In March, the United States Special Operations Command, the section of the Defense Department supervising the US Special Forces, held a conference on the theme of "Sovereignty in the Information Age." The conference brought together Special Forces officers with domestic police forces, including officials from the New York Police Department, and representatives from technology companies such as Microsoft.
This meeting of top military, police and corporate representatives went unreported and unpublicized at the time. However, the Atlantic Council recently published a 21-page document summarizing the orientation of the proceedings. It is authored by John T. Watts, a former Australian Army officer and consultant to the US Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.
[...] The private sector, therefore, must do the dirty work of the government, because government propaganda is viewed with suspicion by the population. "Business and the private sector may not naturally understand the role they play in combating disinformation, but theirs is one of the most important.... In the West at least, they have been thrust into a central role due to the general public's increased trust in them as institutions."
But this is only the beginning. Online newspapers should "consider disabling commentary systems—the function of allowing the general public to leave comments beneath a particular media item," while social media companies should "use a grading system akin to that used to rate the cleanliness of restaurants" to rate their users' political statements.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/05/pers-o05.html
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Fluffeh on Tuesday October 09 2018, @10:35PM (1 child)
We can't let the Chinese get better than us at something! We need to play catch-up and quick-smart!
Seriously, do you not think most governments don't look at the state control in places like China and just dream of having even a small fraction of that power? Do you not think they wouldn't do just about anything to have that ability to "do good for the entire country" (as long as that view aligns perfectly with their personal view of what is good and not a sliver more or less).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @12:17PM
It's "terrorism gap"! The word originally meant government violence against its citizens. ref [wikipedia.org]