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

by Michael Snyder
endoftheamericandream.com
Feb 26, 2014

Do 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.

It isn’t just that the British government is trying to influence what people are thinking.  The reality is that this is far bigger than a mere propaganda campaign.  As Greenwald recently noted on his new website, the “integrity of the Internet itself” is at stake…

By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.

So what techniques are the British using to control and manipulate discourse on the Internet?  According to Greenwald, the documents that Snowden has uncovered show that they are willing to sink to despicable lows in order to get the results that they desire…

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums.

The following is a list of Internet infiltration techniques that were listed on one particular slide that Snowden leaked…

–Infiltration Operation

–Ruse Operation

–Set Piece Operation

–False Flag Operation

–False Rescue Operation

–Disruption Operation

–Sting Operation

You can check out this slide for yourself right here.

There is also evidence that the Canadian government has been involved in this sort of thing as well.  The following comes from Natural News…

You’ve probably run into them before — those seemingly random antagonizers who always end up diverting the conversation in an online chat room or article comment section away from the issue at hand, and towards a much different agenda. Hot-button issues like illegal immigration, the two-party political system, the “war on terror” and even alternative medicine are among the most common targets of such attackers, known as internet “trolls” or “shills,” who in many cases are nothing more than paid lackeys hired by the federal government and other international organizations to sway and ultimately control public opinion.

Several years ago, Canada’s CTV News aired a short segment about how its own government had been exposed for hiring secret agents to monitor social media and track online conversations, as well as the activities of certain dissenting individuals. This report, which in obvious whitewashing language referred to such activities as the government simply “weighing in and correcting” allegedly false information posted online, basically admitted that the Canadian government had assumed the role of secret online police.

You can see a video news report about this activity up in Canada right here.

Are you disturbed yet?

You should be.

So what kind of people are the governments of the western world targeting online?

Well, when it comes to the U.S. government, all you have to do is to look at their official documents to see who they consider the “problems” to be.  For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered ‘Potential Terrorists’ In Official Government Documents“.

Sadly, the reality of the matter is that the days of the free and open Internet are numbered.  The governments of the world are increasing their control over the Internet with each passing day, and eventually a time will likely come when we will not be able to communicate openly like this any longer.

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[related: Big Brother’s Facebook: UK, US intelligence ‘infiltrating’ social media]