I think some people don’t know what a “psyop” is and are like…reflexively objecting to the idea that a Russian psyop A.) happened, or B.) worked and people disbelieve it which is also how you know it was successful.
a psyop is a psychological operation. It’s a tactic, usually from a government, enacted upon a group of individuals (of varying sizes, kinds, etc).
I don’t see anything wrong with looking at wiki’s definition of what a US PsyOp is defined as:
planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
People seem to mistakenly believe that people (buzzfeed?) is claiming that Black Lives Matter was a Russian Psyop. That’s not the case (not in the Buzzfeed article, and not seriously anywhere I’ve seen).
RATHER, it seems that the Russian PSYOP targeted BLM. BLM is not the psyop itself. The psyop just happened to target that movement (as well as other social justice/liberal movements).
The people who seem to object to the idea that this was a Russian psyop are also often reasoning this can’t be a Psyop because…the CIA/FBI successfully infiltrated liberal movements (particularly Black-led ones) before?
Historically, our very own government used psyop and infiltration tactics to do the exact same thing to similar US populations that people are uncovering about Russia. Seeing people claim that this whole psyop thing is “people are saying BLM is a Russian Psyop!!” is like people trying to say “they claimed the Black Panthers was a CIA/FBI psyop!!!”
When the reality is that the psyops/infiltration targeted BLM, or targeted the Black Panthers. It seems…really important that people know that! and it’s like…i keep seeing the SAME people who seem aware the FBI/CIA fucked over groups in the civil rights movements ALSO deny these bloggers were Russian psyops which is weird?? Both things can be true.
This isn’t an accident, it’s super intentional. The whole point is to choose a group of people to target to influence, then assimilate into said community, and then influence or undermine it. It’s effective if you choose a group which is marginalized. It’s more effective if that group would stand to lose something by being publicly undermined. It’s really effective when the end result is a lot of people going “calling this a psyop is a psyop! It’s not their government undermining us, it’s our government doing that.”
Eliciting that response is tactically clever, because you aren’t even wrong for criticizing our government, but also you become complicit in covering up the tracks of the original [outside] influence because you are more willing to blame whatever would normally be the cause of the problem.
Alright I’m just going to add a few things, especially because of this:
#I think this is the most rational post about this that I’ve seen #I still want to see the proof though
This is part of a much larger ongoing Federal investigation. Tumblr delayed on acting on this for months, and in the end seems to have “found only 84 IRA blogs.”
Now “evidence” is presumably how these blogs were proven to be Russian. It seems that Tumblr just cross-referenced already identified IRA backed usernames and IP addresses. We know that platforms like Twitter, Youtube, Google, and Facebook ALL were impacted by this. We had federal court hearings about it:
“I have to say no.” – Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch
In September [2017], Facebook acknowledged that it had discovered 3,000 ads from 470 accounts connected to Internet Research Agency. It’s since revealed that those accounts collectively created 80,000 pieces of content that may have been shared, both organically and through ads, with 126 million people. It shared that information with Twitter and Google. Now Twitter says it has identified 2,752 accounts linked to Internet Research Agency, while Google says it has identified 18 YouTube channels connected to the group.
So just from this, we have 470 facebook accounts, 2,752 twitter accounts, and 18 youtube channels. Now we have also identified about 84 tumblr accounts. I don’t think this number is particularly low, nor do I think it’s very high either. I do think that tumblr did the bare minimum of identifying and purging IRA run blogs already identified under federal investigation. I don’t believe tumblr did any original investigation work, and instead simply cleared our already known and identified foreign actors. But that’s my personal belief, not a stated fact.
At any rate, this has been a work in progress for years:
In April 2014, the IRA created a new unit, known as the Translator Project, that focused on “the US population and conducted operations on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,” according to the indictment. By the following month, the project outlined, apparently in an internal document, an explicit goal: “Spread distrust toward the candidates and the political system in general.”
So we have documentation of the goal, we know the IRA itself exists, we’ve had federal investigations about Russian interference in the election, and we know the means with which they interfered (social media.).
Also let’s be clear here: Tumblr didn’t do this out of the kindness of their hearts, a particular political belief, or because they care more about faux-BLM supporting accounts than they do deleting real life Nazis. They did it because the federal government compelled them to help a larger investigation.
The blogging platform Tumblr has unmasked 84 accounts that it says were used by a shadowy Russian internet group to spread disinformation during the 2016 US election campaign.
Tumblr said it uncovered the scheme in late 2017, helping an investigation that led to the indictment in February of 13 individuals linked to the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA).
By the way, this wasn’t just a couple of fake accounts, some of these people stole the social security numbers of living Americans, then opened accounts with paypal. They had fake IDs, stolen SSNs, paypal accounts, fake lives. They also hired actual American citizens to do a variety of different things for photo ops. We also have proof because Russian actors in the IRA admitted they got caught and were doing this.
There’s one more thing, which I think is also confusing or bothering people.
Question: why did these accounts spend time being largely pro-liberal/leftist movements?
Answer: across all media platforms? They didn’t. They were spread across all “sides.” Their goal was not simply electing Trump or being conservative, their goal was to spread distrust in the system and undermine the election process. Then to sow discord. They weren’t all left or all right. They were everything, with the intent to cause conflict.
Burr, the committee chair, highlighted two Facebook posts from a Russian propaganda group called Internet Research Agency that created a conflict on the streets of Houston by drawing two groups of protestors to fake “rallies” at the same place and time. One post, shared by the fake Facebook page Heart of Texas, promoted a purported protest against the “Islamization of Texas.” The second post, uploaded by the fake page United Muslims of America, promoted an event aimed at saving “Islamic knowledge.” Both groups bought ads to publicize their events, spending about $200 in total.
Burr then showed images of the resulting clash outside the Islamic Center in Houston, dramatizing how fake accounts can produce real conflict. Skeptics of the impact of Russian meddling in the US election have argued that just because Russia endeavored to influence American voters doesn’t mean they did. But the fact that people showed up for these protests, designed to foment anger on both sides, demonstrates that influence.
So a few people have suggested that the tumblr accounts would sometimes say inflammatory things like talking about white genocide, or hating the whites, or whatever else, and then the IRA would then turn around and use their own posts and spread that information to 4chan and reddit to stir up more anger from neonazis and white supremacists.
I don’t have actual proof of that specific thing happening on hand, but it is very much in line with other actions the IRA took in this psyop, so I find it very reasonable. Tumblr was probably not a main point of actual influence action, but rather a place to disseminate extra “proof” of whatever angle or information they were trying to promote.
But people seem to think this means the US is doing COINTELPRO or that Buzzfeed is calling BLM the result of the IRA psyop, as opposed to like…the reality which is that black liberal bloggers and their politics/organizing were targeted by the IRA. And it’s like…so painful for people to say “psyops won’t work on us because psyops definitely worked on us before.”
– if this helped you in any way, consider buying me a coffee because i’m so tired
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