<
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_achieve_peace_in_the_war_of_disinformation>
"In 2020, I witnessed an online influence campaign so devious that I could not
stop thinking about it—in fact, it inspired me to begin researching my book,
Stories Are Weapons, from which this essay is adapted.
The reason I found it so compelling was that it was a two-stage psychological
operation—or psyop, as the military would call it: First, the unknown
operatives spread a wave of disinformation; next, they spread a second wave
that was designed to inoculate people against any efforts to debunk the first
wave of disinformation.
Here’s how it went down. One night I started to see posts on Twitter claiming
that the entire DC area was in lockdown and there was a blackout in response to
the Black Lives Matter protests. Posts with the hashtag #DCBlackout began
piling up in my feed, and at first they appeared to be from ordinary citizens
reporting from the ground.
But then I noticed some red flags that made the #DCBlackout reports seem
suspicious.
First of all, many people posting under the hashtag used the exact same words
to describe what was happening, as if they were copy-pasting from a script.
And then posts with the #DCBlackout hashtag started sharing a new message,
which was that law enforcement was blocking cell phone access to prevent them
from sharing the truth.
That’s when I knew #DCBlackout was a ruse. How could people be posting on their
phones from the scene of the protests if their cell signals were blocked?"
Via Muse.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
