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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 09 2018, @04:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the usa-usa-usa dept.

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


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  • (Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday October 10 2018, @08:42PM (1 child)

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 10 2018, @08:42PM (#747122)

    Science papers have evidence, citations, and are peer reviewed (moderated). A news site comments section is the wild west and filled with bullshit. Trying to solve nationalized healthcare in the comments section of CNN is a terrible idea. You also completely ignored the point i was trying to make about bad actors who are trying to sabotage or steer discussion.

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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday October 11 2018, @08:22AM

    by RamiK (1813) on Thursday October 11 2018, @08:22AM (#747329)

    Science papers have evidence...

    Not political science and the law. Look up Machiavelli's works. Discourses on Livy and The Prince were especially referenced by the American forefathers and those are still in-effect despite being provingly wrong by modern works. And the whole US legal frameworks is based on philosophical ass-pulls from 16th century thinkers that just didn't have the sources and were brought up on the kind of "scientific disciplines" Monty Python made fun of in the witch/duck sketch.

    You also completely ignored the point i was trying to make about bad actors who are trying to sabotage or steer discussion.

    No I didn't. That whole post-WW1 censorship of foreign languages came about following the WW1 propaganda which had bad actors all over. And it made more harm than good. The correct way to combat false rumors is with education and regular exposure to multiple opinions. People shouldn't trust their news sources or officials to begin with. They should double check what their religious leaders tell them. They should triple check what their elected officials tell them. They should read their own and the opposition's news sources and compare. It's not recommended. It's mandatory.

    Go talk to 16 somethings who grow up on social networks. They don't believe anything without sources. And half the time they'll tell you those are probably photoshoped. It's our generation that having trouble keeping up with the times. Give it another decade and it won't be a problem anymore.

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