How to Spot – and Defeat – Disruption on the Internet

The 15 Rules of Web Disruption  Found it on Washington's Blog.  Retain a copy for yourself, especially if you frequent and post on just about any forums..  The explanations are longer, but I'll give you at least the first sentence of each.  How many light bulbs went off?  Excerpts:

David Martin’s Thirteen Rules for Truth Suppression, H. Michael Sweeney’s 25 Rules of Disinformation (and now Brandon Smith’s Disinformation: How It Works) are classic lessons on how to spot disruption and disinformation tactics.


We’ve seen a number of tactics come and go over the years. Here are the ones we see a lot of currently.

1.  Start a partisan divide-and-conquer fight or otherwise push emotional buttons to sew discord and ensure that cooperation is thwarted. 

2.  Pretend it’s hopeless because we’ll be squashed if we try.

3.  Demand complete, fool-proof and guaranteed solutions to the problems being discussed. 

4. Suggest extreme, over-the-top, counter-productive solutions which will hurt more than help, or which are wholly disproportionate to what is being discussed. 

5.  Pretend that alternative media – such as blogs written by the top experts in their fields, without any middleman – are untrustworthy or are motivated solely by money.

6.  Coordinate with a couple of others to “shout down” reasonable comments. 

7.  Use an army of sock puppets. 

8. Censor social media, so that the hardest-hitting information is buried.


9. When the powers-that-be cut corners and take criminally reckless gambles with our lives and our livelihoods, protect them by pretending that the inevitable result - nuclear accidents, financial crises, terrorist attacks or other disasters – were “unforeseeable” and that “no could have known”.
10.  Protect the rich and powerful by labeling any allegations of criminal activity as being a “conspiracy theory”. 

11. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the “How dare you!” gambit.


12. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent’s argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.

13. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer.   14. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias.   15. Associate opponent charges with old news.

 

Postscript: Over a number of years, we’ve found that the most effective way to fight disruption and disinformation is to link to a post such as this one which rounds up disruption techniques, and then to cite the disinfo technique you think is being used.

Specifically, we’ve found the following format to be highly effective in educating people in a non-confrontational manner about what the disrupting person is doing:

Good Number 1!
Or:
Thanks for that textbook example of Number 7!

(include the link so people can see what you’re referring to.)

The reason this is effective is that other readers will learn about the specific disruption tactic being used … in context, like seeing wildlife while holding a wildlife guide, so that one learns what it looks like “in the field”. At the same time, you come across as humorous and light-hearted instead of heavy-handed or overly-intense.

BBC News uses 'Iraq photo to illustrate Syrian massacre'

I'm sure this is all one gigantic mistake, and will never happen again.  The Telegraph.  Found it on Urban Survival.  The Whole Thing:

Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.



The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.


It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.


The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.


A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.

Mr di Lauro, who works for Getty Images picture agency and has been published by newspapers across the US and Europe, said: “I went home at 3am and I opened the BBC page which had a front page story about what happened in Syria and I almost felt off from my chair.


“One of my pictures from Iraq was used by the BBC web site as a front page illustration claiming that those were the bodies of yesterday's massacre in Syria and that the picture was sent by an activist.

“Instead the picture was taken by me and it's on my web site, on the feature section regarding a story I did In Iraq during the war called Iraq, the aftermath of Saddam.

“What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That's all.

He added he was less concerned about an apology or the use of image without consent, adding: “What is amazing it's that a news organization has a picture proving a massacre that happened yesterday in Syria and instead it's a picture that was taken in 2003 of a totally different massacre.

“Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda on purpose.”

A spokesman for the BBC said: “We were aware of this image being widely circulated on the Internet in the early hours of this morning following the most recent atrocities in Syria.

“We used it with a clear disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified.

“Efforts were made overnight to track down the original source of the image and when it was established the picture was inaccurate we removed it immediately.”

Cold-Busted!  Does anyone proofread major publications anymore?  This really is too big of a mistake to be a "mistake."  Never let the facts stand in the way of a vivid image, eh?  Too bad those responsible will probably do it again, and no one will remember.  Again..

Whoopsie!

Occupy Wall Street: Canadian Special Forces provocateur leaves wallet behind  Censored News.  Excerpts:

Canadian Special Forces Agent Dylan Spoelstra, 24, of Toronto, left his wallet behind exposing his identity, after he was arrested at Occupy Wall Street scaling a sculpture on Saturday morning. The police said that after his arrest, he was brought to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after surrendering just after 9 a.m.



Occupy Wall Street media coordinator Thorin Caristo said when Spoelstra began climbing the reddish-colored Joie de Vivre sculpture in Zuccotti Park, on Saturday at 5:30 am, Caristo said he knew it was staged.

Caristo recalled the event, first saying to himself, “I can’t believe he’s climbing the sculpture."

Police arrived and began inflating airbags. Earlier, families had gathered on Friday at Occupy Wall Street with their children to camp, so it was a special time. However, police cleared them all out during Spoelstra's stunt.
And:
Then, on Saturday night, Occupy Wall Street security found Spoelstra's wallet, revealing that Spoelstra is a member of Canadian Special Forces.
 
Remember:  From now on out, the really disruptive ones at all peaceful protests will be regarded with suspicion.  I will be totally shocked if this story has legs.  But, mass exposure or not, lots of people seem to have figured this ruse out.  I really hope this movement continues to remain (relatively) peaceful, but the global signs seem to predict otherwise..  How long the peace remains will probably be determined by the public's response to even more provocatuers, staging ever larger provocations..
 
2011.  So far, so intense.