British journalist, whose most famous investigation was a history of torture, committed by agents of the United Kingdom government, Ian Cobain SNWA investigates British involvement in media and social media manipulation. This time she spoke about the English analogue of the Russian troll farm., also called “олгинскими”. but, here the scale is much more serious.
here, what he writes in his review:
Senior Twitter Manager, editorial officer in the Middle East, is also a staff member of the psychological warfare unit in the British army, part-time.
Gordon Macmillan, joined the UK social networking office six years ago, also served in the 77th brigade for several years – division, educated in 2015 year to develop "non-lethal" methods of warfare. In his work on the use of non-lethal methods of warfare, i.e, to carry on, what the head of the British army, General Nick Carter calls "information war", 77-i brigade uses social media platforms Twitter, Instagram и Facebook, as well as podcasts, data analysis and audience research. 77-brigade – this is a troll farm, analogue, so to speak, olga trolls, but only at a much more competent and higher level of their opposition “enemy propaganda”.
One office room focused on audience understanding: composition, demographics and habits of people, whom they wanted to reach.
The other room was more focused on analytical, focusing on building "attitude and sentiment insights" from large datasets from social media. Other[office room] was full of officers, producing video and audio content. Elsewhere, intelligence teams scrutinized, how messages are received, and discussed, how to make them more resonant.
The job of the 77th brigade is, to produce dark propaganda in support of British (military) operations :
What do we know about the 77th brigade? Let me quote from the written response of the British Parliament, published in march 2015 of the year. The brigade exists “for, to work with other government agencies to support efforts to foster stability abroad, expanding defense diplomacy and cooperation abroad ". As you can see, 77-the brigade is rather busy with political agenda, not military affairs.
Also the parliamentary response says, that the team “is leading in special methods of exposure, including providing information on activities, interaction with key leaders, security of operations and interaction with the media ". Pay attention to the phrase "special methods of influence", which seemed to come straight from Orwell “1984 year”. And notice the link to "media engagement". Since when did the British army play a legitimate role in trying to influence the media?
The really interesting and dangerous aspect of the 77th Brigade is its mixed military-civilian character.:
Here we come to the really insidious aspect of the 77th Brigade.. According to Parliament's response, it includes about 440 human. In accordance with the new organizational doctrine of the army, the units are united as permanent soldiers., and territorial reservists. 77-I the brigade recruits its reservists from among British journalists and professionals in advertising and PR campaigns.
We're not just talking about computer and information technology specialists, but also about media practitioners. As a result, the necessary boundaries between military and civilian media were violated.. This poses a potential threat to democratic norms.
the, that the Twitter executive also works for the British military propaganda unit with editorial responsibility, clearly shows, that "western" social media is so neutral or free, as far as the military allows them.
Twitter chief Gordon Macmillan is currently the captain of the British Army Reserve and at times works for his secret propaganda group.. 20 September Twitter deleted a large number of accounts , including those in McMillan's area of responsibility.
should not think, that the 77th brigade – this is a one way street, through which the state communicates, that help civilians spread. When will hedge fund managers be invited to his operations?, senior bankers, public relations executives, they will be very interested in spreading their own messages and defeating their enemies. The Twitter executive as a member of the outreach team will also use it to spread messages and wishes from their companies..
Shortly speaking, is not nothing, as a marriage of powers of large companies and government to manipulate public opinion. And it's very dangerous.
German investigative journalist, documenting crimes against democracy, Keith Clarenberg also just posted his material on the subject..
“So is Gordon McMillan , head of editorial Twitter, was revealed as a British Army operative 77 Brigade. Interesting, that he interacted frequently with his Twitter account (before, how was it deleted) and shared my pieces, promoting it. Are there many conflicts of interest?!”- posted by Keith, which is tweeted by Sputnik in his article, “lucky, that I caught these tweets – Gordon McMillan(@GordonMacmillan), he has already removed the link to the 77th brigade from his LinkedIn bio. He was promoted to second lieutenant (with a trial period) 5 February 2016 years in the part of the army reserve group A. Voluntary reserve personnel may be “summoned” for permanent service. Total 10 days ago Twitter announced, that forever banned hundreds “coordinated accounts” for violation of their policy “platform manipulation”. Of course, these accounts were based in non-English speaking countries, so that, obviously, fair game. “.
