Manipulating topics, fraudulently promoting Twitter’s internal documents and exposing the Pentagon’s manipulation of social media.

　　The US independent investigation website "Interception" recently revealed that the affiliated institutions of the US Department of Defense had intervened in the public opinion cognition of the Middle East by manipulating topics and deceptive propaganda on social media Twitter, and continued to promote narratives beneficial to the United States and its allies. This is another example of American and Western governments using social media platforms to spread false information and manipulate international public opinion.

　　"White list" account of "wanton rampage"

　　Its content is more likely to get traffic.

　　According to the internal documents obtained from Twitter by Lee Fang, an investigative reporter of Interception website, in July 2017, Nathaniel Keller, an official of the Central Command, one of the Joint Operations Commandments under the Pentagon, sent a form to the Twitter public policy team, which was marked with 52 Arabic accounts.

　　Kale said at the time that these accounts belonged to the US government and posted "related security issues" on Twitter. Kale asked Twitter to give priority to six of these accounts, and one account was dedicated to promoting the U.S. drone attack on Yemen. For example, the U.S. drone attack was "accurate" and killed terrorists rather than civilians.

　　Other accounts in the form focus on promoting militia groups supported by the United States in Syria and anti-Iranian information in Iraq. Many accounts focus on a topic in one field, while others change the topic content regularly.

　　According to Kale’s request, Twitter put these Arabic accounts on the "white list" in order to "enlarge some information".

　　Lee Fang learned from an engineer on Twitter that putting an account on Twitter’s "white list" is basically equivalent to obtaining platform "blue label authentication", which can avoid being marked as "spam" or "account abuse" and its content is more likely to get traffic.

　　Lee Fang found that the Pentagon did not shy away from the connection with these accounts at first, but later began to change its strategy and became secretive, deleting all the information that could reflect the relationship between the accounts and the Pentagon.

　　Lee Fang pointed out that Twitter has always claimed to "identify and block secret information activities and deceptive propaganda supported by the government on its platform", but behind the scenes, the social media provided "approval and protection" for the US military’s public opinion intervention. Although it is known that these accounts in the Pentagon use fake identities, Twitter has not shut down these accounts for at least two years, and some accounts are still active today.

　　Invited Twitter and Facebook executives.

　　Discuss how to cover up the covert propaganda on the Pentagon’s Internet.

　　According to internal emails, Twitter executives and lawyers publicly discussed the covert propaganda actions of the Pentagon in 2020, and also shared another list of 157 undisclosed Pentagon accounts, which also focused on military issues in the Middle East.

　　According to New York Post, the Pentagon had previously invited Twitter and Facebook executives to attend a confidential meeting in a sensitive information isolation facility, and one of the main topics discussed was how to cover up the Pentagon’s covert propaganda activities on the Internet. After Musk acquired Twitter, he handed over the company’s previous internal discussion records and other documents to "independent journalists" for release to expose "the company’s past bad behavior".

　　The US Central Command did not directly respond to Lee Fang’s revelations, but forwarded the statement made by a Pentagon spokesman in September this year, who said that they were reviewing "military information support activities".

　　In order to expand the effect of public opinion manipulation

　　Accounts in each group often "act together"

　　The rise and development of Internet and social media provide a new environment and means for the American government to influence public opinion.

　　In August this year, a report jointly released by the Network Observation Room of Stanford University and Grafica Research Company, a social network analysis organization, showed that there was a "network of accounts that were interrelated and used deceptive strategies to promote pro-Western narratives in the Middle East and Central Asia" on mainstream western social media such as Twitter, Facebook and "photo wall". These accounts participated in "a series of secret propaganda offensives that lasted for nearly five years" and "continued to promote narratives that benefited the interests of the United States and its allies and opposed Russia, China and Iran".

　　The researchers concluded that some of these accounts are obviously related to the "cross-regional network initiative" of the US Department of Defense. The "Cross-regional Network Initiative" was initiated by the US Special Operations Command in 2008. It used a series of websites to influence public opinion and provide "information support" for US military operations.

　　These accounts are divided into different groups according to the countries and regions where the target audience is located. In order to expand the effect of public opinion manipulation, each group account often "acts in concert" and even posts automatically at certain intervals.

　　The customary rumors of these accounts include: using photos generated by theft, tampering or artificial intelligence as avatars; Issue highly consistent content at the same time with false identities such as "independent media" and "local residents"; Stir up rumors by adding labels and forwarding petitions. In order to concoct "hot topics", these accounts are highly active and concentrated in posting in some cases. The most typical case is that before and after the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, Central Asian groups posted nearly 200 posts a day, exaggerating Russia’s so-called "threat" to Central Asian countries.

　　These accounts often forward news from pro-Western media, American embassies and consulates abroad, the US military, etc., and sometimes deliberately package the forwarded fake news as original, or link with other related accounts and websites.

　　Eric sperling, executive director of just foreign policy, an anti-war organization in the United States, pointed out that if the Pentagon is shaping its understanding of the overseas role of the US military, it is deeply worrying, and if private enterprises also help to cover up these activities, the situation will be even worse. Congress and social media companies should investigate and take action to let American citizens know that their taxes are used to "positively publicize" the endless war in the United States. According to Xinhua News Agency