Government Trolls Are Using ‘Psychology-Based Influence Techniques’ On YouTube, Facebook And Twitter

Troll Warning - Photo by GilHave you ever come across someone on the Internet that you suspected was a paid government troll?  Well, there is a very good chance that you were not imagining things.  Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now have solid proof that paid government trolls are using “psychology-based influence techniques” on social media websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.  Documents leaked by Snowden also reveal that government agents have been conducting denial-of-service attacks, flooding social media websites with thinly veiled propaganda and have been purposely attempting to warp public discourse online.  If we do not stand up and object to this kind of Orwellian behavior, it is only going to get worse and worse. (Read More...)

A ‘No Social Media List’ For Extremists And Potential Terrorists?

Social Media - Public DomainYou have heard of the “No Fly List”, right?  Well, now the Tories are pledging that if they win the next election in the UK they will establish a list of “extremists” that will have to have their social media posts “approved in advance by the police” before they post them.  There are also plans to ban “extremists” from broadcasting and speaking at public events.  The stated goal of these proposals is to crack down on terrorism, but in the process the civil liberties of the British people are going to be flushed down the toilet.  And the American people need to pay close attention to what is going on in the UK, because whatever police state measures are implemented over there usually also get implemented over here eventually.  For those that believe that we need to do “whatever it takes” to fight terrorism, there is a very important question that you need to ask yourself.  What if the government decides that you are an “extremist” because of what you believe?  What will you do then? (Read More...)

Yes, There Are Paid Government Trolls On Social Media, Blogs, Forums And Websites

Troll Warning - Photo by GilDo you want solid proof that paid government shills are targeting websites, blogs, forums and social media accounts?  For years, many have suspected that government trolls have been systematically causing havoc all over the Internet, but proving it has been difficult.  But now thanks to documents leaked by Edward Snowden and revealed by Glenn Greenwald, we finally have hard evidence that western governments have been doing this.  As you will see below, a UK intelligence outfit known as the Government Communications Headquarters, through a previously secret unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, has been systematically attempting “to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse”.  This should be deeply disturbing to anyone that values free speech on the Internet. (Read More...)

If George Zimmerman Is Found Not Guilty, Can The American People Handle It?

George ZimmermanShould we take the thousands of people that are threatening to riot if George Zimmerman is found not guilty seriously?  After all, people make idle threats online all the time.  Sometimes people say things on Twitter or on Facebook that they don’t actually mean and would never actually do in real life.  And of course not everyone that is threatening to commit violence if George Zimmerman gets off will actually go out into the streets and start smashing things.  But without a doubt, it is quite alarming to have thousands upon thousands of supporters of Trayvon Martin publicly declaring that they are going to violently lash out if the verdict does not go their way.  In fact, things are so tense that police in Sanford, Florida are actually going door-to-door right now in an attempt to cool things down.  They remember what happened more than 20 years ago when a jury acquitted LAPD cops in the Rodney King case.  Nobody should want to ever see a repeat of that. (Read More...)

10 Reasons Why Nothing You Do On The Internet Will EVER Be Private Again

The Internet is rapidly being transformed into a Big Brother control grid where privacy rights are being systematically strangled to death.  The control freaks that run things have become absolutely obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and recording virtually everything that you do on the Internet.  One thing that you can count on is that nothing you do on the Internet will ever be private again.  In fact, if you are obsessed with privacy then the last place you want to be is on the Internet.  Most Americans have absolutely no idea how far Internet surveillance has advanced in the past few years.  At this point, it would be hard to imagine any place less private than the Internet.  Do not ever put anything on the Internet that you would not want the authorities or your employer to hold you accountable for.  Basically, the Internet is creating a permanent dossier on each one of us, and we contribute to this process by freely posting gigantic volumes of information about ourselves on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.  The Internet is the greatest tool for mass communication that the world has perhaps ever seen, and it gives average citizens the ability to communicate with each other like never before, but there is also a downside to using the Internet.  Everything that we do on the Internet is being watched, monitored and recorded and there is no longer any such thing as Internet privacy.  If you think that you still have any privacy on the Internet, then you are either ignorant of what is going on or you are being delusional. (Read More...)

The FBI, The CIA, Homeland Security, The Federal Reserve And Potential Employers Are All Monitoring You On Facebook And Twitter

Why is there such a sudden obsession with monitoring what average Americans are saying on Facebook and Twitter?  To be honest, the vast majority of what is being said on Facebook and Twitter is simply not worth reading even if you could understand it.  But for the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Reserve, Facebook and Twitter represent a treasure trove of intelligence information.  Tens of millions of us have compiled incredibly detailed dossiers on ourselves and have put them out there for the entire world to see.  Since the information is public, the various alphabet agencies of the federal government see no problem with scooping up all of that information and using it for their own purposes.  Many potential employers have also discovered that Facebook and Twitter can tell them an awful lot about potential employees.  Social media creates a permanent record that reflects who you are and what you believe, and many Americans are finding out that all of this information can come back and haunt them in a big way.  In the world in which we now live, privacy is becoming a thing of the past, and we all need to be mindful of the things that we are exposing to the public. (Read More...)

Don’t Worry, The Federal Reserve Just Wants To Be Your “Online Friend”

According to CNBC, the Federal Reserve “is planning on monitoring what you say about it on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook”.  Apparently we are not supposed to be alarmed though, because as the CNBC headline states, the Federal Reserve just “wants to be your Facebook friend“.  In fact, the CNBC article says that anyone that feels threatened by the fact that the Federal Reserve will be monitoring what we say on Facebook and Twitter is just “paranoid“.  Well, if it came out that Barack Obama was setting up a system that would identify “key bloggers” and monitor “billions of conversations” on the Internet to see what was being said about him, wouldn’t there be thousands of articles expressing outrage?  Sure there would be.  The Federal Reserve is supposed to be an independent central bank that is above politics.  So why in the world would they need to perform “sentiment analysis” on what is being said about them on “Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube“?  The Federal Reserve obviously intends to identify the negative things that are being said about it and the specific people that are saying those things.  So is it really being “paranoid” to point out that all of this is more than a little bit creepy? (Read More...)

Flash Mob Epidemic

Flash mobs used to be so much fun.  A group of people would arrange to meet in a public place at a particular time and would perform a song or a dance number or some other form of entertainment very suddenly and without warning.  Well, the term “flash mob” is rapidly coming to mean something else now.  All over the country, young people are using social media and other forms of communication to coordinate shocking large scale crimes.  At first there were just a few isolated “mob robberies” around the country, but now we have a full-fledged flash mob epidemic on our hands.  Sometimes these flash mobs are involved in “mass shoplifting” events, and in other cases flash mobs are just committing random acts of violence.  But it is a very disturbing sign for our nation that all over the country we have large groups of young people that are banding together to commit very serious crimes.  This is something that is really unprecedented in modern U.S. history, and it is yet another indication that our society is starting to fall apart. (Read More...)