Im sure it will shock no one to learn -- as Glenn Greenwald - TopicsExpress

Im sure it will shock no one to learn -- as Glenn Greenwald explains today -- that the NSAs recently revealed faux-Twitter scam for Cubans is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to intelligence propaganda operations globally run by the Americans and the Brits and aimed at the Internet and social media. Our secret government turns out to be a giant propaganda machine thats eager to take advantage of the latest social media developments (just as it sends its avatars into online gaming). It turns out that, wherever you are, however youre communicating, our government couldnt be more eager to both be there and influence how you think and express yourself (and in the bargain pick up useful -- or useless -- info about you). Welcome to the twenty-first century! Tom This week, the Associated Press exposed a secret program run by the U.S. Agency for International Development to create “a Twitter-like Cuban communications network” run through “secret shell companies” in order to create the false appearance of being a privately owned operation. Unbeknownst to the service’s Cuban users was the fact that “American contractors were gathering their private data in the hope that it might be used for political purposes”–specifically, to manipulate those users in order to foment dissent in Cuba and subvert its government. According to top-secret documents published today by The Intercept, this sort of operation is frequently discussed at western intelligence agencies, which have plotted ways to covertly use social media for ”propaganda,” “deception,” “mass messaging,” and “pushing stories.” These ideas–discussions of how to exploit the internet, specifically social media, to surreptitiously disseminate viewpoints friendly to western interests and spread false or damaging information about targets–appear repeatedly throughout the archive of materials provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Documents prepared by NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ–and previously published by The Intercept as well as some by NBC News–detailed several of those programs, including a unit devoted in part to “discrediting” the agency’s enemies with false information spread online. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/04/04/cuban-twitter-scam-social-media-tool-disseminating-government-propaganda/