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Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

middleeasteye.net

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Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#61

Post by ptero »

chrissnell wrote: post #42
ptero wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about the general population, but folks here are largely zeroing in on the conflict of interest issues. At least in the US, I would expect serving "PsyOps" people to be government employees, supported by taxes and subject to general oversight that taxpayers (at least in theory) should be able to exercise. I would have no problems if he went to Twitter after retiring, but I see such double-dipping as a curren…

What? I am a US Army Reserve officer and I've served my country for the last ten years while working in tech. I've been in the technology industry for 25 years and have been in management and am currently a principal engineer for a large SFBA company. My military service is what I did one weekend a month and has no connection to my tech job, other than providing me with people leadership experience that readily trans…

IANAL. Clearly reservists are an important group that I did not cleanly address. I originally meant full time employment.

> My military service is what I did one weekend a month and has no connection to my tech job, other than providing me with people leadership experience that readily translated into my day job.

This, to me, is a key distinction. What you describe is similar to a second job some folks hold -- no problem for 99.9% of the population, but starts drawing much more scrutiny when people climb into senior management at either job. IANAL. Just my 2c.

Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#62

Post by 5trokerac3 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #53
Cpoll wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the parent post is movie-like? I may be too cynical, but I don't see a difference between "the same job as brand influencers" and "spread (dis)information"

Because most of their job isn’t spreading disinformation but rather providing good PR for recruitment at home or in the Middle East countering the disinformation campaigns that the likes of ISIS run unless you think that their recruitment operations are not disinformation. The British army information warfare unit also famously runs the BBC radio relay station in Cyprus providing access to the Middle East and parts o…

"Good PR" is also seen as the lack of bad PR. Like when we drop a bomb on a school and kill a bunch of kids. PsyOps are the ones who pay off the village.

Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#63

Post by tptacek »

colordrops wrote: post #45
dfsegoat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"kinetic operations" (read: shooting) are not generally within the purview of Psychological Operations units... Do you have any cites to support your claim?

It should be obvious that my point is that it's one organization with a unified purpose regardless of what unit they are part of.

It was not at all obvious, and further, you made a claim ("gun fire and cluster bombs") that implied you had some direct knowledge of the topic. Do you, or did your claim just sound right to your ears?

Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#64

Post by dlgeek »

Even if they wanted to, is there anything Twitter could do about the (potential/perceived/choose-your-own-narrative) conflict of interest?

I don't know anything about British labor law, but in the US it's illegal to discriminate, fire, etc. a person because of service in the armed forces, including reserves. I'm pretty sure taking any action on the basis of their role in the reserves would be illegal.

Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#65

Post by mcsmash »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #18

One thing that mystifies me is why the general population thinks that uniformed PsyOps people are like a real-life version of Kilgrave from Jessica Jones. They're basically the military's version of PR reps; most of their time is spent doing stuff like making fliers and taking photos of bags of rice being handed out. Maybe once in a while they get to blast Slayer at a building of holed-up insurgents. Meanwhile all th…

I would imagine that this is true for the vast majority of PsyOps people. However. Just because it's true for the vast majority of people doesn't mean it's true for everyone. By your logic the fact that the majority of developers being people trying to make a living banging away at keyboard implies that there are no kernel divers, or AI magicians, or black hole image processors. Yes, it's mostly bags of rice, but someone at the executive level of a major social media platform might, just _might_ be getting orders that are a little above and beyond taking pictures of rice.

Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#66

Post by thrower123 »

noego wrote: post #6

This is a conflict of interest, which should erode the trust that anyone would have on twitter. The man is simultaneously responsible for editorial decisions, while also serving in a brigade that "uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook ... to wage what the head of the UK military describes as “information warfare”. Imagine finding out that the executive in charge of editorial decisions fo…

Who has any trust in Twitter?

Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#67

Post by ratacat »

doktrin wrote: post #27
5trokerac3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PsyOps main job is convincing occupied peoples that the occupier is their friend. One of the ways they do that is by taking photos of bags of rice being handed out. They also actively work to spread (dis)information.

So, like a PR rep?

The term public relations was actually an explicit rebranding of the term Propaganda after it started to develop a negative association in the public eye. Look up Edward Bernays, it's a fascinating bit of history that's not really talked about much.

http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-...

Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#68

Post by ratacat »

robert_foss wrote: post #50
chrissnell wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I am a US Army Reserve officer and I've served my country for the last ten years while working in tech. I've been in the technology industry for 25 years and have been in management and am currently a principal engineer for a large SFBA company. My military service is what I did one weekend a month and has no connection to my tech job, other than providing me with people leadership experience that readily trans…

Clearly there can be a conflict of interest when working for international tech firms. If Russian PSYOPS reservists were heading up an American division of Twitter, surely people would be screaming bloody murder (and with good cause).

This really hit the nail on the head I think

Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#69

Post by chrissnell »

AaronFriel wrote: post #55
chrissnell wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? I am a US Army Reserve officer and I've served my country for the last ten years while working in tech. I've been in the technology industry for 25 years and have been in management and am currently a principal engineer for a large SFBA company. My military service is what I did one weekend a month and has no connection to my tech job, other than providing me with people leadership experience that readily trans…

Yes, but did you ever have a conflict of interest between your two positions? As other people are pointing out, psyops (generally speaking) involves tweaking public opinion in ways that favor the government. This person also happened to have editorial control and influence on Twitter. If he were just a developer, it might be different, no?

Your argument is logical but if you had served in the military (at least the US military...can't speak for others), it's laughable.

The day-to-day of the average reservist's military (even a senior officer!) is mind-numingly boring and not important in the big picture. In a MISO unit (the new US Army name for PSYOP), an officer's day is spent planning training events and doing simulations of what their job might be "downrange" in wartime.

We're not scheming on ways to infiltrate our civilian employers--we're too busy trying to get hold of the lazy DoD civilian at Fort Bumblefuck with the full voicemail to get our training area allocated for the mandatory annual trip to the rifle range in November.

Now, is it possible that if we went into full-scale conflict with Iran and the Middle East was on fire that the UK and US might call upon this Twitter exec/reserve officer to help out? Sure. But, it would be above-the-board. He would get orders to active duty and turn in his Twitter laptop before heading off to spend the next year and a half at a military installation advising on Middle East info campaigns. This happens all the time and happened to a lot of us during OIF and OEF. The whole reason for existence of the reserve forces is to leverage critical knowledge learned in the civilian sector.

Re: Twitter exec for Middle East is also part-time British army 'psyops' officer

#70

Post by mshockwave »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #18

One thing that mystifies me is why the general population thinks that uniformed PsyOps people are like a real-life version of Kilgrave from Jessica Jones. They're basically the military's version of PR reps; most of their time is spent doing stuff like making fliers and taking photos of bags of rice being handed out. Maybe once in a while they get to blast Slayer at a building of holed-up insurgents. Meanwhile all th…

dude I think you underestimate how important social media plays in interfering internal affairs of a country
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