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Obama Appointee Sunstein Favors Infiltrating Online Groups
megamerican writes "President Barack Obama's appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated in a recent paper the 'cognitive infiltration' of groups that advocate 'conspiracy theories' like the ones surrounding 9/11 via 'chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine' those groups. Sunstein admits that 'some conspiracy theories, under our definition, have turned out to be true' Sunstein has also recently advocated banning websites which post 'right-wing rumors' and bringing back the Fairness Doctrine. You can find a PDF of his paper here. For decades (1956-1971), the FBI under COINTELPRO focused on disrupting, marginalizing and neutralizing political dissidents, most notably the Black Panthers. More recently CENTCOM announced it would be engaging bloggers 'who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information.' In January 2009 the USAF released a flow-chart for 'counter-bloggers' to 'counter the people out there in the blogosphere who have negative opinions about the US government and the Air Force.'"
The question is, who gets to decide which is which?
I dunno, who can yell the loudest? They usually win these days it seems.
Sent from your iPad.
State-sponsored infiltration is NOT free speech. Free speech means the government doesn't control (nor attempt to influence) what people are discussing. Planting paid 'experts' in strategic locations to diffuse conversation is so far from unrestricted speech that I can only assume you have no idea what's actually being suggested.
Observe:
By "crippled epistemology" Sunstein means that people who believe in conspiracy theories have a limited number of sources of information that they trust. Therefore, Sunstein argued in the article, it would not work to simply refute the conspiracy theories in public -- the very sources that conspiracy theorists believe would have to be infiltrated.
In a negative light, this means "find the people saying things we don't like and replace them with people who say what we want."
And despite the meme at play, this is NOT a conspiracy theory, it is exactly what he is proposing.
However, there ARE people out there who practice irresponsible dissent, and their sole purpose is to disrupt the lives of everyone in order to make a point which most find irrational.
You're absolutely right. If the Republicans win the next election, I hope they vote to silence irresponsible dissenters who say things like:
Any time you wish your buddies had a power, imagine what it would be like if the other team had that same ability.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The newspaper I work for published an article the other day about a flu vaccination clinic being offered by the local health department. The first few comments posted to the online version were all copypasta from Infowars (a conspiracy-theory site) alleging that flu vaccines are deliberate mass-murder tools used by a shadowy one-world organization to engage in "softkill eugenics" and wipe out people who oppose them. This is an extreme example, of course, but it shows a real problem: if enough people believe even relatively mild conspiracy theories about flu vaccines, then they'll refuse to get vaccinated and public health -- something it's the government's job to promote and maintain -- will suffer. This means that rebutting and refuting such theories becomes a part of the government's job, as furthering the goal of public health.
Heh, I posted this before I read the actual article, and before I took a look at the rest of the WND site. I guess I should stop believing that front page stories on slashdot won't take their main arguments from a crackpot site.
Let me rephrase: if Sunstein would propose something like the summary suggests, he should be crucified and run out of office. His actual paper, however, is merely something I disagree with: that hardcore conspiracy theorists can be reasoned with. I don't think we have the resources to engage in every online forum where someone says something crazy. I believe a far better approach is to identify rumors and conspiracies, and use an existing official vehicle to debunk them.
Now, part of the new job of that official vehicle could be to more actively participate in social media - but that's a far cry from the discussed idea to actually go to online forums and take these people head-on. Cultivate ties and make sure your voice heard - but don't try to chase down every nutcase on the web.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
"So. What would you call yourself in political terms?"
"I'm a Democratic Carlinist."
No wonder he was so bitter towards the end.
Yes, it's quite horrible that people spreading mistruth to the public would have their lies exposed and debunked. Oh the horror!
The fact that they take it so seriously and treat it like such a threat makes me wonder if it's "mistruth". It makes me wonder that far more so than anything the "conspiracy nuts" themselves could have said.
Let's just say that everything the "conspiracy nuts" say is 100% false. Let's say further that too many (whatever that means) people are believing these conspiracy theories. The correct way to deal with that is to teach critical thinking, logic, rhetoric, and argumentation as mandatory basic courses in all public schools. Make these classes tough so that no one graduates without knowing how to deconstruct an argument. Except they'd rather not do that, because such a tough-minded populace would demand higher-quality legislators (they'd probably call them malcontents). Dumb people with a group mentality are so much easier to control than staunch individualists who can think for themselves.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein