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Companies learning to flip elections perfected their tactics in smaller or emerging countries, such as Latvia, Trinidad, or Nigeria, before turning to markets involving elections in developed nations. Paul Mason suggests that while at the moment there is a lot of angst from people being reminded of how their harvested data is used, it is really the union of private espionage, cracking, and "black ops" capabilities that should be setting off alarms.
Disturbingly, both CA and SCL have high-level contracts with governments, giving them access to secret intelligence both in the US and the UK. SCL is on List X, which allows it to hold British secret intelligence at its facilities.
It now appears that techniques they used in Ukraine and Eastern Europe to counteract Russian influence, and against Islamist terrorism in the Middle East, were then used to influence elections in the heart of Western democracy itself.
Let's be clear about what we're facing. A mixture of free market dogmatism plus constraints imposed by the rule of law has led, over the past decades, to the creation of an alternative, private, secret state.
When it was only focused on the enemies and rivals of the West, or hapless politicians in the global south, nobody minded. Now it is being used as a weapon to tear apart democracy in Britain and the US we care — and rightly so.
From New Statesman: We need to destroy the election-rigging industry before it destroys us
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Virindi on Tuesday March 27 2018, @09:55PM (25 children)
Saying propaganda is a weapon is saying that the population is too stupid to determine truth from fiction, and that government censors must do it for us.
But the whole point of elected government is that the population is more trustworthy to make such a determination than some smaller authority. Otherwise that authority would choose the leaders.
If you do not trust the population, you do not believe in elected government.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday March 27 2018, @10:53PM (1 child)
I'm pretty sure you can easily find non-censorship examples of propaganda painting the truth with a specific agenda.
The facts described on the front page of Fox News are often the same as the facts described on the front page of MSNBC.
The cop who put a couple bullets in an innocent's chest IS the cop that was told to rush in and thought there was a gun.
The kid had a clock, which did look like it was a bomb.
The pizza parlor's basement did not exist, but if it did, Hillary would have certainly needed to be stopped by a brave man rising against trading children there for prostitution (Ok, fine, it doesn't always work).
Propaganda isn't just lies. It's about presenting The Truth that you want people to hear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:33PM
That was the original meaning of alternative facts, which was twisted and scoffed at. The MSM try to post information like there is just one story and these are the facts, while the truth is it is almost impossible to tell a story without putting a slant on it. Take the current cops shooting unarmed man. Interview family and people who knew him and you have slanted in favor against the cops. Interview the cops and police chief and you have slanted the other way. interview both, and the order of the interviews and connecting words determine the slant. And the media have given up on maintaining as close to middle reporting as possible due to consumer requirements. Nobody wants it. We want propaganda machines.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Tuesday March 27 2018, @11:09PM (14 children)
That's kind of like saying the population is to stupid to avoid eating lead, and that government enforcers have to go around checking all our food for us. Its not, that we're too stupid, its that it would take an inordinate amount of time to personally check all the food, so it makes sense to outsource it, and to have regulated channels I can rely on where the food is safe. So that I don't have to worry about eating lead at every meal.
Likewise, its not that the population is "too stupid" to determine truth from fiction -- but its a LOT of work. We are human beings with limited resources already working jobs and managing families and liesure time. So we intelligently outsource the gathering and processing of news and other information so that we can spend a small amount of time efficiently consuming and processing it. It would be far to time consuming for me to personally verify the fact of every single thing that is reported. I'd barely get anything done even if I did it as a full time job. So I either have to operate under the presumption that all these feeds are honest and accurate, or I have to ignore them as worthless.
Either solution is valid, but if I ignore them as worthless, then I am left with no information upon which to form opinions beyond what I see myself on my way home from work. That's not enough to go on to decide which politicians have the right approach to immigration, or north korea, or anything. So that's not very useful.
That leaves me having to presume the news feeds are honest and accurate. As this iscritical to ability to form informed opinions, then like food inspectors check for lead, I would definitely want to protect these channels to ensure they are not corrupted cess pools of targeted misinformtion. I would want them held to standards.
You call them "censors" with the implication they are bad, but do hold such a dim view of the people who test the food and water supply of lead ? Or are they just evil government 'food censors' deciding what you are allowed to eat?
I am optimistic the population will collectively make reasonable choices given accurate information to work from. And I think it serves democracy to ensure the population is not deliberately fed misinformation specifically to corrupt it.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @11:34PM (9 children)
Free speech is a fundamental right whereas lead in food and water is not. Your attempted equivalence here is absolutely 100% false.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 28 2018, @12:31AM (4 children)
No it's not. Lead is poisonous. Spreading lies to corrupt the American elections, and therefore democracy is treasonous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @04:16AM (3 children)
And spreading truth, such as Hilary Clinton emails, is patriotic even if the patriot is an alien.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @08:00AM (1 child)
This is one nice recent example of frugal use of truth as a propaganda : where are the trump emails?
That's why some oath requires telling "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:27PM
Is this some of that whadaboutism I constantly hearing the left complain about?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @03:42AM
I hope you meant DNC emails, where real conspiracy to commit fraud was found, and what mass media is still trying to cover up with Russia! Russia! Russia! Hillary's emails are a bullshit issue. And both factions of the corrupt party are still getting full public support. We are not making any progress on this issue, in fact, we are falling backwards, badly.
If you want an honest media you can use your government to create a public channel. It will be as honest as you demand it to be, just like everything about about your government. When it is run by crooks, it is because you vote for and reelect crooks. don't try to blame 'propaganda'. You believe because you want to believe.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Wednesday March 28 2018, @03:37AM (2 children)
"Free speech is a fundamental right whereas lead in food and water is not. Your attempted equivalence here is absolutely 100% false."
I'd argue that the equivalence is better than you think. A lot better. I'd agree 'free speech' is a fundamental right. I'd also argue that one should have the right to put whatever one wants into their own body; and the implicit self determination of that is just a much a fundamental right. So the 'attempted equivalence' is 100% accurate.
Further, the analogy carries -- while i think I should have the fundamental right to put anything into my body I want, I *also* don't want lead poisoning. If someone wants to poison themselves they should seek help, but they are free to procure lead and inject into themselves if they are so inclined. However if they don't want to poison themselves, as collectively most of us do not, we can and should give agency to government to act on our behalf in this matter, to prevent unwanted poison from reaching us.
With speech, likewise, I think you should be able to say whatever you want. But I don't need or want your un-sourced, unverified, deliberately malicious propaganda nonsense presented to me as news and again would like to give agency to the government to act on my behalf to help me avoid that poisoned information coming to me in my news feed as bona fide news. IF I feel like reading random nonsense, then I'll seek out your conspiracy site (I've amused myself reading moonhoaxers and flat earthers gibberish on more than one occasion). But I don't want that coming at me undistinguished and indistinguishable from real sourced and vetted news. I value well sourced facts presented neutrally with minimal bias. And I value diverse viewpoints in editorial and opinion. But I don't value deliberate misinformation and outright lies presented as news, and I don't value opinions presented as news. There are standards we can have, and news organizations have in the past been reasonably noble in their pursuit of those ideals. The modern news networks aren't too bad, even fox news 'news' is reasonable. But garbage like Sean Hannity, like infowars, the alt-right, the stuff emerging as alt-left... it doesn't belong on the same shelf.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday March 28 2018, @03:56AM (1 child)
All well and good to call out specific programs you feel are garbage, while you wolf down huge helpings of liberal claptrap without a whimper. But your seemingly calling on government to stand guard over the news exibits a level of naievity that can scarsely be believed.
Are ye daft Mon?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday March 28 2018, @04:42AM
I said I watched fox news *news*, and that it was fine. And I consume other conservative media as well. If I had a criticism of CNN its that its gone overboard on stormy daniels and that's excessive... but fox is almost burying the story and that's worse. Meanwhile the 'commentators' like hannity and carlson outright speculate and lie to my face.
I don't dispute there's liberal claptrap, and I'm happy to call it out when i see it. But its not as bad as the conservative claptrap out there. (Although, and I mentioned this in my post, an equally ridiculous alt-left is emerging.)
I *am* not calling on the government to vet the news. Nor am i calling on government to decide what is newsworthy. But I am calling on government to help be part of the solution to the problem we have now of news and fake-news being given equal billing without any means to differentiate them. Just like truth in labelling laws -- the consumer has a right to know what they are getting. The governement can help regulate this so that shit on facebook isn't competing for credibility with real actual well sourced news on equal footing.
I shouldn't be allowed to call ground racoon and sawdust '100% grade A beef'. Why should the information equivalent to ground racoon and pulp be allowed to pretend its real news?
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:49PM
1. No.
Both are regulated by laws. Local laws vary - free speech in North Korea is not a fundamental right. In the USA, an extension to the country's constitution happens to say something about free speech. That does not make it a fundamental right - except, perhaps, in the USA.
Then again: the USA is the only country I know that has free speech zones [wikipedia.org], so I very much doubt that free speech is a fundamental right in the USA.
2. As pointed out already: The right to put whatever you like into your body - food, poisons, lead, bullets - seems at least as fundamental as the right to say whatever you like.
There are legal restrictions on polluting the pool of fresh air or the pool of potable water. The argument here is that there equally should be restrictions on polluting the news-pool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @11:35PM (3 children)
How many people took the tide pod challenge or feasted on the cotton candy in the attic? You cannot legislate against outright stupidity without infringing on the freedom of the majority.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Wednesday March 28 2018, @04:47AM (2 children)
Nobody ate a tide pod thinking it was something else. People weren't fooled into eating a tide pod. They knew what they were doing.
People ARE misled by the crapflood of fake hysterical news; and there's so much of it that not only does confuse and confound people, but it crowds out real news. So that even if people ARE making the effort to filter out garbage, their still less informed due to the opportunity cost of filtering out that garbage; leaving less time and energy to spend on what is real.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @08:46AM (1 child)
If that is the case, you've disproven your own argument.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday March 29 2018, @02:08AM
Despite it going viral, the number of people who have actually eaten tide pods is pretty small. And the majority of them were still kids (teens yes, but still kids), and not old enough to vote.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:01AM (4 children)
I dunno: that sounds like propaganda to me.
The U.S. spies on its' people, spies on its' neighbours and allies.
The US gov. is slowly (not so slowly?) taking away all of your rights and can easily take you away to Guantanamo without any counsil or without letting any of your family know where you are.
The media is becoming more and more controlled by a few who could EASILY be controlled by the government ("what do you mean? we've not done a THOROUGH AUDIT on you and your companies this year? Or the year before? Or the year before??? I guess we might have to!
./.// oh, and by the way, you might start having computer problems: the NSA say you're about to have some ongoing and major hacker/cracker siti-ations.
Oh yeah... also, any etc we may need to pressure you with."
The US is heading towards a dark place where propaganda is your only means of news. How are you going to be able to tell what is the truth and what is not when the only news you get is the governments truth.
AND, when the only people you have to vote for are people like Trump and Hillary... propaganda doesn't really matter: you vote, you lose (unless you're willing to vote for those 'nasty, corrupt, lousey independents' that the 'news' keeps telling you is a bad choice.
Governments USE propaganda because it ABSOLUTELY WORKS (ask the Germans, circa, what, 1930-ish to 1944). YOU may not be a sheeple, but the flock is full of them (notice, again, that Trump and Hillary were the only choices even though they were both about the worst choices you could have been given. Maybe good government is being taken away from you for a purpose (re: bread (but with hold the bread) and CIRCUSES).
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
//:-=|
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:24AM (3 children)
This is absolutely correct, but the Nazis had the honesty to call their Propaganda Ministry The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. [wikipedia.org]
The US government has outsourced their propaganda to the private sector, who have taken the job up with enthusiasm.
Have you ever wondered why the NFL have their "Salute to Service" round, and who pays for it?
Turns out you do [sbnation.com] if you're a US taxpayer. If you're an NFL fan from outside the US, you tend to look at "Salute to Service" as a weird sort of Nuremberg Rally. That's just one example of the propaganda you're subjected to every day.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:56AM (1 child)
Huh, never saw that (I never watched the NFL (ex CFL fan here (Ottawa Roughriders of old (George Brancato, Tony Gabriel) fan here).
America is BIG on propaganda: USA! USA! USA!: That WW2 movie where the Americans took that enigma machine from the sub even though it was really the British who did it, etc etc. Rewrite history.
Yeah, to say propaganda is worthless or useless is kind of dumb when the US is second only to the Nazis.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday March 28 2018, @02:50AM
In my view the biggest lesson the US military took out of Vietnam was that they needed to prevent anti-war feeling at home.
They seem to have done a great job of deifying military people to such a degree that any criticism of anything they do seems to fall under the "disrespecting the troops" umbrella and gets shouted down.
It's weird how some US people can't see it, but it seems to have given them a license to wage Forever Wars.
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Wednesday March 28 2018, @04:18AM
I just looked at Salute to Service (never seen it before), and you're right, it is a bit like that. The Cathedral of Light was done better though, and I don't quite get the flag dicksize war the different groups seem to be engaging in ("it's half the size of the stadium" / "it fills the stadium" / "it overflows the stadium" / "it covers the city" / "it's coming for us, run, run!").
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:30AM (1 child)
Some food for thought:
On 9/11/01 a group of men, mostly Saudi Arabians, destroyed a couple of buildings at the center of US economic wealth. In retaliation, the US has destroyed two governments, and executed a number of people in other countries, but we have taken no actions at all against Saudi Arabia.
That entire British dossier on Saddam Hussein, yellow cake and all, was entirely fiction, but most of the population of the western world chose to believe all the nonsense in the dossier.
Propaganda works.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:59AM
Damn, you nailed it!
Reading that was AWESOME!
US propaganda, US propaganda, US propaganda!
MAGAwP!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @07:47PM
I think it's pretty easy to say that the people that own the companies that run our country (US) do not trust the rest of population. Look at our choices for office.