Libya and the Passive Repeaters: Deploying Depleted Information Warheads

[Hannah Bell]

A video that in many ways corresponds with what I argued in “America’s Iranian Twitter Revolution,” the video below in part shows how the use of social media to make falsified versions of Libyan reality can go viral–radioactive–(re)producing an intellectually toxic swarm of passive repeaters.

Critical questions are like static, they interrupt the clarity of the message: dictator vs. revolutionaries, support the people, implement a no-fly zone right now.

But this is so patronizing, it denies “agency”–just like the agency of the consumer who must decide and then boldly act on which colour iPod™ to buy.

Have a look at The Guardian‘s “Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media: Military’s ‘sock puppet’ software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda.” The video has many rough edges, but some of the critical questions and points about propaganda deserve some consideration. Also check “‘Post-Qaddafi Libya’: on the Globalist Road,” “Who are the Libyan Freedom Fighters and Their Patrons?” “US-trained economist, Libyan rebels’ new finance minister,” and “New Libyan rebel leader spent much of past 20 years in suburban Virginia.” This one’s for the at-home massive, spreading the news like the radio-passive.

http://zeroanthropology.net/2011/03/27/libya-and-the-passive-repeaters-deploying-depleted-information-warheads/

[dipsydoodle]

1. Hardly surprising.

:(

I no longer attach any importance whatsoever to twitter reports.

[joshcryer]

2. Wait, Gaddafi banned social media, therefore any media made available must be suspect?

Is that the logic? :rofl:

[Hannah Bell]

3. maybe if you actually read the article before making irrelevant comments....

[joshcryer]

4. I am aware of Maximilian Forte's bullshit.

He criticized twitter in Iran because in the beginning most of the tweets were Iranian, but after it started many of them were English speakers or "not Iranian." This of course coincided with, naturally, Iran shutting access to twitter off from within the country.

[Hannah Bell]

6. The article isn't about iran, josh.

http://zeroanthropology.net/2011/03/27/libya-and-the-passive-repeaters-deploying-depleted-information-warheads/

[joshcryer]

7. Maximilian Forte is perpetuating the same nonsense, however.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[joshcryer]

9. Because it's a bullshit argument laced with innuendos and falsehoods.

It's all neatly packaged in one article (every single one of the past weeks bullshit).

To be honest I did consider letting the post die as so few would have cared about yet another random Libya bashing post, and it would've sunk neatly away, but that'd be intellectually dishonest of me, if I see something that's bullshit I must call it out.

[Hannah Bell]

11. Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

[joshcryer]

13. Relevance?

Are you calling me a spy sockpuppet?

[Hannah Bell]

15. it's from the article you supposedly read, josh. don't you recognize it?

touchy, touchy.

[joshcryer]

16. It's just curious why you'd chose that particular article to highlight.

There are plenty of innuendo laced articles linked on that page.

[Hannah Bell]

18. i'm curious why you're curious. because it's the first one listed in the article.

social media is directed at westerners, not libyans.

[joshcryer]

20. Westerners demand free information flow, social media exploits that.

Social media is best implemented without corporations running things (because they can then censor you indiscriminately or otherwise shut you down; they also rely on centralized control points which allow governments to shut you down, which is why the internet was even possible to be shut down in Libya).

Indeed, free information flow is something that all humans desire once they have a grasp on it, at least that's what Eben Moglan argues and I believe. Perhaps enjoy this article in your spare time: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Free_and_Open_Software:_Paradigm_for_a_New_Intellectual_Commons

And more importantly, this article, which illustrates why social media must be liberated and not controlled by corporations and governments: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2011/fosdem/moglen-fosdem-keynote.html

[Turborama]

23. If you read that article you'd see that software is talked about in the future tense & not English

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

=snip=

Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: "The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US."

He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Centcom said it was not targeting any US-based web sites, in English or any other language, and specifically said it was not targeting Facebook or Twitter.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

[Hannah Bell]

26. Right, they don't do anything similar now. Just decided to develop

software that would let them mass-produce sock puppets instead of having to pay real socks to do it "hand-made" as it were.

[Turborama]

28. "social media is directed at westerners, not libyans" - You misrepresented the article *you* posted

And what sort of comment was that, anyway?

Indonesia is the 2nd largest user of Facebook in the world.



http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/indonesia

http://www.checkfacebook.com/

[Hannah Bell]

29. i meant in the present conflict. as i thought was obvious.

[Gravel Democrat]

32. That article combined with this from Greenwald is interesting

Cass Sunstein is currently the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration

He's also the husband of Samantha Power. Samantha Power is currently a Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and runs the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights as Senior Director of Multilateral Affairs on the Staff of the National Security Council.



On Jan. 15, 2010 Glenn Greenwald had this to say about Cass Sunstein:

"...Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs."

In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper's abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585

Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups." He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging (on the ground that those who don't believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government).


"...Initially, note how similar Sunstein's proposal is to multiple, controversial stealth efforts by the Bush administration to secretly influence and shape our political debates. The Bush Pentagon employed teams of former Generals to pose as "independent analysts" in the media while secretly coordinating their talking points and messaging about wars and detention policies with the Pentagon..."

Much more here:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/15/sunstein

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x747477

Some people are getting played hard. It's not the first time...

Is Amanpour still married to the ex State Dept spokesperson? LOL

*******


http://costofwar.com

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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

[Turborama]

10. Conspiracy theory nonsense. This treats Libyans as if they're too primitive to know how to use VPN

tunnelling and proxies. How patronizing is that? I'd go as far to say it has hints of racism.

A good example of how very wrong this is is the excellent work Mo carried out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38EXALI60hg

http://www.livestream.com/libya17feb

As for that site. I've never seen so much pseudo-intellectual psychobabble in one place before.

ETA The videos that were/are being filmed on cell phones in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and now Syria have probably been sent via email to out of country friends who put them on Facebook and YouTube for them.

[joshcryer]

12. I have no doubt that the vast majority of tweets are from expats or people not inside Libya.

The internet was cut off over a month ago, the entire internet, poof. Only people with satellite equipment could get messages out, most messages were related through cell phone networks within Libya (no idea why those weren't cut either, maybe not set up for it, dunno). edit: which Mo and his crew used and continue to use to get messages out.

But that only stresses the point, it underlines it completely. The idea is that if a tyrant cuts off your internet and you lose social media, then anyone who supports you or repeats what you say in other channels is suspect. It's a rather reviling concept, to be sure.

[Hannah Bell]

21. you have been talking up khaddafi manipulating media day & night,

but somehow the suggestion that western military & governments might be doing the same damn thing is anathema to you. why is that?

there is no war, none, in which the US military & government did not use both overt & covert propaganda channels to get the people on board. none. but we're supposed to believe they're not doing it in each new intervention.

bullshit. they're doing it. and next week, next month, next year, we're going to learn more about the details.

i am posting to counter the steady stream of pap you're posting.

[joshcryer]

25. Nah, let's imagine we had a totally free media outlet, no corporate control, everyone gets access.

The military would be totally free to try to exploit it with "mind control" apparatuses. I am a free thinking individual and I believe that I am able to sift through it and chose what is true or not. Ultimately it hinges on webs of trust, and I have created my own web of trust which has only failed me twice, in a month. Twice I posted mistaken or retracted information (jet crashing, sirt falling). Both had truth to them, they weren't "all wrong." Given that I go through hundreds of reports a day, it is astonishing that it's only been "twice." Astonishing, even to me.

[Hannah Bell]

14. it's a twofer. the conspiracy card & the patronizing/racism card.

you win the "how many logical fallacies can i inject into the debate" prize for tonight!

[howard112211]

17. Ain't that the truth. "The anti-war people are racists." The newest brilliant talking point.

[Turborama]

27. I didn't say "The anti-war people are racists". I said the video "has hints of racism"

Nice attempt to use a non sequitur to try and play the victim card, but fail.

[Turborama]

19. I'm calling out this racist conspiracy theory and all you can do is come back with a juvenile prize?

They're not logical fallacies just because you say so.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence who watches http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7vGoXaLHxs">that video and looks at http://www.youtube.com/user/myopiaa">the channel it came from will see.

[joshcryer]

22. The comments are the most telling, the type of people that are attracted to this line of thought.

However, that is not saying much as YouTube comments are hardly aspirational.

[Hannah Bell]

24. spell it out turbo.

i've been waiting, turbo, spell out your insinuations.

if you aren't willing to be explicit, why do you insinuate?

[Hannah Bell]

34. not willing to be explicit, i see.

[Hannah Bell]

30. juvenile. second time tonight i am accused of a lack of maturity.

is it a talking point.

no, they're not logical fallacies because i say they are, but because they are.

[Turborama]

31. They're not logical fallacies just because you said it again

Or another million times.

If you can argue why they are logical fallacies you may have a point. But until then it's just a specious throw away phrase.

As for the "juvenile prize" comment, it was my idea, and my idea alone.

If someone else attacked you personally and called you immature in another conversation it has nothing whatsoever to do with me.

[Catherina]

33. Rec'd in full agreement. That's the main reason I stopped doing those threads

Shit didn't add up at all.

[bvar22]

35. Recced....UP to +1.

:patriot: