https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/u-n-recruits-110000-information-voluntee... Google backed RAND report recommends infiltrating and subverting online conspiracy groups from within. https://sociable.co/government-and-policy/google-rand-report-recommends-infi... "Psychological Operations Officer," newspeak for Government Troll... https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/career-match/signal-intelligence/lan... https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/misinformation-infodemic-world-vs-vir... "So far, we've recruited 110,000 information volunteers, and we equip these information volunteers with the kind of knowledge about how misinformation spreads and ask them to serve as kind of 'digital first-responders' in those spaces where misinformation travels," Fleming says. Google’s Jigsaw unit sponsors a RAND report that recommends infiltrating and subverting online conspiracy groups from within while planting authoritative messaging wherever possible. If authoritative messaging is successful, moderate members flip to become influencers and help guide the 'flock' to greener pastures as ‘brand ambassadors’ for the common good, teaching others the errors of their ways. Some conspiracy group members will be persuaded by the bombardment of content flagged by algorithms, and they will slowly come around to believing that the fact-checkers are right by the sheer volume of evidence and/or peer pressure to conform. Trying to infiltrate groups and subvert certain members seems like a tactic that would be perceived as an intrusion that furthers the divide and lead to even less trust, but *we shall see how it all plays out. Operation Earnest Voice Operation Earnest Voice (OEV) is a communications program by the United States Central Command (CENTCOM). Initially, the program was developed as a psychological weapon and was first used in Iraq. In 2011, the US government signed a $2.8 million contract with the Ntrepid web-security company to develop a specialized software, allowing agents of the government to post propaganda. The aim of the initiative is to use sockpuppets to spread pro-American propaganda on social networking services. Main characteristics of the software, as stated in the software development request, are: Fifty user "operator" licenses, 10 sockpuppets controllable by each user. Sockpuppets are to be "replete with background, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographically consistent." Sockpuppets are to "be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world." A special secure VPN, allowing sockpuppets to appear to be posting from "randomly selected IP addresses," in order to "hide the existence of the operation." Fifty static IP addresses to enable government agencies to "manage their persistent online personas," with identities of government and enterprise organizations protected which will allow for different state agents to use the same sockpuppet, and easily switch between different sockpuppets to "look like ordinary users as opposed to one organization." Nine private servers, "based on the geographic area of operations the customer is operating within and which allow a customer's online persona(s) to appear to originate from." These servers should use commercial hosting centers around the world. Virtual machine environments, deleted after each session termination, to avoid interaction with "any virus, worm, or malicious software." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Voice Also: https://www.darpa.mil/program/social-media-in-strategic-communication https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_Internet_propaganda And https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_farm The show Homeland touched on this: https://youtu.be/owIsqj1Y1sk The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the one created by the Pentagon over the past decade. Some 60,000 people now belong to this secret army, many working under masked identities and in low profile, all part of a broad program called "signature reduction." The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies. https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-secret-undercover-army-1... Much more info here: https://archive.ph/Ccz00 https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/08/1009845/a-gpt-3-bot-posted-comme... No one really knows how many of these are here, anyone with access to this tech could do it. This bot is still active. Also: When Reddit was first started, it was populated almost entirely with content submitted by fake users. In a video for online educator Udacity, Reddit cofounder Steve Huffman explains both the method, and the reasoning behind it. Essentially, Huffman set up a submission interface through which they could pick not only the URL and the title, but also the user’s name. Upon submission, the name would be registered, and make it look like Reddit had more users than it actually did. https://www.themarysue.com/reddit-fake-account-origins/ MORE INFO AND LINKS BELOW. COPIED FROM ANOTHER USER'S COMMENT. THANK YOU CLARITYOFSIGNAL. https://electronicintifada.net/content/inside-israels-million-dollar-troll-a... Inside Israel’s million dollar troll army A global influence campaign funded by the Israeli government had a $1.1 million budget last year, a document obtained by The Electronic Intifada shows. Act.IL says it has offices in three countries and an online army of more than 15,000. Main PDF file exposing all global technocratic cabal links: https://clubderklarenworte.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Netzwerkanalyse-Cor... The German Club of Clear Words takes a deep dive into the network of individuals and organizations responsible for the COVID scam Whether blatantly visible or not, you can identify just about any network by connecting dots between individuals and organizations. Who’s working with whom, where, and why? Who’s paying whom? And once you’ve done that, you can more clearly identify the motivations behind various decisions The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation appears to be near the top, or the center, of this COVID plandemic network. Gates is also a major funder of mainstream media, and his network extends into global food and climate change policy The Gates Foundation, through its funding of the WEF, also plays an important role in The Great Reset, which was officially unveiled during a WEF summit in May 2020 Every conceivable aspect of life and society is scheduled to be “reset” according to their plan. Ultimately, that’s where this criminal COVID enterprise is trying to take us. Those people are now trying to reshape the world via the CV-19 fear-based agenda in order to gain more power and control for themselves and bring about an AI-controlled dystopian future that benefits them even more greatly. Ignore it at your own peril. They call it The Great Reset. It involves travel restrictions, tracking, tracing, mandatory vaccination, monitoring, surveillance, digital currency, 5G to implement the global control, etc. Its all right there on their own website... plain as day. They aren't even hiding it from the public anymore. https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G0X000006O6EHUA0?tab=publications Many of the fake accounts, online narrative propagation accounts and bots are tucked into the US budget from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Agency_for_Global_Media Excerpt: Their operating budget for fiscal year 2016 was US$752 million. U.S. Government Accountability Office Audit Report https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104017 Excerpt: Amendments to legislation have affected USAGM's governing authorities and organizational structure by shifting authority from a bipartisan board to a Chief Executive Officer (CEO), with advice from an Advisory Board. Network and USAGM officials said that previous members of USAGM leadership took several actions that did not align with USAGM's firewall principles. According to USAGM, the firewall protecting the networks' independence is central to the credibility and effectiveness of USAGM's networks (see fig.). However, the parameters of the firewall are not specifically laid out in legislation. Delineation of what is and is not permissible under the firewall may help ensure the professional independence and integrity of the agency and its networks. Actions to ensure accountability of grantees, such as establishing Standard Operating Procedures for Monitoring Grants , have not corrected a longstanding significant deficiency in grants monitoring reported by independent audits of USAGM's financial statements for the past 5 years. Also: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-n... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/31/british-army-facebook-warrio... Ukraine and Turkey also have been reported to have large office buildings filled with teams of online influencers with dozens of fake accounts entirely dedicated to influencing nefarious government policies. All The Worlds A Stage folks. Intelligence agencies have a long history of this. https://www.carlbernstein.com/the-cia-and-the-media-rolling-stone-10-20-1977 https://www.corbettreport.com/how-the-cia-plants-news-stories-in-the-media/ https://youtu.be/xF90EfuOOIw These are all just a few examples of some of what's been disclosed, what has not been disclosed? Modern War Institute - Your Brain is the Next Battlefield https://youtu.be/N02SK9yd60s https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/szf78z/deleted_by_user/hy3op2y/ https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/wgagug/beware_of_people_in_this... https://clarityofsignal.com/ https://steemit.com/@clarityofsignal https://odysee.com/@Randall_Aware:b/y2mate.com---The-Children-and-the-CIA---... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS4-aEYhLd8&list=PLH6skP8VqRDKZ-jUjSpR8pJA8NKBj73d4 https://old.reddit.com/r/shills/comments/4kdq7n/astroturfing_information_meg... Hmmm, i think i already met a couple of dozens of those.... Edit to add that it is nothing new ofcourse: Here is some evidence of a reddit CEO editing user comments... https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRecordCorrected/comments/5elszg/reddit_ceo_caugh... https://gizmodo.com/reddit-ceo-caught-secretly-editing-user-comments-chatl-1... Here is some evidence of "s hills": https://old.reddit.com/r/shills/comments/4kdq7n/astroturfing_information_meg... Their guide: https://steemit.com/security/@tinfoilfedora/the-gentlemans-guide-to-forum-sp... Here is some evidence of an USA basis having a lot of redditors: https://redditblog.com/2013/05/08/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day-plu... Here is some evidence that the military and other agencies are still involved: https://www.darpa.mil/program/social-media-in-strategic-communication https://usahitman.com/grhtdcrdcs/ https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-n... And last but not least, here is some info about original project Mockingbird and the effects it has on education and the MSM: http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/cia/operationmockingbirdCIA.pdf https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCfTIapds0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aIaFkR9uriU https://stillnessinthestorm.com/2017/09/document-surfaces-showing-cia-s-plan... https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88B00443R001500080042-1.... https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005524009.pdf https://stillnessinthestorm.com/2017/05/declassified-cia-documents-show-agen... For those who do not quite get it yet; here is why this can be extremely dangerous for a democracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo Oh, and i almost forgot, anybody "on the job" here might want to consider a career change, there might be some health problems with what you are doing now. https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderator-interviews-vi... https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moder... Astroturfing Information Megathread- revision 8Must Read (self.shills) submitted 6 years ago * by NutritionResearch - announcement Government Shills The Guardian: British army creates team of Facebook warriors The Guardian: US military studied how to influence Twitter [and Reddit] users in Darpa-funded research [2014] The Guardian: The Ministry of Defence is developing a secret, multimillion-pound research programme into the future of cyberwarfare, including how emerging technologies such as social media and psychological techniques can be harnessed by the military to influence people's beliefs. [2014] Vice: Your Government Wants to Militarize Social Media to Influence Your Beliefs NY Times: The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” and violated federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the public to back an Obama administration rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded. CBC News- Canadian government monitors online forums Slate on 2018 midterms interference: "Project Lakhta was a Russian influence campaign that had no particular ideological bent; it appears that the goal was simply to stir up conflict in online political debates by putting forth extreme arguments and inflammatory misinformation to incense both liberals and conservatives." NY Times: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz (Cambridge Analytica) NY Times- From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid “trolls” has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet — and in real-life American communities. Washington Post: Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election New York Times: "Hundreds of people work at a so-called troll farm in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to smother the voices of dissidents like Mr. Khashoggi." CNN: Facebook announces first takedown of influence campaign with ties to Saudi government The Nation: US Officials Won’t Say if a New Anti–Russian Propaganda Project (shilling on social media) Is Targeting Americans. The newly created Global Engagement Center’s “focus and intent” is foreign audiences, but officials won’t rule out propagandizing Americans and funding American journalists. Ex -MMA fighter and ex-police officer exposes corrupt police practices, which includes infiltrating Reddit communities and becoming moderators in order to manipulate and censor information. Times of Israel: Israeli government paying bilingual students to spread propaganda online primarily to international communities without having to identify themselves as working for the government. "The [student] union will operate computer rooms for the project...it was decided to establish a permanent structure of activity on the Internet through the students at academic institutions in the country." The Intercept: Leaked Documents Reveal Counterterrorism Tactics Used at Standing Rock to “Defeat Pipeline Insurgencies." TigerSwan attempted a counterinformation campaign by creating and distributing content critical of the protests on social media. WashingtonPost: Obama pick for NSA review panel wanted paid, pro-government shills in chat rooms (Thread with source paper.) Psy Group developed elaborate information operations for commercial clients and political candidates around the world, which included infiltrating target audiences with elaborately crafted social-media personas. The CEO of PSY Group was former commander of an Israeli psychological warfare unit. Tactics deployed by PSY Group in foreign elections included inflaming divisions in opposition groups and playing on deep-seated cultural and ethnic conflicts, something the firm called “poisoning the well." It has conducted messaging/influence operations in well over a dozen languages and dialects and employs an elite group of high-ranking former officers from some of the world’s most renowned intelligence units. Wired: Clinton Staff and Volunteers Busted for Astroturfing [in 2007] Vice: Amazon Requires Police to Shill Surveillance Cameras in Secret Agreement The Intercept: The Rise of the Net Center. How an Army of Trolls Protects Guatemala’s Corrupt Elite. The Independent: Massive British PR firm caught on video: "We've got all sorts of dark arts...The ambition is to drown that negative content and make sure that you have positive content online." They discuss techniques for managing reputations online and creating/maintaining 3rd-party blogs that seem independent. The Guardian: US spy operation to manipulate social media Washington Post: Why crafty Internet trolls in the Philippines may be coming to a website near you BBC: Vietnam admits deploying bloggers to support the Communist Party's policies, operates a network of nearly 1,000 "public opinion shapers". Glenn Greenwald: How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations The Intercept: Behavioural Science Support for JTRIG’S Effects and Online HUMINT Operations USA Today: The co-owner of a major Pentagon propaganda contractor publicly admitted that he was behind a series of websites used in an attempt to discredit two USA TODAY journalists who had reported on the contractor. Glenn Greenwald: Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet The Guardian: Chinese officials flood the Chinese internet with positive social media posts to distract their population The Guardian: Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown - Social science is being militarised to develop 'operational tools' to target peaceful activists and protest movements. "Minerva"-funded social scientists tied to Pentagon counterinsurgency operations are involved in the "study of emotions in stoking or quelling ideologically driven movements," he said, including how "to counteract grassroots movements." Bloomberg: How to Hack an Election [and influence voters with fake social media accounts] USA Today: Businesses and organizations may refer to it as a tool for competitive advantage and marketing; but make no mistake, they are using the massive reach of social media and the Internet as a weapon. One U.S. 3-letter special agent said, "You could influence an election with this." Times of Israel - The internet: Israel’s new PR battlefield Arstechnica: GCHQ’s menu of tools spreads disinformation across Internet- “Effects capabilities” allow analysts to twist truth subtly or spam relentlessly. The Guardian: Internet Astroturfing BBC News: US plans to 'fight the net' revealed Israel is paying internet workers to manipulate online content such as Wikipedia (2 minute video) Buzzfeed: Documents Show How Russia’s Troll Army Hit America NY Times: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation Raw Story: CENTCOM engages bloggers Wired: Air Force Releases ‘Counter-Blog’ Marching Orders Wired: Military Report: Secretly ‘Recruit or Hire Bloggers’ The Guardian: Israel ups the stakes in the propaganda war BBC News: China's Internet spin doctors Raw Story: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people DailyKos: HBGary: Automated social media management Huffington Post- Exposing Cyber Shills and Social Media's Underworld Wall Street Journal: Turkey's Government Forms 6,000-Member Social Media Team The Bush and Gore campaigns of 2000 used methods similar to the Chinese government for conducting “guided discussions” in chatrooms designed to influence citizens Salon: Why Reddit moderators are censoring Glenn Greenwald’s latest news story on shills Shilling in the Private Sector NPR: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good To Be Believed. They're Paid For. "Much like Amazon itself is a marketplace for goods, a world of separate, shadow marketplaces exists where reviews for Amazon products are bought and paid for — private Facebook groups, Slack channels, subreddits and more." Fake five-star reviews being bought and sold online - Fake online reviews are being openly traded on the internet, a BBC investigation has found. Yahoo News: Last month the FTC issued warnings to celebrities who plugged products on their Instagram accounts without clearly identifying their relationships with brands. The letters were meant to educate the celebrities on posting without violating the organization’s disclosure guidelines. New York Times: Tobacco corporations are targeting young American consumers with deceptive social media marketing in violation of federal law. 123 hashtags associated with these companies’ tobacco products have been viewed 8.8 billion times in the United States alone and 25 billion times around the world. PBS Frontline Documentary - Generation Like USA Today: Lord & Taylor settles FTC charges over paid Instagram posts Wired: Microsoft, through an outside agency, paid Machinima to produce positive videos about the Xbox One game machine, and many of the YouTube stars who accepted the deal failed to properly disclose that they were producing paid, sponsored content, not independent analysis. CNBC: The Federal Reserve Bank is soliciting proposals from developers for a "Social Listening Platform" that will monitor "Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube...to "Handle crisis situations, "continuously monitor conversations, identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers." [2011] CNN: A PR firm has revealed that it is behind two blogs that previously appeared to be created by independent supporters of Wal-Mart. The blogs Working Families for Wal-mart and subsidiary site Paid Critics are written by 3 employees of PR firm Edelman, for whom Wal-Mart is a paid client. [2006] The Verge: Anti-net neutrality spammers are impersonating real people to flood FCC comments Vice: Trolls Paid by a Telecom Lobbying Firm Keep Commenting on My Net Neutrality Articles The Guardian: In a New York investigation dubbed "Operation Clean Turf," dentists, lawyers, an ultra-sound clinic, Staten Island bus company US Coachways, a charter bus operator, a teeth-whitening service, a laser hair-removal chain and an adult entertainment club were caught buying fake reviews. The fake review companies posted on sites like Citysearch, Google, Yahoo and Yelp. New York Times: When a Company's Product Is Under Fire, One Option is to Plant a Defender in the Chat Room Time: Social Media Manipulation? When “Indie” Bloggers and Businesses Get Cozy New York Times: Give Yourself 5 Stars? Online, It Might Cost You Chicago Tribune: Nutrition for sale: How Kellogg worked with 'independent experts' to tout cereal The Atlantic: Kim Kardashian was paid to post a selfie on Instagram and Twitter advertising a pharmaceutical product. Sent to 42 million followers on Instagram and 32 million on Twitter, this illegal advertisement did not contain any risk information or language specifying that it was a paid endorsement. Warner Brothers fined for paying YouTube celebs to promote game without properly disclosing that the videos were paid endorsements. Gamers promote gaming-gambling site on youtube by pretending to hit jackpot without disclosing that they own the site. They tried to retroactively write a disclosure covering their tracks, but were caught. CSGO Lotto Owners Settle FTC’s First-Ever Complaint Against Individual Social Media Influencers "Internet Reputation Management," founded by three partners in the New York area, recruits bloggers to write about clients on third-party sites, without necessarily disclosing that they're paid Slate: Want to Get Paid For TV Criticism? Shill for DISH. Sony viral marketing campaign exposed (2006). The company admits they ran the shady advertising campaign. ADWEEK: Marketing on Reddit Is Scary, But These Success Stories Show Big Potential BBC news: Amazon targets 1,114 'fake reviewers' in Seattle lawsuit New York Times: Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company, reached a settlement with the State of New York over its attempts to fake positive consumer reviews on the Web. The company had ordered employees to pretend they were satisfied customers and write glowing reviews of its face-lift procedure on Web sites Samsung Electronics Fined for Fake Online Comments [in Taiwan] Shill Bots Artificial intelligence chatbots will overwhelm human speech online; the rise of MADCOMs Russian bots were active on Reddit last year, from /r/RussiaLago BBC- How online chatbots are already tricking you- Intelligent machines that can pass for humans have long been dreamed of, but as Chris Baraniuk argues, they’re already among us. The ramifications of astroturfing are in fact so serious that the US Department of Defense funded research to detect chatbots. Wired: Powered by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, propaganda bots will soon run on genetic algorithms that let their ideas and messaging evolve, based on the resonance and effectiveness of previous messages. We are likely to see versions of these bots deployed on US audiences as part of the 2016 presidential election campaigns. BBC: More than four times as many tweets were made by automated accounts in favour of Donald Trump around the first US presidential debate as by those backing Hillary Clinton, a study says. Discover Magazine: Researchers Uncover Twitter Bot Army That’s 350,000 Strong The Rise of Social Bots Forbes: From Tinder Bots To 'Cuban Twitter', Welcome To 'Cognitive Hacking' Wired: Pro-Government Twitter Bots Try to Hush Mexican Activists Information about shilling on Reddit /u/slaterhearst spammed Reddit with links to The Atlantic. "The Daily Dot has confirmed that slaterhearst was Jared Keller, the associate editor and social media editor at magazine giant The Atlantic." Forbes: Reddit Is Being Manipulated By Big Financial Services Companies User pushes InfoWars links on Reddit, eventually admits to working for Infowars. Shareblue accounts caught in /r/politics posting links to Shareblue without disclosing their affiliation, which caused the mods to create a new disclosure rule and an official Shareblue account was registered. About a month later, Shareblue was again caught shilling on /r/politics without disclosing ties to the outlet, which caused them to ban Shareblue links to the sub. Hillary Clinton Super Pac and "strategic research and rapid response team designed to defend Hillary Clinton from baseless attacks" openly admits to shilling on Reddit. User posts video using GoPro, gets video to front page, admits in comments that GoPro sent him free cameras in exchange for advertising. (archive: http://archive.is/ICGrl) Top mod of /r/Mechanical_Gifs tries to sell subreddit on ebay for 999.00 dollars. How Reddit Got Huge: Tons of Fake Accounts - According to Reddit cofounder Steve Huffman, in the early days the Reddit crew just faked it ‘til they made it. Shill posts picture of a dog in a hammock with the brand clearly visible without indicating that it's an ad in the title of the post, making it an illegal advertisement. Later, he posts a promo code in the comments for 20 percent off his hammocks. Redditor who works for a potato mailing company admits to being a shill. He shows off his 27 thousand dollars he made in /r/pics (Screenshot because he deleted his posts.) [Here's the thread.] /r/netsec talks about gaming reddit via sockpuppets and how online discourse is (easily) manipulated. Reddit is being gamed by professional shills every day. We investigate how widespread the problem of fake comments and fake votes is in our Reddit For Sale follow-up. [11:48] Reddit For Sale: How We Bought The Top Spot For $200 [8:27] Some websites use shill accounts to spam their competitor's articles, causing their competitors to become banned on Reddit. Wikileaks: Reddit cofounder consulting for Stratfor to bring in the social media dollars Shilling on Reddit is openly admitted to in this Forbes article What I learned selling my Reddit accounts Reddit automation bot: "Run Up To 100 Threads, Checks For Valid Proxy Access & Also To Check If Banned From Site, Keyword Based Submission Finder & Vote Up/Down Capabilities, Mass upvote or downvote Mode..." Boostupvotes.com Reddit Secrets, buy upvotes Reddit Secrets, buy pre-aged and high karma accounts Science New Scientist: Sock puppet accounts unmasked by the way they write and post Researcher's algorithm weeds out people using multiple online accounts to spread propaganda - Based on word choice, punctuation and context, the method is able to detect whether one person or multiple people are responsible for the samples. Fake product reviews may be pervasive, study finds When grassroots activism becomes a commodity - UCLA sociologist investigates 'astroturf' campaigns Content-Driven Detection of Campaigns in Social Media [PDF] Additional information Shill Confessions and Additional Information (most confessions are unverifiable due to NDA's and possible trolling.) Clinton Campaign used "grass-roots tweeters" to post tweets and graphics at strategic times during the 2016 election campaign. Meme Warfare Center (PDF. Proposal written in 2006) WAR.COM: THE INTERNET AND PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS (Proposal written in 2001 by Angela Maria Lungu - Major, US Army.) The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spies Corporate and governmental manipulation of Wikipedia articles TEDx Astroturf and manipulation of media messages (Sharyl Attkisson) "Changing the hive mind -- How social media manipulation affects everything" by Tim Weninger at TEDxUND What you should do about this I made this thread in the hopes that it could be used as a citation. There isn't much we can do to stop the manipulation, but we can spread this information so that people can at least become aware of it. The previous generation became somewhat aware of the manipulation in the media. Imagine how effective it would be if few people knew about it? That is what is happening today. We are being advertised to and subjected to propaganda without being aware of it, which is very dangerous. The only reason why this type of propaganda works so well is because most people trust comments and posts with a lot of upvotes and likes. People trust that the information they are looking for will be at the top of threads or on the front page of a subreddit, oblivious to the fact that certain types of information may become buried in artificial downvotes or buried using a "forum slide." Not only that, but this is becoming automated. We must educate others about this problem before we are drowned out by bots. Some of this stuff is automatically removed by Reddit, so you have to link to a thread that was manually approved in order to cite the information. Share this thread where you can or cite small bits of this post in your travels. 67 comments share save hide report all 67 comments sorted by: best topnewcontroversialoldq&a Want to add to the discussion? Post a comment! [–][deleted] 153 points 6 years ago Just thought I'd contribute to this thread permalink embed save report reply [–]NutritionResearch[S] 84 points 6 years ago* I assume that a lot of shills are losing their jobs to bots, as most of us are. With that being the case, many of them will probably come out and release some details about their jobs. Here is a list of shill confessions: "Once we isolate key people, we look for people we know are in their upstream -- people that they read posts from, but who themselves are less influential. We then either start flame wars with bots to derail the conversations that are influencing influential people, or else send off specific tasks for sockpuppets (changing this wording of an idea here; cause an ideological split there; etc)." What I learned selling my Reddit accounts Confession of Hillary Shill from /r/SandersForPresident Shill whistleblower, claims to have derailed discussions and called people anti-semites, ruined reputations of users by searching their account history, amongst other things. Fracking shill whistleblower spills the beans on Fracking Internet PR /r/netsec talks about gaming reddit via sockpuppets and how online discourse is (easily) manipulated. Whistleblower and subsequent investigation: Paid trolls on /r/Bitcoin Redditor comes clean about being paid to chat on Reddit. They work to promote a politician, although they don't specify which one. (Admins claim this wasn't a shill) Screenshot of post since it was removed. I'm not certain that all of these are legit confessions, which is why I chose to omit them from the above post, but some of these are very interesting. Edit: Alleged paid shill leaks details of organization and actions. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]apistograma 13 points 5 years ago Oh, god. I'm sure I was arguing with one person in a similar position to the one in your screenshot some weeks ago in a youtube video about GMOs. I'm not even completely against GMOs, I was mainly arguing that people should be aware of the problems that the current loose regulation in the US and EU could bring long-term. I understand that every people has it's own opinion, and most of them were nice and wanted to add to the discussion, including some of the most adamant supporters of GMOs. But there was one dude that was making me mad. He just spend all the time twisting my points, defending the industry (even when I didn't attacked any firm in particular), and derailing all my topics. He followed most of the points you mentioned, included the one about conspiracy theories (when he asked me if I believed in the lunar landing lol). I didn't know exactly why, but that commenter left me with a very uncomfortable feeling that he wasn't being honest, like when you see a politician talking in an interview. Now I'm pretty sure why. Thank you, you're doing a very nice service to everyone on the internet. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]EvilBananaPt 4 points 5 years ago I found a similar guy and made a post in /r/hailcorporate See if you can spot the similarities: https://www.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/comments/4yl0ce/paid_shill_ufactbased... It started with this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Norway/comments/4ybvz5/was_chatting_with_a_norwegia... permalink embed save parent report reply [–]apistograma 6 points 5 years ago He's a shill, or either a really devoted GMO defender. This user seems more toxic though. The one I found was much more soft-spoken and less trollish permalink embed save parent report reply continue this thread [–][deleted] 9 points 6 years ago Great info man, thank you and saved. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]NutritionResearch[S] 20 points 6 years ago My pleasure. I just re-read the first shill confession I linked you to and I noticed something; This confession was from like a year ago (archived link, so the timestamps are misleading). He mentioned Facebook... Do you think everyone on the data team at Facebook is a sociopath? I don't work at Facebook; however, what do you think promoted posts, the selection of posts to show in your timeline, etc are, if not exactly the same as what I do? Remember, not long ago, Facebook got caught experimenting on humans using their website, intentionally trying to make their users happy or sad with their Timeline post selection algorithm. It just came out a few weeks ago that FB does manipulate the trending news section, severely stretching the definition of "trending." Facebook news selection is in hands of editors not algorithms, documents show permalink embed save parent report reply [–]tha_dank 2 points 5 years ago That whole conversation between that guy and the others in that thread is super creepy. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]pairedox 1 point 7 months ago My favorite shill is Otto Skorzeny. Went around touting how Hitler got away and his part in killing Nikola Tesla. That scar damage must have fucked with the voltages in his body, nope it was the drugs. Still a rather large beast of a man. Who knows how far a man can twist himself and rationalize to other his own sanity. I think the comedian in watchmen is made after him permalink embed save parent report reply [–]DirectImageLinkBot 7 points 6 years ago Here is a direct link to your image for the benefit of mobile users Feedback | Already a direct link? | Why do I exist? | Source permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Lord_Draconia 6 points 5 years ago I actually feel bad for all the shills and hope they find better jobs. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]elypter 1 point 6 years ago the image is offline permalink embed save parent report reply [–]NutritionResearch[S] 3 points 6 years ago I see it just fine, but I saved a copy just in case it is taken down in the future. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]elypter 1 point 6 years ago thanks, i can see it too now. i even saw this original post but didnt click it, or maybe it was i repost, i dunno. do you have an idea what the ratio between professional und unprofessional shills is? permalink embed save parent report reply [–]comrade-jim 35 points 6 years ago Posting one of my old comments: People are in denial that they're being manipulated... Operation Earnest Voice is an astroturfing campaign by the US government. The aim of the initiative is to use sockpuppets to spread pro-American propaganda on social networking sites. The US government signed a $2.8 million contract with the Ntrepid web-security company to develop a specialized software, allowing agents of the government to post propaganda on "foreign-language websites", but recently the law preventing them from using this in America was repealed, allowing them to spread pro-American propaganda even on American media. Main characteristics of the software, as stated in the software development request, are: 50 user "operator" licenses, 10 sockpuppets controllable by each user. Sockpuppets are to be "replete with background, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographically consistent". Sockpuppets are to "be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world." A special secure VPN, allowing sockpuppets to appear to be posting from "randomly selected IP addresses," in order to "hide the existence of the operation." 50 static IP addresses to enable government agencies to "manage their persistent online personas," with identities of government and enterprise organizations protected which will allow for different state agents to use the same sockpuppet, and easily switch between different sockpuppets to "look like ordinary users as opposed to one organization." 9 private servers, "based on the geographic area of operations the customer is operating within and which allow a customer's online persona(s) to appear to originate from." These servers should use commercial hosting centers around the world. Virtual machine environments, deleted after each session termination, to avoid interaction with "any virus, worm, or malicious software." The US also operates in conjunction with the UK to collect and share intelligence data, and the GCHQ has their own internet shilling program. There is not enough evidence to say without a doubt that the US government manipulates American social media, but we can say without a doubt that they do have sophisticated software for the purpose of spreading propaganda, they do manipulate social media, there are no longer propaganda laws preventing them from doing so in America, and multiple world governments have these programs in place (including but not limited to: Russia, China, Israel, and the UK.) You can keep telling your self the US government would never manipulate social media, or violate the 4th amendment, or collect data en masse, or you can wake up and accept that this is the world we live in and ignoring it will never solve the problem. permalink embed save report reply [–]NutritionResearch[S] 8 points 6 years ago Wired wrote about some disturbing stuff in 2008. Wired: Air Force Releases ‘Counter-Blog’ Marching Orders In that article, they cite this: http://www.webinknow.com/2008/12/the-us-air-force-armed-with-social-media.ht... Capt. Faggard and his Air Force Emerging Technology team is responsible for developing strategy, policy and plans for an ever-changing communication landscape for communicators worldwide. What was most interesting is that with Capt. Faggard leading the way, the Air Force employs 330,000 communicators! Their mission is to use current and developing Web 2.0 applications as a way to actively engage conversations between Airmen and the general public. Yes, that’s right, the goal of the program is that every single Airman is an on-line communicator. Besides Twitter, Capt. Faggard writes The Official Blog of the U.S. Air Force; has pages on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook; helps publicize a Second Life area called Huffman Prairie; contributes to iReport (user name USAFPA); and is on Friendfeed, Digg, Delicious, Slashdot,Newsvine, Reddit. There’s Air Force widgets. And there's even a video mashup contest for high schools to show school spirit sponsored by the Air Force. It's not just the Air Force. Several months ago I led a training session organized by SSgt Alexis Mulero, Public Affairs Chief for the communicators in the 1st Marine Corps Recruiting District. Since most teenagers and young adults spend lots of time on Facebook, YouTube, and other social media sites, a major challenge in recruiting young people into the Marines is reaching them online. As a result of a focus on social media, SSgt Mulero says that his team has greatly increased the positive exposure of the Corps across the Northeastern U.S. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Square-Custard 1 point 4 months ago Captain what ? permalink embed save parent report reply [–]BANMEIKEEPCOMINGBACK 24 points 6 years ago And people will still vote for Hillary :-) permalink embed save report reply [–]lordofthebanZ 11 points 6 years ago What did you do to get banned? Lol permalink embed save parent report reply [–]TheBeefClick 7 points 6 years ago Well to be fair, reddit is very anti hillary. Wouldnt it make sense to try and get a few voters from reddit? permalink embed save parent report reply [–][deleted] 12 points 5 years ago Oh how times have changed. The $6MM spent on astroturfing did quite a number here permalink embed save parent report reply [–]TheBeefClick 12 points 5 years ago Yes /u/utstudent4trump. That money worked a lot, where we have subs like /r/thedonald and /r/hillaryforprison frequently reaching the top of /r/all. How much money has trump used for spamming reddit? I guess we can leave out the fools who post nothing but HIGH ENERGY COMMENTS. permalink embed save parent report reply [–][deleted] 5 years ago [deleted] [–]peppaz 2 points 5 years ago Simple demographics permalink embed save report reply [–][deleted] 5 years ago [deleted] [–]TheBeefClick 7 points 5 years ago Or because she was the only viable liberal canidate once bernie lost? If you search for bullshit hard enough, you will find it even if it isnt there. permalink embed save report reply [–][deleted] 5 points 5 years ago I think a turd would poll better against Trump right now. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]elpajarito7 14 points 6 years ago Fantastic write-up. How do you go about archiving this? I'd like to see a website that pertains to shills and astroturfing specifically, or something of the sort. permalink embed save report reply [–]Chicken1337 10 points 6 years ago Jesus. Never realized it was this widespread. permalink embed save report reply [–]Psydonk 8 points 5 years ago Israeli shills are ubiquitous on /r/worldnews. It's actually fascinating to watch really. You see posts that are critical of Israel to begin with, have like +30 upvotes, then you come back several hours later, any post critical of Israel has -500 downvotes while anything that plays to Israel's narrative is upvoted by the hundreds if not thousands. On /r/politics, astroturfers from both sides are all over the place. It's actually interesting to watch the Trump side's strategy, is to constantly post negative articles about Clinton, so people distrust her. It's on a board that actually leans center-left, you get top voted articles from Briebart and other far-right sources. Mostly though, I see Astroturfers on news website comment sections and specialized boards. For example, here in Australia, one of our major forums is Whirlpool, which is just swimming in such blatant astrotufers I wonder how people continue to fall for their bait when they literally post like they are copy-pasting from a manual. Comment sections are always fun to watch astroturfers all use the same "key words" and "key statements" over and over again, then, by the end of the week, the Politicial group they are shilling for, starts to use those same key words. permalink embed save report reply [–]FastAsLightning747 1 point 4 months ago I once commented on Israeli policies and before I knew it I was swamped with Reddit traffic that completely overwhelmed my ability to respond. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]SUCH_AS_SEALS 9 points 5 years ago Thank you so much for this. Just found this thread (and sub) and am awash with thoughts and emotions. You've confirmed what I've known deep down for a while now but had no evidence of. Perhaps I wasn't looking hard enough, because it's clearly there. A lot of it. I wasn't naive enough to think this wasn't happening but this... this is... vilely rampant. I suppose being forewarned is the first step to being forearmed but I'm still reeling with what to do with this knowledge. permalink embed save report reply [–]NutritionResearch[S] 11 points 5 years ago Don't be hard on yourself. Actually, this information is not really easy to find. It is hidden because most people don't know the right words to search. I'm not sure if that is deliberate or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. If you google "shills" or "astroturfer," most of the stuff in this thread will never be seen. Words that you have to plug into google: Political Bots Reputation Management Online Marketing or online native advertising Social Media management or manipulation Paid Trolls Paid comments Here's the thing about "reputation management": This includes manipulating the search ranking of a google search. The people who are involved in this shadowy world of semi legal and illegal online marketing know tricks to pushing certain results to the 3rd or 4th page of a google search. Not only do you have to know the correct words to search for, you might not find it until you dig deep enough. I am also certain that I haven't found everything. This post took me a very long time to put together. Anyway, thanks for the message. I could use some help spreading this knowledge around if you get the chance. I've been spreading this stuff for years over multiple Reddit accounts and I still get people who are surprised. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]secretly_an_alpaca 2 points 5 years ago Look up Search Engine Optimization. I used to work for a company that, among other things, offered SEO services, but it wasn't always subtle. Like, imagine an apartment website where they changed the website title to "apartments in [town]" instead of the name of the complex and at the bottom, in small light grey letters, would say things like "equal opportunity housing affordable housing safe neighborhood pet friendly" despite being none of those things. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]gustoreddit51 7 points 6 years ago "Freedom of speech and its democratic corollary, a free press, have tacitly expanded our Bill of Rights to include the right of persuasion. This development was an inevitable result of the expansion of the media of free speech and persuasion, defined in other articles in this volume. All these media provide open doors to the public mind. Any one of us through these media may influence the attitudes and actions of our fellow citizens." - Edward Bernays in "The Engineering of Consent" (1947). permalink embed save report reply [–]d3fi4nt 6 points 5 years ago With regards to HRC/CTR astroturfing ops, it's worth noting that CGI partner Palantir (along with Berico and HB Gary) developed a "Persona Management System" in the past designed to allow single operators to bulk manage social media accounts, etc. - May be worth investigating too. permalink embed save report reply [–]sper_jsh 5 points 6 years ago This is great! Good work! permalink embed save report reply [–][deleted] 3 points 6 years ago I think I am encountering hedge fund / financial shills in /the_donald... permalink embed save report reply [–][deleted] 5 years ago* [deleted] [–]buffaloranch 1 point 5 years ago How do you distinguish between shills and genuine supporters? permalink embed save report reply [–][deleted] 5 years ago* [deleted] [–]vodzurk 3 points 5 years ago Direct question: Do you get paid to defend Hillary Clinton, US Presidential Candidate online? permalink embed save report reply continue this thread [–]Baconaise 2 points 5 years ago I got accused of being a shill for Israel during the last war with Gaza they had. I was just trying to defend what I saw as very tactfully executed bombings. They would call hours ahead and ensure everyone left the building. They would monitor to see that everyone left. I would remind people of the instances where the terrorists there were caught on drone video dragging children into the buildings to become the next martyrs. The bombs that did drop only leveled the building they needed to level, caused almost no damage to nearby buildings. It was like controlled demolition. permalink embed save report reply [–]TheAmazingSkeptic 3 points 5 years ago Sad. permalink embed save report reply [–][deleted] 2 points 6 years ago 10/10 thread permalink embed save report reply [–][deleted] 2 points 5 years ago Fantastic thread. When people talk about the "good ol days" of media before the internet, I think, the main thing that was different is that we didnt have threads like this. permalink embed save report reply [–]Daytwah 2 points 5 years ago Here's a shill confession I had saved a year ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/31wo57/the_chevron_tapes_video_s... permalink embed save report reply [–]doppleprophet 2 points 5 years ago tagged for later reference permalink embed save report reply [–]qv51 2 points 5 years ago Vietnam employs nearly 1000 public opinion shapers online: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-20982985 permalink embed save report reply [–]NutritionResearch[S] 2 points 5 years ago Added to the list. Thank you! permalink embed save parent report reply [–][deleted] 5 years ago [removed] [–]BigPharmaSucks 1 point 6 months ago Do you still remember this thread? I don't expect a reply, you haven't been on reddit in almost 5 years. permalink embed save report reply [–][deleted] 1 point 5 years ago https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/564qvd/so_apparently_people_fou... permalink embed save report reply [–]BigPharmaSucks 1 point 6 months ago This is a very important thread. permalink embed save report reply [–]3risX 1 point 4 months ago I wonder if it's possible to buy youtube stream donators, similar to buying instagram followers. Something I've noticed for a while now is that mid-sized streamers will get at least one $100+ donation per stream from an account with no comment or participation in chat. I'd guess the reason for doing so would be to seem more relevant than one actually is to increase the likelihood of followers donating more and increasing subs, but this could just be in my head. Can anyone confirm? 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