Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Why fear Middle Eastern terrorists, when there are home-grown Americans so eager to utterly destroy freedom of expression...
What better way to prove that there isn't a conspiracy
THAN TO TRY AND STOP PEOPLE FROM SPREADING IT.
This would have been a good article to write one of my 5 or 6 paragraph conspiracy theories that I whip up out of thin air, but I already did one of those today, and my brain hurts.
the Obama administration has become very concerned with the situation in Azeroth and plan to spend 10 billion in on-line gold to help the cause.
Watch what you type friends, Big Brother O is watching.
Nonsense. Please stop spreading FUD.
First they came for the 9/11 truthers, and I said noth- well, actually, anything they can do to mess with *those* loons is OK by me. Can they eff up ther anti-vaxxers, too?
Why not link in HuffingtonPost, FreeRepublic, and MichaelMoore.com while you're at it. ;)
For those who care about the actual paper rather than the right-wing spin of it:
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Abstract:
Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.
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Note how the Slashdot header linked to COINTELPRO, to imply that that's what's being talked about? Even in the *scenario* where infiltration is discussed, the paper explicitly states, "By this we do not mean 1960s-style infiltration with a view to surveillance and collecting information, possibly for use in future prosecutions." The paper is about how (or whether to) dispel conspiracy theories to prevent them from spreading, not to prosecute the individuals who promote them. Cognitive infiltration is discussed (again, in purely theoretical terms) in not just a covert manner, but also an overt manner. A lot (although not all) of the paper also is about overseas actions against muslim radical organizations, too, giving examples of tactics we're already employing to dispel conspiracy theories that help fuel terrorist organizations. Anyone who doesn't realize that our government actively employs propaganda even against non-conspiracy-theories isn't paying attention.
Now, all of that said, Sunstein does come across in the end as as supporting debunking conspiracy theories which can "create or fuel violence" by "rebutting more rather than fewer theories, by enlisting independent groups to supply rebuttals, and by cogitive infiltration designed to break up the crippled epistemology of conspiracy-minded groups and informationally isolated social networks." Which form of cognitive infiltration discussed -- covert or overt -- is not mentioned, nor is whether this is a reference to domestic, international, or both kinds of conspiracy theories.
I disagree, but it's not as radical of a paper as it's being made out to be.
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
As an outsider who used to be a liberal, I find conservatives' fixation on Barbara Streisand to be utterly bizarre. When I was a liberal, the only times I ever thought about Barbara Streisand were when conservative wackadoos got enraged over things she said or did -- and that was just long enough to think "Barbara Streisand? Huh? Who gives a shit?" The other liberals I knew had more or less the same reaction.
Now that I've moved to a position outside that of the R vs. D "Go team!" demographics, I think I grasp the foundation of the problem: modern conservative politics, lacking much in the way of coherent principles since Goldwater went down, has to appeal to emotion. Consequently, the conservative hate machine is born, and every two minutes, there has to be a new Two Minutes Hate, and a constant cycling of new targets for hatred. Otherwise conservatives might stop being angry for a moment and start thinking for themselves. This would be as dangerous for Republican politicians as if the Democratic base really sat down and thought about what they actually want and whether their politicians ever showed any inclination of giving it to them. (No, being the answer to that. The Democratic party is a self-contained, self-interested machine at this point.)
Then again, I guess that "Streisand Effect" is also easier for conservatives to stomach than "Nixon Effect", the real modern archetype of an individual who made things worse by trying to hush everything up.
- mantar
In the words of Noam Chomsky: "Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favour of freedom of speech for precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favour of free speech."
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow