There Are Paid Government Trolls On Social Media

Yes, There Are Paid Government Trolls On Social Media, Blogs, Forums And Websites
Michael Snyder

Do you want solid proof that paid government shills are targeting websites, blogs, forums and social media accounts?  For years, many have suspected that government trolls have been systematically causing havoc all over the Internet, but proving it has been difficult.

 

Image: Keyboard (Wikimedia Commons).

But now thanks to documents leaked by Edward Snowden and revealed by Glenn Greenwald, we finally have hard evidence that western governments have been doing this.  As you will see below, a UK intelligence outfit known as the Government Communications Headquarters, through a previously secret unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, has been systematically attempting “to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse”.  This should be deeply disturbing to anyone that values free speech on the Internet.

It isn’t just that the British government is trying to influence what people are thinking.  The reality is that this is far bigger than a mere propaganda campaign.  As Greenwald recently noted on his new website, the “integrity of the Internet itself” is at stake…

By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: themonitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.

So what techniques are the British using to control and manipulate discourse on the Internet?  According to Greenwald, the documents that Snowden has uncovered show that they are willing to sink to despicable lows in order to get the results that they desire…

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques tomanipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums.

The following is a list of Internet infiltration techniques that were listed on one particular slide that Snowden leaked…

-Infiltration Operation

-Ruse Operation

-Set Piece Operation

-False Flag Operation

-False Rescue Operation

-Disruption Operation

-Sting Operation

You can check out this slide for yourself right here.

There is also evidence that the Canadian government has been involved in this sort of thing as well.  The following comes from Natural News…