We’ve long reported that the government
censors and manipulates social media. More proof
here.
New Edward Snowden documents confirm that Britain’s spy agency is doing so.
As Glenn Greenwald
writes today:
One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how
western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction.
***
These agencies are
attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself. Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to
inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to
use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “
false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else),
fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and
posting “negative information” on various forums.
***
Critically, the “targets” for this deceit and reputation-destruction extend far beyond the customary roster of normal spycraft: hostile nations and their leaders, military agencies, and intelligence services. In fact, the discussion of many of these techniques occurs in the context of using them in lieu of “traditional law enforcement”
against people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of ordinary crimes or, more broadly still, “hacktivism”, meaning those who use online protest activity for political ends.
The title page of one of these documents reflects the agency’s own awareness that it is “pushing the boundaries” by using “cyber offensive” techniques against people who have
nothing to do with terrorism or national security threats, and indeed, centrally involves law enforcement agents who investigate ordinary crimes….
