Reply to post: Fighting fire with fire

Fighting fire with fire

Means more fire, in my experience. The counters to propaganda are facts and education, not more propaganda.

The concerns with this are not limited to but include the following:

• It is an open licence to lie to the public about both the situation and your own actions. A topical example would be Cameron's vote today on whether to start bombing Syria in earnest. A big part of it hinges on it having been said that there are 70,000 friendly ground troops available for follow-up. In fact, from the leaks we've had and other less partisan sources, that figure is both inflated and - more scarily - comprised in large part by Al Quaeda members! Suppose the government were legally entitled to put out misinformation about things to "win the image war" against Islamic State. What would that do to our ability to make informed decisions? There are no limits in this on who they can lie to or what they can make up to support their lies. By its very nature, propaganda needs to be public and not contradicted by the propagandist (government in this case).
• It forever devalues trust in the government. Yes... I know - "trust in the government - ha! ha!" But being serious, explicit legal approval to lie to the public? This would drive it further down still. And with good reason. When a government cannot be trusted, you get all sorts of social problems. Ever worked in a company where the upper management do nothing useful and lie to the employees? See the knock on effect on how people work in that company? Britain has that on a national scale. So let's make it worse! :/
• It violates basic democratic principles. This doesn't need explaining. Democracy not only requires freedom to choose representatives, but freedom of information and sources so that choices can be informed
• It's not only limited to making statements. A large part of this will be building up fake accounts, voting up and disparaging opponents.What do you think the distorting effect of full time, paid and professional trolls would be, co-ordinated, working from the same mission statements and target lists would be? When the government gets to choose which views are popular and which get buried in ad hominems, minutiae, dismissal and argument by repetition? How long would YOU keep making your arguments in the face of a hostile audience of seeming hundreds (which could be three or four government employees). There is software out there to support mass sock-puppeting, to help co-ordinate identities across multiple sites and forums so that they appear as real people. It's moderately sophisticated and designed to allow small numbers of people to determine what views seem popular and which seem hated.
• There are no limits to the remit. As with any other "war" on a nebulous concept, Terrorism is what the government says it is. Where is the hard line between supporting terrorism and "not fighting it enough" or between supporting terrorism and criticising the governments efforts against it? Alan Simpson was a Labour MP who stood up to Blair over Iraq, called out the lies that led to that war. Today, Cameron would call him a "Terrorist sympathizer" (which is down right offensive even if you don't agree with the MPs who question bombing Syria). Now imagine that accompanied by a social media campaign of whispers and sock-puppets to undermine him. THAT is what we're talking about with a propaganda licence like this. It's not just posting pro-government information from seemingly non-government sources, it's also burying rival view points. That, after all, is what propaganda is really about.

It's like watching two farmers fighting over the chickens. Herding the chickens one way or another makes sense from the farmers' perspectives, but we're the chickens and propaganda (either direction) is about stopping people making their own choices by distorting what they see. If the government wants to post facts and argument in places where people also find Islamic State propaganda, fine by me - I'm no fan of Islamic State. But fighting fire with fire just leads to more fire. Truth is what I want. And who reading this doesn't think being able to make their own informed choice isn't the best thing for them?

But in the Pentagon scenario, this post or my character would be buried in downvotes, ground-shifting criticisms, ad hominems or outwardly sympathetic but ultimately discrediting engagement. Whatever it took, really. In a situation where our Prime Minister calls those who don't want to bomb Syria "terrorist sympathizers" of the atrocities in Paris, criticism of the government is indistinguishable from support for its opponents.