DISINFORMATION TACTICS

Image from: lehighvalleyramblings.blogspot.com/2006_06_01...

Sometimes journalists get killed. (Poynter Online - Journalists Who Die)

Manik Saha, a journalist in Bangladesh who had reported on drug traffickers, died when a bomb was hurled at his rickshaw and decapitated him.

Ruel Endrinal was shot dead after he had spoken out against local politicians and criminal gangs in Legazpi City in the eastern Philippines.

http://arthurzbygniew.blogspot.com/ alerted us to disinformation tactics and techniques, and this has inspired the following:

Sometimes, especially when it comes to the internet, the bad guys use disinformation tactics.

Internet "trolls" are the people paid by the bad guys to hit the blogs, or even to run blogs.

"Disinformation Tactics: The Methods Used To Keep You In The Dark" is an article by Giordano Bruno, at Neithercorp Press , which explains this.

In the following, I have borrowed his headings.

Trolls use the following tactics:

1) They make outrageous comments.

They may write that a certain politician is a c***.

This can discredit the blog.

2) They pose as a supporter of the truth, then make comments that discredit the movement.

They may write that 9 11 was an inside job.

And then later they launch into a mad racist rant, and call for revolution.

3) They dominate discussions

They leave huge numbers of crazy, illiterate comments.

4) They use false association

They try to link truth seekers with UFOs or aliens or communists or Nazis.

6) They pretend to be the voice of reason

For example they may claim that truth is relative and that governments sometimes have to do bad things...

7) Straw Man Arguments

The troll might unfairly accuse his opposition of supporting some lunatic viewpoint.

Much of what the media has written about Mumbai is probably disinformation.

Then there are these Government Disinformation Methods

1) Control The Experts

The BBC or CNN will bring out as its expert someone who secretly works for the CIA or MI6.

2) Control The Data

When there is an incident like the Lockerbie Bombing, the spooks will be in place to take control of the 'evidence' and the 'data'.

3) Skew The Statistics

Statistics on weather or unemployment can be fiddled with.

4) Guilt By False Association

The bad guys try to associate Ron Paul supporters with racist groups.

5) Manufacture Good News

The media tells us that all has gone well in Iraq.

6) Controlled Opposition

The security services set up and run the terror groups.

The security services infiltrate and try to dominate all the political and pressure groups.

7) False Paradigms or Models

The media told us that either we were a sensible person who supported the toppling of Saddam, or, we were a lover of Saddam and his regime.

The media told us these were the two sides of the debate.

But the media did not tell us that Saddam was trained and put into power by the CIA.

Nor did the media tell us that Saddam offered to leave Iraq to avoid a war.