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Psychological Operations

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Re: Psychological Operations

#101

Post by kingcharles »

boston_clone wrote: post #5

Former PsyOp guy here with OEF experience, now working in cybersecurity. Please feel welcome to ask me (almost!) anything, and I'll do my best to respond. edit - this TTP FM [0] (warning, PDF ahead) seems to be freely available, and gives a comprehensive overview of what PsyOp actually does in the modern US Army. Perhaps most relevant for today is propaganda analysis and the SCAME method, a multi-faceted approach to…

Beyond the FM you posted, are there any other documents or books you would recommend?

Re: Psychological Operations

#102

Post by electriclizard »

boston_clone wrote: post #30
wolverine876 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know psyops well, but I do know just a little about small unit tactics, and I've noticed that certain groups seem to use, at a level sophisticated enough to clearly indicate they know what they are doing, the public information equivalent of the small unit tactics - complementary effects, reinforcing effects, fixing the enemy, the focus on offense and movement, etc. Is that a fair description of psyops - the…

> Is that a fair description of psyops - the information equivalent of more 'physical' tactics? Absolutely it is. From a historical perspective, the tactic has known many names: Psychological Warfare, Psychological Operations, Military Information Support Operations, etc. By definition, however, only 37-series (e.g. MOS 37F, MOS 37A) folks trained out at Ft. Bragg are able to conduct PsyOp. Political groups, private…

>one reason I enjoy limiting how much television I watch

Absolutely. I've no delusion that I can combat the manipulation. The best defense is to not absorb the data to begin with.

Re: Psychological Operations

#103

Post by giantg2 »

jonnybgood wrote: post #97
giantg2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it likely be an agency performing domestic PysOps, not the military? And I would guess that it would be TS/SCI or higher, so not really known.

Why assume the government is doing it domestically? Plenty of political organizations and lobby groups exist for this exact purpose.

Well, the fact that the CIA was recently exposed as running a mass domestic surveillance program is pretty good circumstantial evidence. Political/lobby/corporate interests are definitely doing it too. The commercial ones may even be selling it to the government.

Re: Psychological Operations

#104

Post by electriclizard »

boston_clone wrote: post #91
Sebb767 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat off-topic, but does your PsyOp experience help you in Cybersecurity? I imagine it's valuable for social engineering or (possibly) getting management to accept that it's needed.

Thanks for asking; I was wanting someone to bring this up. It certainly does help. All too often, great ideas are communicated poorly and end up going nowhere, I think. Knowing how to frame something for a particular audience, or helping people feel like they're heard / acknowledged / part of a team, or seeing through pervasive political fogs, and a bunch of other little skills that really boil down to "good communic…

>I'm working on convincing myself that not all persuasive communication is bad!

By a series of unfortunate events I've been victim to gaslighting from a lot of people in my personal and work lives, so I struggle with this too.

Re: Psychological Operations

#105

Post by hackernewds »

obviouslynotme wrote: post #23

Grow your career releasing domestic propaganda now that the 2013 NDAA removed the Smith-Mundt Act ban on domestic propaganda. You too can earn $13k/year posting on multiple social media sites from a flowchart given to you that day. Never let the truth stand in the way of national security interests.

Any supporting links to these claims?

Re: Psychological Operations

#106

Post by xhevahir »

woodruffw wrote: post #34
K7PJP wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly certain that /r/worldnews is gamed by western intelligence and diplomatic agencies. The top stories and top comments on said stories are invariably towing the US State Department line.

All things being equal, this doesn't seem like the most likely explanation. It's more likely that there are just a large number of people who agree with what you think are the US State Department's positions. Whether those people have been in turn influenced is a separate question.

Is this tendency consistent over several years, though? Because there are some pretty stark differences between the Trump foreign policy and that of Biden or Obama. I don't imagine that many normal users would be inclined to echo the words of Hillary Clinton and later Antony Blinken, and in between them Rex Tillerson. If they have done that, maybe there is some kind of organized effort behind it.

Re: Psychological Operations

#108

Post by whatshisface »

hackernewds wrote: post #105
obviouslynotme wrote: post #23

Grow your career releasing domestic propaganda now that the 2013 NDAA removed the Smith-Mundt Act ban on domestic propaganda. You too can earn $13k/year posting on multiple social media sites from a flowchart given to you that day. Never let the truth stand in the way of national security interests.

Any supporting links to these claims?

>“There was essentially a de facto ban on the domestic dissemination of materials originating from the State Department,” said Weston Sager, an attorney who published a paper on the change in law. Under the new law, it is still against the law for government-funded media to create programming and market their content to U.S. audiences.

>During consideration of the bill, critics voiced concern that lifting the restrictions could result in information designed to influence foreign audiences being used against American citizens. Proponents countered that the ban made it difficult for Americans to access and evaluate this content.

- Associated Press

https://apnews.com/article/archive-fact-checking-7064410002

Re: Psychological Operations

#109

Post by bckr »

boston_clone wrote: post #94
Sebb767 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Foreign gov't, certainly. Ours? As honestly as I can claim, I never knew of any Psyop folks conducting operations on those sites, nor did I ever hear of any directives for Psyop folks to use those platforms as viable mediums. Wouldn't operating there also target a lot of non-US citizens? How would you actually go for non-US people that frequent English forums? Also, that the US completely leaves the field to the ot…

Honestly, my hypothesis (as I have no discrete data) is that sites like reddit, twitter, HN, tumbler, etc. already have CIA / NSA / "DoD" people both on staff and as participatory users, likely volunteer moderators / admins as well. When you start to think about how many other foreign countries are doing the exact same thing , well, you start wanting to use social media a lot less.

> you start wanting to use social media a lot less

fidgets for a minute about whether HN is a social media site

Re: Psychological Operations

#110

Post by [deleted] »

giantg2 wrote: post #28
boston_clone wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you feel about psyops deployed domestically, against US citizens? Short answer is that PsyOp is not used domestically. There are a number of criteria for something to be considered actual factual psyop activity, and a private company attempting to influence US citizens would automatically fall short of those criteria. My work was done exclusively and entirely in Afghanistan.

Wouldn't it likely be an agency performing domestic PysOps, not the military? And I would guess that it would be TS/SCI or higher, so not really known.

[deleted]
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