Propaganda and The US Government

Written by Jim Fetzer on October 3, 2023. Posted in Current News

• Black propaganda is designed to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit.
• Black Propaganda is typically used to vilify or embarrass an opponent or enemy through misrepresentation.
• The major characteristic of black propaganda, when effective, is that the recipient (audience) is not aware that someone is influencing them, and therefore does not feel pushed in a certain direction.
• Black propaganda purports to emanate from a source other than the true source. This is the type of propaganda most often associated with covert psychological operations.
• Sometimes the source is concealed or credited to a false authority and used to spread lies, fabrications, and deceptions.
• Black propaganda is the “Big Lie”, including all types of creative deceit.
• Black propaganda relies on the willingness of the receiver to accept the credibility of the source. If the creators or senders of the black propaganda message do not adequately understand their intended audience, the message may be misunderstood, seem suspicious, or fail altogether.

Examples of Black Propaganda:

• Declassified documents have revealed that the British government ran a secret “black propaganda” campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilizing cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas.
• Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) (now renamed and restructured as “Office of Information Activities”),
  • The Office of Information Activities (OIA) currently resides within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict with responsibility for policy oversight of military psychological operations activities.
  • Following 9-11, the US DoD  organized and implemented the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), which maintained a mission described by The New York Times as “circulating classified proposals calling for aggressive campaigns that use[d] not only the foreign media and the Internet, but also covert operations.”^[
  • At the time, Pentagon officials said that the OSI was ‘a broad mission ranging from ‘black’ campaigns that use disinformation and other covert activities to ‘white’ public affairs that rely on truthful news releases.’ Therefore, OSI’s operations could include black propaganda activities.
  • OSI’s operations included contacting and emailing media, journalists, and community leaders with information that would counter foreign governments and organizations that are hostile to the United States. In doing so, the emails would be masked by using addresses ending with .com as opposed to using the standard Pentagon address of .mil, and hide any involvement of the US government and the Pentagon.

With the advent of technology, particularly the internet – the ability of many different factions to use propaganda has only grown.

Computational propaganda can be described as an “emergent form of political manipulation that occurs over the Internet” (Woolley and Howard, 2018, p. 3). Computational programming is used in social media – on blogs, forums and other websites that involve participation and discussion.

This type of propaganda is often executed through data mining and algorithmic bots, which are usually created and controlled by advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning. By exploiting these tools, computational propaganda can pollute information and rapidly spread false news around the internet (Woolley and Howard, 2018

The European parliament has defined computational propaganda “as the use of algorithms, automation, and human curation to purposefully distribute misleading information over social media networks”.

One can immediately see a major issue with this definition.  Remember, the classic definition of propaganda is that it can composed of truths and untruths meant to coerce and manipulate for good or evil.

However, the working definition of “computational propaganda” is that it is only comprised of “misleading” information meant for nefarious purposes. Does this mean that if a government uses computational algorithms to manipulate via truthful information , it does not fall under the above definition?

By using this narrow definition, which has spread throughout academia and the internet, the European Parliament has defined propaganda to include only “misinformation”. Hence, computational methods to spread good information would not be included in their definition of computational propaganda.

Was this an intentional oversight?  Most likely not.

Truth be told, it isn’t just “bad actors” who are using computational propaganda. Examples abound of how these technologies are being discussed and have been used across the world by governments to induce people to eat better, stop smoking or even how to behave in public spaces.

The problem is that, historically, those who employ propaganda will use whatever means necessary to achieve their ends. Even when propaganda is in the service of doing good and is backed up by experts in the field.

Propaganda aims to control our behaviors and how we think. The propagandist measures success by effectiveness. Propagandists will use whatever tools they are is allowed to use to achieve those ends. Currently, there are no government regulations on just how far they are allowed to go. In fact, it is rarely acknowledged that these tools are even being used.

The tools available to modern propagandists have become increasingly sophisticated. Not only are we being subjected to data mining of our personal information freely available on the web to use against us, but these are being combined with behavioral tools such as nudging, neuro-linguistic programing, hypnosis, visualization, repetitive imagery and messaging, which are often employed through the use of bots and trolls.

Here is a safety tip: never participate in free, online questionnaires or games. The organizations that create these activities are selling your answers and your email or facebook address/personal information to interested third parties.

This is one method of data mining that we should all be familiar with.

Over the last three years of the COVIDcrisis, propaganda methods based on advanced applied psychology have been developed for use in successfully coercing people into taking experimental vaccine products, to wear paper masks that are not effective in preventing viral infection or transmission, and to quarantine.

We have all lived through the effects of this massive propaganda campaign, the likes of which the world has never seen before.

There is a misconception that the US government does not conduct propaganda on its domestic population.  This was once the case, but no longer. According to the US Department of Defense “Psychological Operations Manual” of 2010, in the case of domestic crisis management – the DoD can become involved in psyops operations during times of crisis management.  The manual states:

“When authorized, PSYOP forces may be used domestically to assist lead federal agencies during disaster relief and crisis management by informing the domestic population”

Although many believed that the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 banned the use of propaganda by the US government, nothing is further from the truth.  The Smith-Mundt Act only applied to specific media outlets developed by the US government for foreign markets, and only to the US State Department and to the relatively obscure Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

Furthermore, most of the prior restrictions placed by that act were repealed or amended in 2013.  There is nothing that stops the US government from engaging in propaganda on the American people.

Our government, media, universities, and medical establishments are just a few of the domestic organizations that routinely use propaganda.

Between 1975 to 1976, a wide range of CIA operations including CIA ties with journalists were examined in a series of Congressional investigations (the “Church Committee”). The most extensive discussion of CIA relations with news media from these investigations is in the Church Committee’s final report, published in April 1976.

The report covered CIA ties with both foreign and domestic news media.

For foreign news media, the report concluded that:

The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda.

These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.

For domestic media, the report states:

Approximately 50 of the [Agency] assets are individual American journalists or employees of U.S. media organizations. Of these, fewer than half are “accredited” by U.S. media organizations …

The remaining individuals are non-accredited freelance contributors and media representatives abroad … More than a dozen United States news organizations and commercial publishing houses formerly provided cover for CIA agents abroad.

A few of these organizations were unaware that they provided this cover.

Journalist Carl Bernstein, writing in an October 1977 article in the magazine Rolling Stone, said that the Church Committee report covered up CIA relations with news media, and named a number of journalists and organizations who CIA officers he interviewed said worked with the CIA.

A copy of that article, titled “THE CIA AND THE MEDIA How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up” can be found here via the wayback machine.

This is taken from a long document. Read the rest here jameshfetzer.org

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