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Tactics of Psy-Group, Black Cube Revealed in Canadian Court Battle

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21–30 of 56 posts

Re: Tactics of Psy-Group, Black Cube Revealed in Canadian Court Battle

#21
post #9

Why make such a big deal out of how these companies are Israeli? It feels kind of like a dog whistle- what makes the location where a misbehaving company is registered relevant to the story? You'd never read an article saying something like "Uber- a Deleware corporation did x y z..."

Well for one thing, the article comes from the tech site with is an arm of an Israeli newspaper. Maybe it's more like The Delaware Herald starting an article off with "Joe's Consulting, a company headquartered in state capitol Annapolis.." There is to me something negative implied in being a Delaware corporation (tax avoidance). This article is only critical of the shady tactics of the two firms mentioned in the stor…

What’s wrong with being incorporated in Delaware?

Re: Tactics of Psy-Group, Black Cube Revealed in Canadian Court Battle

#22
post #17

Where is the HN relevance? Did Psy-Group or Black Cube employ tech to conduct its influence operations? Were systems compromised? Was there a troll center posting in forums? Influence ops via technical means are a real problem for journalism and online communities and something relevant to HN. I'm not seeing how this article aligns with HN.

HN is about more than implementation details - some of the most fruitful, engaged, passionate and interesting discussions on here have been about the use of technology to implement real world change, and the impact of technology on human culture and ways of living.

This certainly falls into that category, as in this instance the internet, specifically social media and news outlets, was used by one nation to influence the economy of another.

Frankly, psy-ops, and how to make the internet become less fertile ground for them, is a topic we should be discussing more, not less.

Re: Tactics of Psy-Group, Black Cube Revealed in Canadian Court Battle

#24
post #11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for one thing, the article comes from the tech site with is an arm of an Israeli newspaper. Maybe it's more like The Delaware Herald starting an article off with "Joe's Consulting, a company headquartered in state capitol Annapolis.." There is to me something negative implied in being a Delaware corporation (tax avoidance). This article is only critical of the shady tactics of the two firms mentioned in the stor…

Annapolis is probably not the state capital of Delaware, since it's the state capital of Maryland. Source: Lived in Maryland for twelve years.

Was your "source" a joke?

You don't need to cite personal experience when any map of will provide sufficient evidence for your argument.

Source: Has Google Maps installed on my phone.

Re: Tactics of Psy-Group, Black Cube Revealed in Canadian Court Battle

#26
I'm not surprised Israeli companies were behind this. It seems like in the world today, Israel is above approach and can do whatever they want. They don't respect the rule of law or the sovereignty of other nations. And any criticism of Israel will have you labeled as an anti-Semite and you'll face harassment from state-sponsored Israeli PR teams.

Which brings up an interesting question: why do progressive tech companies such as Google and Facebook have an office in Israel?

Re: Tactics of Psy-Group, Black Cube Revealed in Canadian Court Battle

#27
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Annapolis is probably not the state capital of Delaware, since it's the state capital of Maryland. Source: Lived in Maryland for twelve years.

Was your "source" a joke? You don't need to cite personal experience when any map of will provide sufficient evidence for your argument. Source: Has Google Maps installed on my phone.

Dover is the capital of Delaware.

Re: Tactics of Psy-Group, Black Cube Revealed in Canadian Court Battle

#30
post #29

[flagged]

The political parties, at the state level, sabotaged any reasonable intention in the Electoral College. Most states have laws, some with heavy penalties, requiring that the Electors are made up of party loyalists. These are not deliberative people, and the founding idea of the College in Federalist 68, is that the this body should be deliberative.

I argue those state laws make it essentially impossible for a national 3rd party to emerge.

Another factor, ironically, is more democracy and less process, in the party primary system, while at the same time not having mandatory voter participation, has allowed an even lower signal to noise ratio in the eventual two choices the parties select. A tiny number of people participate in the primaries, and making it easier for highly emotionally motivated yet ignorant people to participate gets us increasingly partisan politics. That's what's edged out the moderates from both parties, and by moderates I mean, having the capacity to compromise.

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