Words: Used as an Informationwar Weapon PT 2
If you missed my previous article about "Anger: Used as an Informationwar Weapon" please check it out here
The topic of this post will be "Words".
Words are used as a means to achieve an end, we will be examining this in the context of the Information War. Many entities including MSM/Political/Ideological groups will use words to further their goals. We all use words to further our own goals(obviously)... But our focus SHOULD BE on being truthful and honest in how we analyze things, as well as having healthy debates to make sure we are correct, whereas many other groups will use deceit/lies/propaganda/made up narratives to further their goals.
This is about analyzing what tactics deceitful/liar/propaganda groups use, in an effort to understand what they are doing. Once you understand what "they" are doing you will be able to counteract it.
1. Changing the definition of things via astroturfing. This is done by utilizing bots/alt accounts/small group of conspirators, example an Assault Rifle
There are people who are actively engaged in trying to change definitions across many platforms, platforms that average people use to look up information. If you didn't notice the problem in the picture, the problem is "a rifle that resembles a military assault rifle but is designed to allow only semiautomatic fire." The people engaging in this deceit are trying to "astroturf their own definition all over the web to make it the standard definition, to make it appear everyone agrees this is what an assault rifle is". Astroturfing means using a bunch of fake accounts or a bunch of bots or a bunch of accounts online to make it look like something has a ton of grass roots support or a ton of support, when it doesn't have almost any support. An example being people who comment on something with their opinion and somehow consistently get 10,000 likes or upvotes, despite only having 100 followers(who are also not real people). They use bots/upvote alt accounts to do this.
What actually is an Assault Rifle? Do you know? Here is a comprehensive post breaking it all down
Their ultimate goal is to change overall opinion, because the average person WILL NOT understand what is really happening(astroturfing) and is not knowledgeable to these practices. Therefore, it is an effective technique in changing people's minds on a massive scale, though more people are becoming savvy to this and it is becoming less effective.
2. Censorship. The censoring of another side's words so that only one side is visible, or it is extremely hard to find other sides point of view due to being censored/limited/throttled/not able to be shared easily.
Censorship is something that can make it SEEM like everyone agrees about a particular subject, due to the opposing views being deleted/removed/limited/throttled/hard to find due to algorithms burying them/etc.
The chief censors being Google/Youtube//Facebook/Twitter/Reddit.
Google/Youtube are consistently censoring speech and words that they deem are not politically correct. They are the largest search engine and video hosting platform in the world and have a Monopoly on how information is disseminated. Google routinely deletes/throttles/limits/bans people and ideologies that they do not like, as well as tuning their search engine algorithms away from "giving bad search results for things they are championing".
Censorship "gives oxygen" to your ideology, while "taking away oxygen" from the ideas/thoughts/words that you want to oppose. These big tech companies know exactly what they are doing and they are working on it with an incremental basis, ramping it up as time goes on so that most people do not notice. It creates a large echo chamber where everyone thinks they agree on things. When Trump won the election it caused a lot of problems in the USA's society in that many people were mad. According to all MSM and online content there was no way Trump would win as he was always getting trashed and stuff pro trump being put at bottom of algorithm while pro Hillary stuff rises to the top. The main reason Trump managed to win was the fact that he did 2 or 3 rallies on a daily basis, effectively going completely around the MSM controlling platforms and appealing directly to people in person.
Censorship gives a very one sided view of the world and limits information. When someone tried to search for Hillary Clinton Health Problems the auto results were not filled in for example ^
A great example in an article written by @johnvibes seen here
"The company(Google/Youtube) maintains at least nine different blacklists that impact our lives, generally without input or authority from any outside advisory group, industry association or government agency. Google is not the only company suppressing content on the internet. Reddit has frequently been accused of banning postings on specific topics, and a recent report suggests that Facebook has been deleting conservative news stories from its newsfeed, a practice that might have a significant effect on public opinion – even on voting. Google, though, is currently the biggest bully on the block."
Ultimately, we know that in history censorship never works. People are too curious and want to see what is going on, decentralized tech like Steemit and other decentralized/censorship free social media will eventually take center stage and become dominant.
3. Narrative building. Primarily is created through Oligopoly media/government, via "Trusted" Talking Heads/Celebrity Personalities/"Trusted" Sources/"Anonymous" Sources/Collusion with other groups/key players.
The people who BLINDLY BELIEVE their "trusted" information from the nightly news/late night comedians/governments are very susceptible to "Narrative building". Narrative building is something that is accomplished by having a continuous stream of consistent reporting done on a particular subject that is agreed upon with many others, in order to "tell a story" the way that you want it told and it doesn't have to be based on truths/facts/evidence/etc. A lie told often enough can become the truth, in that humans have a herd mentality in this regard and "look to the herd for wisdom" aka "common sense". The phenomenon is that if the herd "believes something" than it likely is true, and this happens because of the way humans evolved to look to leaders for what is happening.
Many factors come into play on the narrative building aspect. A charismatic person who consistently repeats and says the same thing can appear to others as "that person is confident in what they know so they must be right", even if they are just making things up completely. A controlling person who colludes with others to consistently present information AS THOUGH IT IS CORRECT and or uses pseudo-science/pseudo-data/sophistry to change minds is another thing, as seen here it becomes a huge problem when thousands of members collude to all tell the same narrative
Have you ever wondered about how much manipulation a government or the MSM truly can do? UK intelligence agency GCHQ has developed sophisticated tools to manipulate online polls, spam targets, track people, and monitor social media postings, according to documents leaked by NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden.
This is also done via bots on twitter and on reddit who constantly upvote the main accounts or alt accounts that tweet our the narrative or post the narrative. So you basically have a few dozen to a few hundred MAIN ACCOUNTS who do the tweeting or posting, that are then upvoted by a bot army or paid for upvotes, and then there are a bunch of ALT ACCOUNTS who then will retweet/share/comment on that particular article and also all upvote each-other to make it look like "consensus has been reached". Want to see how easily it is done? Take a look at Trump's twitter sometime and see how many accounts automatically reply a litany of response within a second, they all talk to each-other and upvote each-other pretty quickly and cause themselves to rise to the top as the top. This is done all over reddit as well.
I have made this post in an effort to give you all the tools to defend yourselves in this Information War. Recognizing what is REALLY happening is what the @informationwar is all about.
Curated for #informationwar (by @truthforce)
The herd mentality is an essential biological feature of H. sapiens. We need to be part of a strong social group. It's a matter of survival, as groups commit intraspecific depredations--war--and weak social groups are slaughtered.
This is a large part of why the enemedia work. They are the means of recruiting people into the large and powerful social group they think will protect them from such enemies. The truth, however, is that social group (corporations, the USG, etc.) fund, arm, and train those very enemies, such as Hamas, and al Qaeda, to attack civilians, so that civilians will grant that social group any power it says it needs to protect them from their enemies.
It's an old trick, and people are kept busy trying to pay their bills to prevent them from having the time to learn it's being used on them.
Money is a trap.
Very nice contribution. One of the most insidious examples of changing definitions was when Google changed the definition of 'fascism' from “centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition” to “right wing system of government and social organization” in 2017.
Regarding point 2, thank goodness for the Streisand Effect. I can think of quite a few things I would never have heard about if the attempt hadn't been made to keep it from the public and backfired.
And to point 3, narrative building, it occurred to me while reading this that the IW coalition could do a collaborative narrative push by asking all interested to write on a specific topic for a set period of time. The thing about the MSM narratives is that with their reach, they can practically drown out everything else for a few days/weeks/months while pushing a specific narrative. If IW contributors were willing to write on a specific topic for a set period of time, regardless of the approach or aspect treated, it could also serve as a narrative vehicle with enhanced reach. Just food for thought (if it happens, let me know!).
Yes, the Streisand Effect I think works really well in our favor most of the time due to our access to online that we didn't previously have. Not many gatekeepers in the way as their used to be. Now we are starting to see online personalities who have more of an audience than major news networks.
The time will come for decentralized platforms to triumph over these gate keepers and colluders that are the big 6 media corps.
Superb article, I was about to upvote you, and could not due to being on the informationwar curation trail, so I will have to stop by earlier next time, cheers my friend.
No problemo :) I find the same thing happens to me as well sometimes hehe
Classic newspeak. A tyranny of the mind and culture more violent and devastating for the individual's soul than the worst brutalization of the body can achieve.