Post by only2percent on Jun 23, 2011 10:39:52 GMT -5
Disinformation
by PJR
Posted In: Deception & Lies, Mass Media, Practical Action, Psychology & Psy Ops
"Disinformation on the internet is widespread and the tactics are highly effective at damaging the transparent communication of truthful information. What are these tactics? How can we spot them? What are the disinformants trying to achieve? What are successful solutions to deal with disinformation?
Plenty of people espouse unhelpful dross, we know that much. But it is important to distinguish the intention between those who propagate false and misleading information.
Misinformation comes from individuals who have failed to interrogate and ratify information, and therefore pass it on; irresponsibly promoting lies and falsehoods.
It must be said that there are no such things as accidents, and it is weak for misinformants to claim “they didn’t know”, rather; their unhelpful action reveals “they didn’t check”.
Don’t be a misinformant.
DISinformants on the other-hand, knowingly set out to spread lies, falsehoods, and intend for the real truth to be rendered useless in a fog of confusion and subterfuge.
A successful disinformation campaign makes use of the signal-to-noise ratio: Where the signal of the honest topic is clouded out by the noise of disinformation tactics and disruption. Resulting in an audience left in limbo with so much noise it is extremely hard to pinpoint and identify the most important truths, let alone draw confident assertions from the overall pool of information.
THE TOP FOUR TACTICS OF DISINFORMATION
Type 1: Provoke people with emotional and personal attacks
Disinformants seek to hijack the main topic and get people to divert their energies in to defending themselves or countering threats to their egoic identity.
Look out for words in capital letters trying to suggest higher intensity, and personal attacks covertly or overtly aimed at dirtying someone’s image. This is such an effective weapon of hiding the truth, because it has nothing to do with the truth itself, just encouraging people to fight amongst themselves.
The majority of individuals fall for the bait because many people still only consider their existence in terms of René Descartes’ “Cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am), which today is an extremely limited perspective which allows the mind-made concept of ego to run amok.
Ascending to a more fruitful consciousness requires an acknowledgement of some or other spiritual paradigm to enable a meditative perspective of watching the watcher. i.e. How does one observe ones thoughts?
Solution: Detachment from our own ego is one of the most empowering skills to learn and makes this particular solution very easy, with no negative reaction: Just ignore the disinformant.
They want us to bite down on their bait of a emotional or personal attack and respond. Of course if someone responds to the first bait, then obviously they’re going to react to every bait trap set by this trolling tactic because now the ego-based individual is invested in counter-attacking or defending themselves, their reputation (a mind-made label of ego) or another egoic label of “being right”.
With this, we can say the individual becomes a victim of their own ego, and this is exploited by the disinformant. If we find ourselves in a petty or intellectual flame-war, we must understand it is our own choice to take or leave the bait.
Type 2: Introduce irrelevant & dead-end confusion
Whenever possible, the disinformant will introduce new facts or clues designed to conflict with opponent presentations — as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution to establishing the whole truth.
These may bring in new doubts, purposely fuel confusion, or send followers after red-herrings on a path of endless information which leads nowhere important. All the time spent investigating the dead-end, is time NOT spent investigating the critical topics.
Solution: Really the best thing we can do is try not expose ourself to such unreliable information in the first place, enacting due diligence on the sources we pursue.
It is notable to avoid places of high traffic such as popular forums and YouTube comments which are guaranteed to have lots of disinformants floating about, since they need to make an impact and reach as many people as possible to corrupt the search for factually correct information. Clearly if they can reach 1,000 truth seekers each hour, the disinformants intended damage is much higher than on a smaller website of 10 truth seeking visitors per hour.
So be very picky about what tips, recommendations and new information we choose to investigate. For example; if we were to invest 6 hours in a video series of documentaries, who would we listen to? Some unknown person on a forum whom we know nothing about? Or a completely random related video on YouTube with a good title? Or a trusted blogger with a track record? Or a well known published researcher? It’s our choice.
Type 3: Character assassination by association
Disinformation tactic number three associates opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “radical right-wing”, “loony left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “tin-hat wearers”, “sexual deviants”, “crazed lone wolf” and so forth.
These are all pre-judged labels which are collectively understood to be negative, tarnishing words and have been written by the mainstream media for decades. These pre-judged labels offer an easy opportunity for small-minded and judgemental individuals to reject new information upon hearing these trigger words.
By associating the negative label with somebody, that person’s character is effectively assassinated. i.e. Again it introduces doubt about the legitimacy of that individual’s message. Mainstream media use this character assassination frequently. If Fox news or any of the big six do cover controversial truths at all, it is usually to ridicule it and point people in the wrong direction.
This makes others shrink from supporting the same cause if they fear pre-judged labels, so avoid the issue to protect their ego and public image of what others might think. That is an instant victory for the disinformants and their name-calling threats work well at frightening people with a lot to lose. Since most sheeple get their one dimensional news through the filtered propaganda lens of mainstream media, the label is often enough.
Solution: If on a radio call-in show or being interviewed for a video and encounter this character assassination tactic, do not react or defend the provocative accusations, rather; dismiss them quickly and focus on getting out bullet-proof facts and arguments, even if it is off-track from what the TV or radio host wants to limit the conversation to. If it is a common internet troll, ignore them.
Once again, the success of this solution is greatly enhanced if one is learning the mindfulness of ego detachment. This is because when labels are thrown at us we understand them to be external labels of someone else’s opinion or viewpoint. The labels are not who we are, thus there is little or no reaction because we are not possessive about any personal labels.
Type 4: Argue the details of a different or less important subject.
The fourth and final tactic of disinformation in this article facilitates perpetual application of disinformation even when major truths fail to be suppressed and become well known (such as Iraq WMD’s, The USS Liberty false flag attack, The Lavon affair, etc). Disinformants simply ignore the massive glaring truth in question and try to shift the focus on to a lesser topic or an alternative subject altogether, in an effort to draw attention away from the critical truth which is out in the open.
Take for example a comment on an excellent documentary by Peter Oborne called “Inside Britain’s Israeli Lobby”. The main point of the documentary is that Israel has inordinate power over the British parliament. There are a number of comments (e.g. Leslie Golding on 19 November 2009 at 17:13) which illustrate this fourth type of disinformation, such as an argumentative hook on a less important and vaguely relevant topic, designed to misdirect people and waste their energy debating their superfluous points, and thus ignoring the more important message of the documentary.
The mainstream media invoke this tactic when a major point is no longer beyond doubt, the media spin machine will fall back to a lesser point and try to steer the debate and controversy on to a less important point, thereby taking the attention away from the more important proven truth. Of course the mainstream media’s preferred method is a media black-out, because attention of any kind risks giving a topic traction. What are you doing listening to the mainstream media anyway!
Solution: Ignore their points, and maintain a perspective and priority of issues. Reiterate the main points again and stay on course. It is also very effective to point out what the other person is doing. Something as simple as; “it looks like you are trying to change the subject to get away from the main issue” is remarkably powerful, because it illustrates what the disinformant is really attempting to do.
Be well-armed, with knowledge."
www.PJResearch.com
by PJR
Posted In: Deception & Lies, Mass Media, Practical Action, Psychology & Psy Ops
"Disinformation on the internet is widespread and the tactics are highly effective at damaging the transparent communication of truthful information. What are these tactics? How can we spot them? What are the disinformants trying to achieve? What are successful solutions to deal with disinformation?
Plenty of people espouse unhelpful dross, we know that much. But it is important to distinguish the intention between those who propagate false and misleading information.
Misinformation comes from individuals who have failed to interrogate and ratify information, and therefore pass it on; irresponsibly promoting lies and falsehoods.
It must be said that there are no such things as accidents, and it is weak for misinformants to claim “they didn’t know”, rather; their unhelpful action reveals “they didn’t check”.
Don’t be a misinformant.
DISinformants on the other-hand, knowingly set out to spread lies, falsehoods, and intend for the real truth to be rendered useless in a fog of confusion and subterfuge.
A successful disinformation campaign makes use of the signal-to-noise ratio: Where the signal of the honest topic is clouded out by the noise of disinformation tactics and disruption. Resulting in an audience left in limbo with so much noise it is extremely hard to pinpoint and identify the most important truths, let alone draw confident assertions from the overall pool of information.
THE TOP FOUR TACTICS OF DISINFORMATION
Type 1: Provoke people with emotional and personal attacks
Disinformants seek to hijack the main topic and get people to divert their energies in to defending themselves or countering threats to their egoic identity.
Look out for words in capital letters trying to suggest higher intensity, and personal attacks covertly or overtly aimed at dirtying someone’s image. This is such an effective weapon of hiding the truth, because it has nothing to do with the truth itself, just encouraging people to fight amongst themselves.
The majority of individuals fall for the bait because many people still only consider their existence in terms of René Descartes’ “Cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am), which today is an extremely limited perspective which allows the mind-made concept of ego to run amok.
Ascending to a more fruitful consciousness requires an acknowledgement of some or other spiritual paradigm to enable a meditative perspective of watching the watcher. i.e. How does one observe ones thoughts?
Solution: Detachment from our own ego is one of the most empowering skills to learn and makes this particular solution very easy, with no negative reaction: Just ignore the disinformant.
They want us to bite down on their bait of a emotional or personal attack and respond. Of course if someone responds to the first bait, then obviously they’re going to react to every bait trap set by this trolling tactic because now the ego-based individual is invested in counter-attacking or defending themselves, their reputation (a mind-made label of ego) or another egoic label of “being right”.
With this, we can say the individual becomes a victim of their own ego, and this is exploited by the disinformant. If we find ourselves in a petty or intellectual flame-war, we must understand it is our own choice to take or leave the bait.
Type 2: Introduce irrelevant & dead-end confusion
Whenever possible, the disinformant will introduce new facts or clues designed to conflict with opponent presentations — as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution to establishing the whole truth.
These may bring in new doubts, purposely fuel confusion, or send followers after red-herrings on a path of endless information which leads nowhere important. All the time spent investigating the dead-end, is time NOT spent investigating the critical topics.
Solution: Really the best thing we can do is try not expose ourself to such unreliable information in the first place, enacting due diligence on the sources we pursue.
It is notable to avoid places of high traffic such as popular forums and YouTube comments which are guaranteed to have lots of disinformants floating about, since they need to make an impact and reach as many people as possible to corrupt the search for factually correct information. Clearly if they can reach 1,000 truth seekers each hour, the disinformants intended damage is much higher than on a smaller website of 10 truth seeking visitors per hour.
So be very picky about what tips, recommendations and new information we choose to investigate. For example; if we were to invest 6 hours in a video series of documentaries, who would we listen to? Some unknown person on a forum whom we know nothing about? Or a completely random related video on YouTube with a good title? Or a trusted blogger with a track record? Or a well known published researcher? It’s our choice.
Type 3: Character assassination by association
Disinformation tactic number three associates opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “radical right-wing”, “loony left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “tin-hat wearers”, “sexual deviants”, “crazed lone wolf” and so forth.
These are all pre-judged labels which are collectively understood to be negative, tarnishing words and have been written by the mainstream media for decades. These pre-judged labels offer an easy opportunity for small-minded and judgemental individuals to reject new information upon hearing these trigger words.
By associating the negative label with somebody, that person’s character is effectively assassinated. i.e. Again it introduces doubt about the legitimacy of that individual’s message. Mainstream media use this character assassination frequently. If Fox news or any of the big six do cover controversial truths at all, it is usually to ridicule it and point people in the wrong direction.
This makes others shrink from supporting the same cause if they fear pre-judged labels, so avoid the issue to protect their ego and public image of what others might think. That is an instant victory for the disinformants and their name-calling threats work well at frightening people with a lot to lose. Since most sheeple get their one dimensional news through the filtered propaganda lens of mainstream media, the label is often enough.
Solution: If on a radio call-in show or being interviewed for a video and encounter this character assassination tactic, do not react or defend the provocative accusations, rather; dismiss them quickly and focus on getting out bullet-proof facts and arguments, even if it is off-track from what the TV or radio host wants to limit the conversation to. If it is a common internet troll, ignore them.
Once again, the success of this solution is greatly enhanced if one is learning the mindfulness of ego detachment. This is because when labels are thrown at us we understand them to be external labels of someone else’s opinion or viewpoint. The labels are not who we are, thus there is little or no reaction because we are not possessive about any personal labels.
Type 4: Argue the details of a different or less important subject.
The fourth and final tactic of disinformation in this article facilitates perpetual application of disinformation even when major truths fail to be suppressed and become well known (such as Iraq WMD’s, The USS Liberty false flag attack, The Lavon affair, etc). Disinformants simply ignore the massive glaring truth in question and try to shift the focus on to a lesser topic or an alternative subject altogether, in an effort to draw attention away from the critical truth which is out in the open.
Take for example a comment on an excellent documentary by Peter Oborne called “Inside Britain’s Israeli Lobby”. The main point of the documentary is that Israel has inordinate power over the British parliament. There are a number of comments (e.g. Leslie Golding on 19 November 2009 at 17:13) which illustrate this fourth type of disinformation, such as an argumentative hook on a less important and vaguely relevant topic, designed to misdirect people and waste their energy debating their superfluous points, and thus ignoring the more important message of the documentary.
The mainstream media invoke this tactic when a major point is no longer beyond doubt, the media spin machine will fall back to a lesser point and try to steer the debate and controversy on to a less important point, thereby taking the attention away from the more important proven truth. Of course the mainstream media’s preferred method is a media black-out, because attention of any kind risks giving a topic traction. What are you doing listening to the mainstream media anyway!
Solution: Ignore their points, and maintain a perspective and priority of issues. Reiterate the main points again and stay on course. It is also very effective to point out what the other person is doing. Something as simple as; “it looks like you are trying to change the subject to get away from the main issue” is remarkably powerful, because it illustrates what the disinformant is really attempting to do.
Be well-armed, with knowledge."
www.PJResearch.com