Thread by @MollyMcKew

Someone Is Psyoping Americans, And You Should Be Really Pissed Off About It

In my new piece for @surfnd, I look at the "antifa is coming" messages, and why they are incredible dangerous, designed to escalate tensions between Americans.

Read more:
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standuprepublic.com/current-inform…

Many of you saw me posting on this topic over the weekend👇

The column 👆 goes into more detail about how to understand psychological operations in the information domain, and what they aim to achieve

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https://twitter.com/mollymckew/status/1269608925575479297?s=21

The 2020 information environment is challenging, riddled with cascading disinformation campaigns that grow more targeted and complex over time and seek to distort our perceptions.

A lot of this is now happening “semi-offline” — new techniques designed to evade our defenses. /3

The piece goes into detail about the text messages and screenshots circulating last week warning towns that “agitators” were coming and to be prepared. FB, NextDoor, SMS — these campaigns were hyperlocal

Many of you plugged-in tweeps helped collect and flag these messages /4

The way the information is presented — always as insider info from a friend of a friend — closely mirrored the early-COVID “martial law” messages

Only this time there was specific content developed for different localities, citing “evidence” to drive concern. /5

These rumors spread rapidly. They echoed larger campaigns of fear-mongering from POTUS, the AG, Fox News, and more.

Local law enforcement was left on the front lines to respond to concerned citizens. These are good examples.👇 Many didn’t fair so well. /6

In countless places, armed “volunteers” and militias mobilized to patrol the streets and confront protesters, waiting for an “antifa invasion” that never came.

Because again: this was fantasy. The measages were a psychological operation to push a behavioral response /7

Using army doctrine, I previously wrote a code of conduct for the rules that should guide how influence operations are conducted domestically.

At the heart of this: no deception in attribution or content. /8

defusingdis.info/2019/02/08/rul…

PSYOP plays on our emotional responses in specific ways to achieve specific behavioral outcomes that can alter how our communities function or how we govern ourselves. /9

In a military context, PSYOP is a highly controlled process used against foreign targets.

In the current sh*tshow of the American information environment, actors foreign and domestic are using these techniques with varying degrees of sophistication to target Americans. /10

Our absent/fragmented national response has failed to provide our citizens with better information defense.

There are long-term cognitive impacts from these campaigns, and it’s really not a joke. /11

So, what can you do about it?

As we discuss information threats specific to the current landscape, it’s important to return to the question guiding this series:

What does it mean to be a better information citizen? /12

With the text message/screenshots campaigns, these messages are specifically designed to bypass our information defenses, seem like trusted information, exploit our emotional responses to threats to our community, & make us both absorb the message and transmit it on to others./13

This transmission “just to be sure” is fanning the flames of a campaign that aims to polarize us and spark conflict.

1- Be a roadblock for these types of campaigns: transmission stops with you. /14

Always consider the purpose of information:

In times of heightened anxiety and uncertainties, we need to understand that a lot of inflammatory information is being put in front of us to elevate that sense of panic.

2- Panic doesn’t help. Don’t pass it on uncritically. /15

Don’t transmit rumors that are designed to exploit our psychology.

3- Confront manipulative info when it is before you: speak out, tell the group the post is fake/get them to delete it, tell your family member there’s no proof, tell your friend to stop spreading this stuff /16

4- Encourage authorities, including local elected leaders and police when necessary, to speak out against these disinformation campaigns when public safety is at risk.

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5- On social media, we can praise the efforts of local authorities and local newspapers and media organizations to combat these types of disinformation campaigns.

For example, @IdahoStatesman had several pieces on this topic 👏 /18

6- Finally, share content carefully, when it makes sense to do so, to raise concerns or alarm about information you are seeing when you believe it is false.

Get the whisper campaign out of the shadows.

Read the whole piece here: /19

standuprepublic.com/current-inform…