There’s plenty of disinformation out there, from plenty of sources. Often it is aimed at particular demographic groups. Vietnam Veterans of America became concerned about disinformation targeted at veterans and went to the Veterans Affairs and Defense Departments to ask for help. They didn’t get any. VVA has since prepared a detailed report and testified to Congress.
Kristofer Goldsmith has done much of the organization’s investigating. An in-depth portrait of him here.
Facebook pages, Twitter and Instagram accounts, have spread memes and political commentary in the veteran community, often pro-Trump and championing veterans and denigrating liberals and minorities. Some of the accounts counterfeit the look of authentic veterans’ groups like VVA.
For instance, the Russian Internet Research Agency — a troll factory with Kremlin ties and the target of U.S. indictments and cyberattacks — bought at least 113 online ads aimed at U.S. veterans and followers of veterans advocacy groups during and after the 2016 election, according to VVA’s report.
Many pages are operated from Asia and Eastern Europe, and some even have Iranian ties, Goldsmith said. One popular page created in the United States — “Vets for Trump” — was hijacked by an administrator in North Macedonia.
…
One page, “Being Patriotic,” was cited in former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation as a product of the Internet Research Agency. It amassed 200,000 fans at one point, the Mueller report found. But other pages, like one focused on veterans but run from Vietnam, shared identical memes created by the IRA but with the page title cropped out.
One of the objectives seems to be to whitewash Russian and Chinese behavior to convince veterans that Russia didn’t interfere in the 2016 elections, for example. Or that ISIS was threatening military families in America.
It appears that the federal agencies don’t have any plans or programs in place to help veterans deal with this targeting.
The material targeted at veterans carries many of the same messages as other disinformation for other groups. The targeting makes it more plausible, focusing on the group’s special concerns and vulnerabilities. Other groups are targeted for their concerns and vulnerabilities.
The Washington Post article and the deep dive on Goldsmith are both worth reading. If you’re interested in how disinformation works, take a look at the report. Their focus is on veterans, but it’s relevant for all of us.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
satby
Important stuff. I see so many people reflexively sharing stuff without realizing they’re sharing propaganda.
Just Chuck
The VERY FIRST THING that the Trump administration did was to shut down the office of cyber-security. They have a plan all right, and that plan is to facilitate this targeting.
NotMax
Presumably niche marketing attempting to create a snowball effect as only around 7 or 8 percent of the population are veterans and of those only a fraction regularly clicks on those online services.
*Have no hard numbers but would hazard a guess of 50-60%.
NotMax
@NotMax
Left out the important asterisk. Fix.
Presumably niche marketing attempting to create a snowball effect as only around 7 or 8 percent of the population are veterans and of those only a fraction* regularly clicks on those online services.
*Have no hard numbers but would hazard a guess of 50-60%.
schrodingers_cat
@Just Chuck: It could be worse. BJP has a fucking IT cell that creates and disseminates propaganda.
trollhattan
@Just Chuck:
Their equivalent of Bush Jr. shutting down the Bin Laden desk. Wonder how that turned out?
Anonymous At Work
@Just Chuck: Pretty sure the plan is “order federal agencies to ignore the issue” rather than actively encourage. “Actively encourage” means emails, memos, meetings, etc. for others to discover. “Just ignore it” is a command that can be given over the phone.
Baud
Learned the hard way that the same problem exists when it comes to ads for penile enhamcemeen creams. Buyer beware!
A Ghost To Most
If you are on Facebook, everything else is just frosting on a shit cake.
MattF
@Baud: I detect a pun.
Baud
@Baud:
Fucking autocorrect.
enhamcemeen = enhancement
Cheryl Rofer
@NotMax: The thing is, there are probably disinformation campaigns targeted at many slices and dices of the population. Men, women, people of color, hobbyists, all the political persuasions, you name it. Understanding how they target veterans means understanding how they target others as well.
Betty Cracker
Honestly, I don’t know how we can address disinformation campaigns until we confront the root of the problem, which is people’s gullibility. Obviously, the feds should counter foreign disinformation campaigns post-Trump. Facebook should be broken up and its media and advertising platforms regulated to stop it from disseminating lies for profit, IMO. But I’m afraid the toothpaste is out of the tube to some extent. Seems like as long as people idiotically retweet, like and share bullshit from sketchy sources, we’ll have this problem.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Sure it does. A likely story. We know what you really meant.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: Russia is playing the long game, and thanks to the dumpster, our government is picking the lint out of its collective navel.
So infuriating.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Fuck, people here go apeshit over unconfirmed and later debunked shit on Twitter every fucking day. And, as a general rule we are the smart, savvy people.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s exactly what makes it so discouraging here at times.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Fell for and shared something bogus myself yesterday: the “DiFi is first Dem to say she may vote to acquit” bullshit. In my defense, the source was the LA Times, and DiFi really did say something stupid, but the headline wasn’t accurate. Lesson: wait five minutes.
Mr. Mack
@Betty Cracker: I’m clumsily paraphrasing here…but I think the old joke about how do you eat an elephant with a spoon…one bite at a time applies to this, as the problem seems so large and often hopeless. My only consolation is that I have to believe that the whole array of social media platforms are still in their infancy, so to speak. We will either learn how to properly compartmentalize what we read there and or it will tear us apart. Have you ever heard of Better Angels?
MattF
And then there’s the Liar-In-Chief. He will attack anyone who tries to expose his lies. His attack will be on the schoolyard-bully level– more sophisticated liars applaud because it primes the pump.
trnc
DT takes credit at rallies for veteran bills signed by Obama. Of course he won’t help stop the spread of misinformation. He’s ground zero for misinformation campaigns.
Betty Cracker
Well, look who just came out with a plan for that:
Betty Cracker
@Mr. Mack: I have not heard of an organization by that name.
The Dangerman
@Baud:
Wouldn’t that be the not hard way?
Also, um, have a link? Nothing ventured, um, nothing gained.
Mike J
Look at what happened all over twitter and even right here with the bullshit DiFi will aquit story and then an hour later with the bullshit Biden won’t back Bernie story.
Cheryl Rofer
@Betty Cracker: Which is why I keep posting on Balloon Juice. Everyone needs to know what is going on, so that they know better than to retweet or share everything that comes their way.
My own policy is not to retweet or share unless I know that the source is safe.
There’s more to it than that, and I’ve got a post in preparation that goes into more detail.
MattF
And another thing… disinformation is a basic strategy in advertising. Note, e.g., Ring– a company that sells ‘Internet-of-Things’ doorbells, that it claims enhance your privacy and security. Umm…
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/ring-doorbell-app-packed-third-party-trackers
Oopsie.
Baud
@Mike J:
I thankfully missed that one. I remember the Hillary won’t back Bernie saga.
Cheryl Rofer
@WaterGirl: It’s not just Russia. Adam gave a long list of countries a week or so ago. I won’t remember them all for this list, but Iran, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and a great many freelancers are doing this.
Kay
Ethical leadership. It’s old fashioned and no longer admired but we really could have it. We could raise the bar instead of chasing Trump to the bottom. Big risk but big reward.
Baud
@Kay:
Warren doesn’t name names, but she’s clearly calling out Klobuchar.
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
These uses (misuses) of the platform afforded by the internet and 24/7 connectivity are still relatively recent. While there will always be some part of audience infused with gullibility, one holds out hope for reason to outstrip technological innovation (not saying it will be the case in time for this year’s election, though) and the law of diminishing returns for the tactics of disinformation employed kicks in to relegate such disseminations to being a fringe, if chronic, irritant.
Kay
Not that it matters in the Age of Trump, but Bloomberg flat out lied when he said the media company he owns wouldn’t cover the primary.
They really have this shocking sense of entitlement, rich people. The rules don’t apply. They need to all go off to some luxe resort and figure out when they all became huge liars with no ethical grounding of any kind. Just contemplate why they’re so bad and if there’s any hope for rehabilitation.
Cheryl Rofer
@NotMax: You are more optimistic than I am. But the individual solution seems simple: Just recall the cartoon about “Nobody knows you’re a dog on the internet.”
Mr. Mack
@Betty Cracker: A friend of mine recommended me to that group. Locally, it is in part headed up by former friends/acquaintances from the SPLC. So I went to a workshop, and I joined but haven’t been back to a meeting or workshop since. That’s mostly because they are always in Nashville, and it is often difficult for me to lose and entire day to stuff like that. (Hell I don’t get to play disc golf much anymore)
Anyway, the idea is to see if we can get Lefties/Righties to learn to talk to each other. The workshop I attended was fascinating. There are an equal number of people on each side. The first exercise had us in a room with those we agree with…in my case, the Left. We were tasked with listing five things we disliked about the other side. I’m drastically over simplifying…but in the end, our responses were almost entirely issue driven, and the Righties’ list was essentially all about how they felt attacked. They really don’t see their positions as say, racist, or misogynistic.
I know it all sounds like a cross between Festivus and drum circles and the like, but it was worthwhile and I’m not inclined to mock a process that seeks to help us all keep talking. It’s work.
I HAVE to keep from hating.
Mary G
I have learned the hard way that I am vulnerable to this kind of stuff, so I am trying to supress my reactions and look for second sources before reacting. Doesn’t always work, for example with Feinstein yesterday (still unhappy with the “still my view” remark.)
Betty’s right, though, at some point it’s up to voters to get more serious and pay attention.
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
Never once having been to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or the like helps.
;)
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Confirmation bias is a hellova drug. Today, any belief can be buttressed with “facts” easily. Back in the day if you hated Cronkite you were counting on Brinkley to tell you you’re right.
satby
@Baud: my daily announcement that I ? you
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I’ve never bought into the Minnesota Nice.
MattF
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I lived in Minnesota for two years, and almost everyone I met there was nice and smart. Unfortunately, I was working for one of the exceptions.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MattF: You worked for Klobuchar?
MattF
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Worse.
wjs
I know this is anecdotal at best but there used to be a really informative vets group on Facebook – opposed to the GOP, pro-reform, etc. and it went completely bonkers and disappeared, circa 2017. Probably not by accident.
WaterGirl
@NotMax:
I would swear that I see you here on Balloon Juice almost every day. :-) You may not be going directly to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, but it’s like second-hand smoke, only for social media. It’s everywhere on Balloon Juice.
chopper
@Mike J:
“trust but verify” may be a reaganism but it isn’t a bad rule when it comes to stories you read in the papers.
Ruckus
@Baud:
You know you can set autocorrect to notify you of an error, without having it replace the word, don’t you?
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
You want to eliminate or at least minimize human gullibility?
Isn’t there a reason conmen have been able to con people since there were two of them? And it’s gullibility. It’s almost like it’s a built in trait….
Of course education and minimizing misinformation goes a long way to fix this.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
Fix this, and you break consumer capitalism. Or badly damage it at least.
Not a bad thing, but it would be a big deal. Agreed that it’s necessary.
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
The way I deal with new information is to immediately mentally assign it an estimated probability of being true (itself with a +/-). This reduces the effect of many biases including confirmation bias, and over time one gets much better at it.
Then do some quick digging. Single root sources are always more suspect. (There are lists of reliability of news providers; haven’t incorporated that yet.)
Looking forward to reading about your approaches.
lurker dean
wow. i had heard of this but didn’t realize it’s so bad. f-k, we really need to get these a-holes out of office so we can get some people to deal with this stuff.
J R in WV
@NotMax:
I think it is safe to look at animal pictures on the Twitter. I never signed up for Twit, nor Facebook, nor many other sites. I get geology updates via email, there are rarely somewhat political slogans attached to those emails… I know to ignore those based upon their stupidity.
Chris Johnson
All this is both new and not-new. Back in the WWII days, radio was new. And it was used in just the same way, on purpose even, and we know who did it (lots of people recognize the name Goebbels).
I think it’s the novelty factor that takes away people’s resistance to doubt. Something like Facebook or Twitter starts to seem like a window onto ‘all people’, but it can be totally micromanaged and subverted in an automated way (and is). I treat my accounts on both of those things as windows onto ‘small number of people whom I actually know’, and mistrust everything else. Even that is problematic.
Back in the day, radio seemed like a conduit to Modern High Tech Truth, so propagandizing that had special qualities. There’s nothing truly new under the sun. Sumerians probably got up to some heavy shit with clay tablets :)
Ben Cisco
I limit my exposure to FB to an absolute minimum (organizations that I belong to are platformed there); I’ve studiously avoided the veterans groups b/c I expect them to be filled with agitprop whether homegrown or spoonfed by Boris and Natasha, etc.
The problem is that many people who aren’t in IT don’t know what to look for. I’m grateful for the posts from you and Silverman on the subject as I can use them to try and inform those in my circle, veteran and civilian alike.
Thanks again.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Those rich people have been paid for their entitlement. That’s how they to be got rich fucks, they got paid to be. Just ask them. They earned every penny that allows them to be, by the sweat of someone. 99.9% chance it wasn’t them.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Yeah, but I ignore most of the tweets sprinkled about here and scroll right by. And for those I bother with, because of my set-up, I see only the pared down, basic text only version.
@Chris Johnson
The Nazis also employed, somewhat surprisingly, television. Informative and fascinating documentary about this (including archival footage of the actual programming) on Prime, Television Under the Swastika.
Ruckus
@Bill Arnold:
Your approach is sound.
And no matter your system, questioning if is the first step, even from sources you recognize and/or trust. The second step is to see if multiple sources are using the exact same words-copying one another.
But most systems beyond blind trust work far better than nothing.