It’s all coming out about Operation Sockpuppet, sorry, Operation Earnest Voice, the Pentagon’s online psyops software grab (which lends a certain level of extra credence to that HuffPo analysis of the HBGary fallout, of which I said at the time ‘my first reaction to reading that piece was “what took them so long?”’ – sometimes being right is no fun at all). I’ll look forward to the concise explanation of how this is totally different to the sort of state espionage upon civilians that goes on in China (which I expect will boil down to “it’s bad because it’s Them doing it”).
But you’ve little cause for alarm, as it’s honestly only going to be used on brown people who speak funny:
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.
Thanks, CentCom; it’s very comforting to take your word for it! Certainly more comforting than, ah, not doing so.
My favourite paragraph from the Guardian piece linked is this one, though (emphasis mine):
This month Petraeus’s successor, General James Mattis, told the same committee that OEV “supports all activities associated with degrading the enemy narrative, including web engagement and web-based product distribution capabilities”.
That’s pretty much an open admission that modern warfare is fought with stories for weapons. Granted, a close reading of history will show you that’s always been the case, but the internet provides unprecedented new opportunities for weaponizing narrative… which means we need to wrestle ownership of the world’s narrative back from those who want to write hackneyed and blood-spattered rise-of-the-Roman-Empire stories over and over again.
Paul,
I totally agree with your conclusions about control of the media. Unfortunately, exactly the opposite is happening. For the last 30 years, media ownership and control have become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small number of generally conservative owners. The most recent and most egregious of these was the purchase of NBC by Comcast.
It still stuns me that this takeover was approved, by a large margin, by the FCC. I wrote quite angry notes to every single commissioner criticizing their decisions.
Of course, I did not received a reply from any of them.