someone who admitted working for the Company that Mfg Teflon be doing a Google search for it? He should have the facts at hand.


And in the literally millions of pages with the word teflon used in the text body mine would have to show up somewhere around 999,999. It wasn't used as a keyword, a tag or in any other way, other than a passing mention in the post.

I'll tell you what, I will give you 100 dollars if you can find my original post using the word teflon in Google search engine. Crap,I'll go for broke. I have a thousand dollars in mad money at my house. You can have it all, if you bring me the post.




You either didn't read my post or you are trolling or you need to learn to think critically.

[Confusious]

24. I did a google search

blog teflon

http://www.momsbudget.com/blog/how-safe-are-your-teflon-pots-and-pans/

Looks like someone from dupont made a post.

took all of 30 seconds.

Have a nice day.

P.S. I could think of a bunch of reasons they would be doing a search for Teflon. One is to check what people are saying, two to check on the competition, since how slick things are are usually compared to Teflon. One I found was a carbon compound which they compared to Teflon.

Just because you lack imagination about why they would do a search for teflon doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

[applegrove]

25. Yup. The bots. Imagine how many millions and millions of bots it takes to monitor the internet.

Pretty weird what happened to you but I've dealt with it with the NRA types. I wonder if we could lure an NRA type here with these posts. NRA NRA NRA NRA NRA LOL!

[ShamelessHussy]

12. The ability to monitor and influence people online has given Big Bro a major woody

you would have to be very naive to think they don't take advantage of it, or perhaps working for the man to argue that our Gov doesn't exploit that capability.

however, like most tech, it is certainly a double edged sword :evilgrin:

[jp11]

16. With all the misinformation from both sides I have no problem with people/companies/govt attempting

to clear up the misconceptions so long as it follows the 'normal' format that any regular person would use to respond to an item.

[TalkingDog]

19. I disagree on one point.

Seeing as they (corporations/governments and even some people) have unlimited resources, human and computing power, along with unlimited time and a vested interest in the outcome, they should not be able to be anonymous the way any "regular" person is.

I can't stay up 24/7 and hire hundreds of thousands of friends to use my unlimited computers and unlimited bandwidth to promote me and my agenda. If I could do all that, I'd really be Queen of the Fucking Universe. And not just in my head, like now.

The Government is not a person. Corporations are not people. They are a literal Army of Goliaths to my single David. Except, as David, I don't know how to use a sling, I don't have any rocks and I'm waist deep in the Big Muddy.

I can't believe the number of people who think that, somehow, a guy in an office building with the weight and might of the most powerful entity in the world behind them is ONLY equal to somebody like me: unemployed using a 10 year old laptop I bought at Goodwill via dial-up.

Frankly, that's fucking ridiculous.


Obviously it's time for this sign:

[jp11]

21. I look at it from the point that whomever puts up information or opinions and people who are

literate and curious then check those sources against the 'other side'. I wasn't writing about an army of pr bots or the like spamming posts in the guise of the average joe, or some other nefarious plague of misinformation that kind of crap is so one sided you'd have to be watching a TV for the benefits to outweigh the costs associated with it and the aspect of not having a way to verify or combat it on the other side. Can it happen sure, but on a medium like the internet it is only a search engine, click away to verify information or search out counter ideas, but you actually have to do that.

People/bots, spouting propaganda on sites are usually found out because of their one dimensional 'beliefs' and inability to argue or discuss other topics, as they are wherever they are with an agenda.

Say what you want I still believe in privacy, not that it matters because hardly anyone else does, you can combat the 'wave' of propaganda you write about from the administrator's level without compromising it. When a situation like the horde of propaganda that you write about happens it isn't that hard for the administration/owners of a site/service to determine that a huge volume of traffic comes from one or few sources, or that all the accounts are from the same location. Typically in that instance it is an attack, denial of service etc, and the horde you speak of would be exactly that. I'm for the free expression of ideas, and sides, when people get things wrong on the Internet it is easy to keep posting the same thing to like minded people until someone decides to check out the facts and find out something is wrong or has changed. Plenty of people speak/write as if they have knowledge or mastery of subjects and don't actually list sources that back up what they are saying.

[TalkingDog]

23. We agree on at least one point: If you are a human being, espousing your own opinion

you should be able to do that with safety. Whether that means anonymously or via 1st Amendment.

It seems your perception of this is limited to shills and spambots. Read up on Psy-Ops, paying particular attention to the lessons on how group cohesion (as a whole or on one particular subject) can be undermined by one or two people playing one side off the other. The "operatives" don't have to provide information, knowledge or even an opinion. All they have to do is watch to see who fights with whom, who sides with whom in those fights and wait for an opportunity to set them against each other.

Back in the Stone Ages, prior to the Internet, these same techniques were used in populist groups, peace groups, labor groups. The difference here is in a group of living people you can't change your name and avatar. You have to be much more subtle and patient in order to undermine a group.

Now, it's as simple as 5 guys with 2 poster IDs each.

If you think finding out the truth about a subject is as simple as "someone decides to check out the facts and find out something is wrong." look over these links. Let me put it to you this way: Everything you know is wrong.

This one reposted from above: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6947532.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

And from the Wikipedia entry on propaganda in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_the_United_States

Agence France Presse reported on U.S. propaganda campaigns that:
The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations. <17>
Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the document referred to, which is titled "Information Operations Roadmap." <15><17> The document acknowledges the Smith-Mundt Act, but fails to offer any way of limiting the effect PSYOP programs have on domestic audiences.<13><14><18>
Several incidents in 2003 were documented by Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, which he saw as information-warfare campaigns that were intended for "foreign populations and the American public." Truth from These Podia,<19> as the treatise was called, reported that the way the Iraq war was fought resembled a political campaign, stressing the message instead of the truth.<15>


No, I'm not paranoid. I don't think everybody is dicking around with my reading material or information. But I do know that a lot of people are paid to GENERALLY influence ideas and movements. If people want to be sheep and think that the wolves are "out there" or "easy to spot", fine. I'm not a sheep. I'm a human. And humans are complex and dangerous things. And you can't really ever tell the good ones from the not so good ones.


Constructive Criticism: use punctuation. Run on sentences are difficult to read and make your intent less than clear. Divide your ideas up into paragraphs. Make each paragraph cohesive and understandable based on the paragraph prior to it.

It takes more time, yes. But frankly I can't grasp half of what you are trying to get across with all the verbal flailing you are doing.

[ShamelessHussy]

22. well, they tend to misrepresent themselves, and i'd prefer to have them not waste my tax money blogg

or hiring someone else to do it for them undercover.

i'd rather have discussions with real people, not paid shills.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

26. If the poster ADMITS being a paid spokesperson, I'm OK with it.

It's astroturfing that irks me.