U.S. Plan To Fight The Internet Revealed

geniese writes "The BBC is reporting on a recently declassified document that details the U.S. Military's intentions regarding warfare and the Internet." From the article: "Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans. 'Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience,' it reads."

Comments

This should provide a nice balance

[damian cosmas]

"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," it reads.

"Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on.

American "propaganda" intended for foreign audiences and re-reported in the US should provide a nice balance for the anti-American slant found in most foreign journalism.

BBC article doesn't tell us anything?

[caluml]

Is it me, or does the BBC article not actually say anything about what will happen?

Re:Numerical Evidence

[SIGFPE]

When the tsunami struck Indonesia the bad stories outweighed the good stories. Are we to conclude that there is media bias here too?

There may be media bias. But your statistics do nothing whatsoever to support the hypothesis that there is.

"Guerilla Marketing"

[doc modulo]

This is from a letter sent to penny-arcade.com

We received the following from a young man who we will call "Mr. Smith."

(CW)TB

Hey guys,

I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more. You do the math. No wait, I'll do it for you: that's 880 posts a day (if minimum was met). However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour. And they had different "verticals" so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.

But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity. No random "HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS" stuff.

Kinda spooky.

Didn't take the job. It was a fucking mill.

Should I just blame the Bush administration or should I, INSTEAD, blame the "poor American citizens" that let themselves be fooled into ignoring the horrific things America does?

I mean, dictator type guys are among the population of every country. Why is it that they are stopped by most European countries but aren't stopped by U.S.-ians?

On the other hand, maybe my opinion on U.S. slashdotters shouldn't be that bad. Maybe the consensus against opression is stronger than it looks. Maybe it just LOOKS like people are closing their eyes on this forum because a lot of the bad posts are from a "Guerilla Marketing" mill.

Who knows, we'll see how it goes. It's your fight, not mine.

Re:Better than really bad is not the same as good.

[ScentCone]

Your government has done a good job of filling your head with nonsense about Aljazeera

No, you've done a good job of fooling yourself. Did you happen to spend some time comparing coverage of the crowd hanging contractors from the bridge in Fallujah? Or the glee with which commentators given time on AJ observed Zarqawi's handiness with beheading of hostages? I don't listen to my government on this... I just watch the damn footage. Do it yourself sometime. Al Jazeera deliberately airs things edited to be as inflamatory as possible, and happily treats people who spout nonsense about baby-eating Jews with the same credibility as the weatherman.