March 5, 2023
S5 E8: 100 Seconds to Midnight: Miss Information and Social Media Wars
Disinformation is a war waged on the citizens of countries in order to promote dissent and division among the people. We’re all vulnerable. We’re all targets. We’re all in a war that we don’t understand. How is this war waged? Through something...
Disinformation is a war waged on the citizens of countries in order to promote dissent and division among the people. We’re all vulnerable. We’re all targets. We’re all in a war that we don’t understand. How is this war waged? Through something seemingly so innocuous, so mundane, so enticing. Social media. It’s 90 seconds to midnight and this war has gone on since the dawn of time, but now, operatives are using bots, AI technology and PR firms to spread disinformation that’s harmful for governments, businesses and individuals. Find out how social media is becoming a battleground for racism, political division, hate speech and ultimately, violence. If you haven’t listened to my podcast, you should. It’s 90 seconds to midnight, my friends and we need to talk. Contact me at the website: www.causeofdeath100secs.net Check it out, leave a review, leave me a voicemail or an email. Look at the blog posts. Join my mailing list. There are so many ways to interact with me on that site that there’s no excuse not to! I also have a dedicated email for Cause of Death, you can reach me at jackie@causeofdeath100secs.net. Link Tree: https://www.linktr.ee.com/CauseofDeathpod Disinformation Show Notes: https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/how-disinformation-evolved-in-2020/ https://www.cfr.org/article/misinformation-and-disinformation-are-growing-threats-social-media https://www.cfr.org/influence-campaigns-and-disinformation https://s3.amazonaws.com/kf-site-legacy-media/feature_assets/www/misinfo/kf-disinformation-report.0cdbb232.pdf https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/four-ways-disinformation-campaigns-are-propagated-online/ https://www.state.gov/disarming-disinformation/ https://www.coe.int/en/web/campaign-free-to-speak-safe-to-learn/dealing-with-propaganda-misinformation-and-fake-news https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-inoculate-against-midterm-misinformation-campaigns/ https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/anti-misinformation-actions/ https://esoc.princeton.edu/projects/tracking-disinformation-and-conflict https://prevency.com/en/what-is-a-disinformation-campaign/
WEBVTT
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Dark Cast Network. Come on over
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ODFM. We're on a full ride scholarship
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to Hell. My name is Keely
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podcast called Missy Mysteries. Missy Mysteries
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missing persons cases. All of my
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bring justice to those who need it
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in partnership or made with the families
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the podcast isn't always true crime.
Sometimes I bring spooky content like countings,
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aliens and cryptics such as the original
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of edinlur And Warren and Mothman,
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make two part episodes like The Bobby
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and The vliska As Murder House.
Missy Mysteries is ready to be binge listened
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to with over fifty episodes anywhere you
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keep your company whenever and wherever you
like to listen to your podcast. Hello
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and welcome to Cause of Death one
hundred Seconds to Midnight. The one hundred
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Seconds to Midnight episodes addressed the doomsday
clock and the events that keep it ticking
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down and the things we can do
to stop it. The doomsday clock was
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set at one hundred seconds to midnight
in twenty twenty and the time remained one
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hundred seconds to midnight until January twenty
fourth of twenty twenty three, when the
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hands moved even closer to midnight.
The time was set at ninety seconds to
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midnight. It's ninety seconds to midnight
and there is a recycled form of terrorism
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being implemented by bad actors close to
corrupt governments. It's a quiet war,
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and we're all under attack through something
so mundane that we don't even recognize the
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threat. Propaganda, misinformation, lies, disinformation, fake news. These things
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have been around forever, but it
seems that during the last ten years the
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information has gotten more and more unreliable. We are surrounded by disinformation that affects
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our daily lives. We don't know
who to trust or who to believe,
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and it's causing discent and division in
our communities and our society. We are
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being inundated with propaganda through advertising,
news reports, and especially social media.
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Disinformation operations are created by governments or
those close to governments to create narratives that
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could potentially bring down businesses, governments, or individuals. The division we see
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in the US is a prime example
of how disinformation campaigns can divide a country,
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divide and conquer. It's a strategy
as old as time, wrapped up
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in a new and improved package,
and the war zone includes all of us,
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and we don't even know we're under
attack. Let's begin by defining some
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of the terms that I'll use when
I'm talking about disinformation. Just so the
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water doesn't get too muddied. Propaganda, disinformation, and fake news are often
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used interchangeably. These terms describe the
various ways that sharing information intentionally causes harm.
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Disinformation is false information shared to intentionally
cause harm. This is a post
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from some source that we don't know
who posts something radical. The post usually
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contains comments for or against a particular
government entity, hate speech, or a
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conspiracy theory that they promote as truth. This will be the original post in
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the chain. Sometimes there will be
several posts with different names, and the
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post may change just a little,
but the narrative will stay the same.
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Misinformation is false information shared with no
intention of causing harm. We all do
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this. We share information with no
intention of causing harm. Sometimes we share
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posts that we disagree with so we
can put our two cents into the comments.
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We have the intention of embarrassing the
original writer, but what we are
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actually doing is making that post go
further down the chain. Malinformation is true
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information shared intentionally to cause harm.
Think about a ten second SoundBite that is
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used out of context. The speaker
did make that comment, but the comment
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was clipped in such a way that
it sounds like they were saying something completely
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different. I've mentioned that the Board
of Atomic Scientists has expanded their concerns to
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disruptive technology. This is the first
time that I'll actually talk about the negative
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uses of artificial intelligence. The things
I talk about today are just the tip
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of the iceberg. Disinformation has been
around longer than the printing press, but
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the printing press sure helped it move
on down the chain a little faster.
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False statements first appeared on a large
scale in newspapers. These privately owned media
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sources were sometimes the only ones in
town, so there was no scoop,
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and the First Amendment gave journalists the
leeway to print whatever they wanted. Benjamin
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Franklin actually bought a newspaper so that
he could spread disinformation on the smallpox vaccine.
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He was very much against the smallpox
vaccinations, and he wanted everyone else
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to know how dangerous and terrible they
were. His paper came out once a
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day, and in every issue there
was a story about how the smallpox vaccine
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was worse than getting smallpox. These
stories were often untrue. Yes, I'm
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talking about one of our founding fathers
spreading lies about something that he was steadfastly
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against. Don'n acts are shocked.
It's not the first time I've talked about
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things like this, and it won't
be the last. Anyway. Back to
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Ben, his disinformation campaign came to
a screeching halt when his four year old
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son died of smallpox. He later
wrote in his autobiography, quote in seventeen
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thirty six, I lost one of
my sons, a fine boy of four
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years old, by small pox taken
in the common way. I long regretted
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bitterly, and still regret that I
had not given it to him by inoculation.
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End quote. Franklin's news outlet began
printing a different view on vaccination after
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his son died. He used his
own example frequently to start promoting vaccination.
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During both World Wars, flyers threatening
citizens of both sides would be dropped on
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cities. These flyers would give some
insight into what might happen if that community
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didn't surrender. This was done immediately
after the first atomic bomb was dropped on
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Hiroshima. Within days, the US
government dropped flyers on the city that warned
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that the Japanese needed to surrender immediately
or the same thing would happen again.
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Then there came television Leaked news by
governments was easy to promote through news agencies
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since they didn't have great ways of
verifying information. This is where the game
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of telephone began. One leak and
information could be spread, whether true or
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not, all over the world quickly
and without any verification whatsoever. This happened
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during the Vietnam War when Jane Fonda
chose to take sides with the Vietnamese and
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promote US soldiers as baby killers.
Her disinformation campaign caused countless US soldiers their
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lives. Many were lost forever.
They never came home, alive or dead.
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Then came the computer age, beginning
with chat rooms an Aol messenger.
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Email scams were popular back then,
especially chainmail. Pass this along and you'll
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have good luck. Don't end,
do you die? I believe this is
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where the Nigerian Prince scams started.
It's surely where computerized disinformation campaigns got their
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start. And this brings us to
now. The war wages on, but
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the battlefield is different and we're all
under attack every day. Twenty four to
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seven. During October of twenty nineteen
and December of twenty twenty, Russian businessman
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Yevegne Progosan created a covert social media
presence to targeting Libya. Both of these
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campaigns created Facebook pages masquerading as independent
media sources. They mostly posted political cartoons
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targeting the Libyan government. During the
twenty twenty campaign, one of these fake
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media outlets expanded their presence to include
the sale of branded merchandise and a daily
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podcast. Between twenty eighteen and twenty
twenty, Facebook and Twitter announced that they
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had taken down one hundred and forty
seven influence operations that targeted businesses and governments.
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Facebook describes these operations as coordinated inauthentic
behavior, while Twitter calls it state
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backed information operations. These takedowns were
attributed to specific governments or groups of people,
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not individuals. In twenty twenty,
some of these campaigns were run by
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the Iran broadcasting company, the Royal
Time Military, and an IT company based
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in Tehran. After the takedown of
his campaign, progos Soon responded to Facebook
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by saying, quote, most likely
the era of Facebook will come to an
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end and states will finally close their
borders to such political perverts end quote.
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He seemed unfazed blaming Facebook for taking
down his campaign, even making it sound
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like he had nothing to do with
it. He was just a guy making
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a million posts the day targeting the
Libyan government. After Twitter removed seven thousand
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accounts linked to the youth wing of
Turkey's ruling Justice Development Party, a senior
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government communications official responded a bit differently. Quote, we would like to remind
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Twitter of the eventual fate of a
number of organizations which attempted to take similar
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steps in the past. End quote. Does this sound like a threat to
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you? It should, because it
was definitely a threat to take down Twitter.
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Profile pictures are very important when making
fake accounts. People trust those faces,
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del friend them, and follow them. Now, disinformation campaigns are using
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AI technology to create profile pictures that
look like real people, but the facial
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recognition software used to reverse search them
doesn't come up with anyone. That's because
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the AI generated images aren't real people. They just look like real people.
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A student group to the Communist Party
of Cuba used this technology to target the
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Cuban people in a disinformation campaign.
A Russian linked militant operation targeted the US
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the same way. Another tactic used
by operatives is called handle switching. The
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account may have been involved in an
operation in Sudan. At one point,
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but the operation switched targets, so
the tweets for Sudan would be deleted and
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the account would begin to target Morocco. For instance. Handle switching goes beyond
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just deleting tweets and adding more.
They'll change their user name and their bio.
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They'll also change their handle by adding
a few letters or changing the name
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just slightly. When this happens,
the account becomes a new persona, but
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it retains its followers. This tactic
was most recently used by individuals who were
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linked to the Saudi government. This
entity created Twitter accounts for the purpose of
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spreading a rumor about a coup in
Qatar. The accounts posed as Katari interim
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government officials and Katari royals living in
Saudi Arabia. This tactic was also used
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by Russian operatives who paid social media
users in Ghana to target black communities in
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the US, this scheme was discovered
when these accounts changed their names and mass
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in an attempt to evade detection and
move on to the next scheme. Operatives
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are also employing pr and marketing firms
to do their dirty work. Troll farms
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in the Philippines, strategic communication firms
in the US and PR firms in Ukraine
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have all been accused of running disinformation
campaigns on behalf of corrupt governments or other
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operatives. These firms are used as
a front for the campaign itself, to
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evade detection and to have a scapegoat
when the disinformation is detected. Since this
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is technically an illegal process, the
PR firms will often cover for the operatives,
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leaving the firm holding the bag when
it comes to punishment. A firm
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in Saudi Arabia used hashtags as a
means to spread disinformation for a client.
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The hashtags were often nonsensical and really
really long. They often advertised for an
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extermination company that was also a client
at the firm. Most of them would
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blend in narratives that criticize Qatar.
This was done in an attempt to get
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the hashtags to trend and drive the
attention to the posts. Targets change often,
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but three seem to stay on the
top of the list. The US,
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the UK and Egypt have stayed on
top for a few years now.
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During twenty nineteen, they were joined
by Ukraine and Qatar. Ukraine was and
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still is a target for Russian operatives
and Qatar was targeted by Saudi Arabia.
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Both countries came under fire since the
opposition has geopolitical interests in those countries.
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The US and the UK are also
targets for the same reasons, but since
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they have open media environments, this
also makes them easy targets. Telegram is
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an encrypted messaging app much like WhatsApp. Telegram is based in Dubai and it's
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used more outside of the US.
Telegram doesn't suspend disinformation content, so operatives
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will use it as a super spreader
type. Squatting allows operatives to pose as
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legitimate news sites. Several operatives have
used this method to spread disinformation through social
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media. An operation linked to the
Islamic Movement of Nigeria, a group that
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advocates the installation of an Islamic form
of government in Nigeria, claimed to represent
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najafox dot com. This was a
news site that published articles with a distinctly
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anti Western slant. The site has
since been seized by the FBI, so
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don't go looking for it. A
network that originated in Iran and Afghanistan included
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a Facebook page and an Instagram account
pretending to represent Afghanistan's most popular television channel.
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An Iranian align network used Bloomberg by
replacing the G with a queue to
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confuse readers. These actors may also
invest in their own websites or domains just
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saying and its cause of death one
hundred sex dot net Everyone remember that.
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Okay, so I've given some examples. Most of the ones I've given are
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outside of the United States. But
can you really see how these campaigns can
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be harmful? Governments and other operatives
use these campaigns to suppress human rights,
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discredit political opponents, and stifle dissent
in their own countries. Smaller countries like
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Azerbaijan, Zimbabwe, and Bahrain have
been targets of these sorts of campaigns.
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In Tajitstan, university students were paid
to set up fake accounts and share pro
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governmental views. Russian operatives traveled to
Myanmar to train them on the use of
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social media for disinformation campaigns. This
was with the intention of not only targeting
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Myanmar, but also other countries.
The US and Ukraine come to mind.
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So we've talked about hired trolls and
fake accounts. Let's get into how artificial
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intelligence adds into the mix. This
information travels at a rate of one post
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every six minutes twenty four hours a
day, seven days a week. This
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isn't done by humans alone. Some
of these fake personas are bots that are
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set up to push information on a
mass scale. The more you see something,
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the more apt you are to click
on it. The more clicks,
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comments, and shares a post gets, the more information spreads. This is
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called astroturfing. Bots put out different
posts with the same narrative constantly, so
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that people who scroll the net will
come across those posts Several times. After
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00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:07.960
that, well, it gets reposted, sometimes with added narrative, and then
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it's a game of telephone, or
sometimes it turns into a fish story.
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Flooding is a bit different from astroturfing. Flooding is where trolls will leave negative
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comments on a post or a YouTube
video in order to change the narrative of
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the video. It's called flooding because
there will be several posts with the same
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narrative flooding the comments section. This
drowns out the original message or any positive
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comments that are there. At one
point, I was being trolled on YouTube.
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I don't really do video, but
my podcast does show up there for
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more exposure. Every time an episode
would drop I'd get negative comments from listeners.
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I don't have a huge following on
YouTube, so it would only be
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one or twbe but I shut the
comments off on my YouTube so I didn't
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have to deal with all of it. I knew what was going on there,
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and I don't have the time or
the energy to play the game.
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Then there's cheap fake and deep fake. Cheap fakes use video clips and sound
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bites that are strung together to promote
a certain narrative. These can beat choppy,
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but they're very popular on YouTube.
Pictures flow one into another, an
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edited narrative goes with them. Deep
fakes are everywhere in advertising, social media
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campaigns. YouTube deep fakes are sort
of amazing in a horrible, illegal kind
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of way. A deep fake uses
AI technology in the form of facial recognition
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to clone a person's actions and their
voice. It only takes a short video
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clip for the AI to pick up
the person's natural movements, and a short
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00:22:06.519 --> 00:22:11.839
audio clip will clone their voice after
that, putting them together as easy,
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a video can be created that looks
and sounds just like the person that the
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operatives are targeting. During March of
twenty twenty two, Russian media promoted a
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deep fake of Voldemar Zelenski telling Ukrainian
troops to stand down. The Russians hacked
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Ukrainian news agencies and this fake video
was shown on Ukrainian television. This is
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one reason that my dog is the
face of this podcast on TikTok. People
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hijack TikTok to use in deep fakes
all the time, and there is no
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00:22:49.799 --> 00:22:59.960
way to stop it. The pro
Chinese political spam network Spamoflage Dragon. Yeah,
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00:23:00.279 --> 00:23:06.200
I'm not kidding, that's their name. They used AI to generate social
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media profiles, then produced and released
cheap fake videos attacking the US policy during
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June of twenty twenty. Remember June
of twenty twenty, we were coming down
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off of lockdown from the COVID nineteen
pandemic. People were mandated to wear masks,
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Social distancing was a thing. The
vaccines were only in the works,
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they hadn't been created. People were
dying in droves, but certain news agencies
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and social media were flooded with posts
and news stories about how this was a
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government conspiracy to take away our rights. China knows how to hit us where
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00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:56.839
we live. During the twenty sixteen
presidential election, Russia's military intelligence agency,
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the GRU used fake at experts and
set up fake think tanks and news sites.
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They populated these news sites and social
media with personas that didn't exist.
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The subjects of these posts ranged from
support of Russia's invasion in Syria and the
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two fourteen invasion of Ukraine to social
injustice in the US. The US influence
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was done to sway the presidential election
and their man won, and more influence
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was put on the twenty twenty election
by Russia and China. Disinformation as a
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service exists as a marketplace on the
dark Web. It costs about forty dollars
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00:24:47.519 --> 00:24:52.799
a month to rent one thousand bot
net Twitter profiles. Fake news articles can
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00:24:52.839 --> 00:24:59.960
be had for fifteen dollars for one
thousand characters. A fake social media post
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00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:06.799
can be gained for eight dollars for
one thousand characters. It's cheap to ruin
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00:25:06.920 --> 00:25:11.480
an individual, a business, or
even a country, and it's big business.
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00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:17.119
Pr and marketing firms have employees,
for oh one case, paid leave
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and receptionists. Maybe they know they're
promoting disinformation and maybe they don't, but
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they're making money from certain clients.
Once these little parts are paid for,
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00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:37.119
the rest is free. Each social
media platform has an algorithm that promotes the
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00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:41.680
posts, and operatives know how to
use those algorithms to their best advantage.
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It costs them nothing to do so
there is always some truth to the posts,
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00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:56.720
and that's what makes them so believable. Sometimes we even believe these narratives.
250
00:25:56.839 --> 00:26:03.720
Political groups and conspiracy through will buy
into these campaigns. They'll change the
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00:26:03.839 --> 00:26:08.359
narrative a little and share these posts
and the beat will go on. Podcasts
252
00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:14.799
will pick up on these things and
use them in their episodes. Steve Banion's
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00:26:14.839 --> 00:26:21.960
War Room was tagged as having more
falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims than any other political
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00:26:22.039 --> 00:26:27.000
podcast out there, even more than
Joe Rogan, and we all know how
255
00:26:27.039 --> 00:26:37.160
I feel about Joe. We are
inundated every day with fake news and propaganda,
256
00:26:37.240 --> 00:26:40.720
and there's no way to stop it. The best we can do is
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00:26:40.759 --> 00:26:48.039
take steps to recognize it and stop
sharing the narrative. This podcast is dedicated
258
00:26:48.079 --> 00:26:53.160
to bringing listeners truthful and valid information. I pride myself on being able to
259
00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:57.359
sort through the garbage and give you
what you need to hear, even if
260
00:26:57.400 --> 00:27:03.039
I don't always like the answer.
I want you to be able to trust
261
00:27:03.079 --> 00:27:07.559
that what I'm telling you is valid. I sometimes have a hard time getting
262
00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:12.279
the information. My Google algorithm has
figured out that I don't always want the
263
00:27:12.319 --> 00:27:18.680
most popular information to show up.
I want the most valid, so it
264
00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:22.880
gives me sites that I can trust
for the most part. But once in
265
00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:26.759
a while I'll get bad links and
I have to sift through and figure it
266
00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:33.400
all out. And now I'm going
to give you a piece of sage advice.
267
00:27:33.960 --> 00:27:38.319
When looking for information, always make
sure that the link you're clicking is
268
00:27:38.440 --> 00:27:45.279
valid, make sure that what you're
reading makes sense, and make sure that
269
00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:49.240
you have at least two, if
not more, valid sources that say the
270
00:27:49.400 --> 00:28:00.119
same thing. The keywords here are
valid sources, not just sources. It's
271
00:28:00.119 --> 00:28:03.400
not always easy, but the truth
is out there and it's what we strive
272
00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:11.240
for. It's ninety seconds to midnight, and disinformation campaigns designed to bring discent
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00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:17.680
and division are threatening our way of
life, our prosperity, and our government.
274
00:28:18.119 --> 00:28:22.240
We all need to be smart and
aware when it comes to our social
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00:28:22.279 --> 00:28:26.640
media platforms and our news outlets,
or we could find ourselves in the midst
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00:28:26.680 --> 00:28:33.440
of an internal conflict that has the
potential to turn violent. Much of the
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00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:38.720
world is willfully ignorant of the information
they consume and what they choose to believe.
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00:28:41.119 --> 00:28:45.000
The only hope we have as individuals
is to make sure that we are
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00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:51.720
getting good information, checking our sources
and cross referencing materials so that we know
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00:28:51.799 --> 00:28:56.079
that the information we're getting is true. I want to thank you all for
281
00:28:56.160 --> 00:29:02.000
listening to Cause of Death one hundred
seconds to night. I encourage all of
282
00:29:02.039 --> 00:29:06.480
you to subscribe, rate, review, and share these episodes with everyone you
283
00:29:06.599 --> 00:29:11.440
know. If you'd like to support
the show, please subscribe on Patreon or
284
00:29:11.480 --> 00:29:18.240
Apple Podcasts. Subscription started a dollar
a month. Patreon has several levels with
285
00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:22.960
several different perks. You can get
merch scripts, ad free episodes, and
286
00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:30.440
bonus content. I'll be doing a
show on nuclear armament in season seven.
287
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:36.279
If you have a story about your
experience during the Cold War, please contact
288
00:29:36.359 --> 00:29:41.279
me at Jackie at cause of Death
one hundred sex dot net or on the
289
00:29:41.319 --> 00:29:49.160
website at www cause of Death one
hundred sex dot net. If you visit
290
00:29:49.240 --> 00:29:52.759
my website, you can see my
blog, sign up for my mailing list,
291
00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:57.640
leave a voicemail, or contact me. There are also links to my
292
00:29:57.720 --> 00:30:03.680
episodes, my Patreon on page,
my socials, and more. Again,
293
00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:07.079
thank you for listening to Cause of
Death one hundred seconds to Midnight, and
294
00:30:07.160 --> 00:31:08.400
I'll see you in two weeks when
I'll be talking about batulism m h m hm
1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.439
Dark Cast Network. Come on over
to the dark Side. We're really nice
2
00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:08.640
people once you get past the true
crime and scary science. Hi. This
3
00:00:08.759 --> 00:00:14.080
is Kelly and this is Jenna.
We're the hosts of ODFM. That's One
4
00:00:14.759 --> 00:00:19.440
from Murder. Each week we discuss
a true crime murder case and intertwine our
5
00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:23.719
unique sense of dark humor. Each
episode relates to a word starting with the
6
00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:28.679
letter D. The stories we tell
are serious and true, our opinions are
7
00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:32.640
not, but be warned we don't
hold back on the details of the case
8
00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:38.039
or our inappropriate comments and colorful language. Join us every Monday on your favorite
9
00:00:38.079 --> 00:00:42.759
podcast provider for a new episode of
ODFM. We're on a full ride scholarship
10
00:00:42.799 --> 00:00:49.799
to Hell. My name is Keely
and I host a true grim and paranormal
11
00:00:49.880 --> 00:00:56.119
podcast called Missy Mysteries. Missy Mysteries
takes a special focus on unsolved cases a
12
00:00:56.280 --> 00:01:00.119
missing persons cases. All of my
truecrim episodes are made to raise awareness and
13
00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:04.280
bring justice to those who need it
most. Most of these episodes are made
14
00:01:04.359 --> 00:01:10.760
in partnership or made with the families
of the victims and missing people. But
15
00:01:10.879 --> 00:01:15.959
the podcast isn't always true crime.
Sometimes I bring spooky content like countings,
16
00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:21.599
aliens and cryptics such as the original
Story of The Conjuring House, The Life
17
00:01:21.599 --> 00:01:26.480
of edinlur And Warren and Mothman,
truecrime and paranormal even cross at times to
18
00:01:26.519 --> 00:01:30.480
make two part episodes like The Bobby
Mackey Music World, The Lizzie Bordenhouse,
19
00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:36.879
and The vliska As Murder House.
Missy Mysteries is ready to be binge listened
20
00:01:36.879 --> 00:01:41.920
to with over fifty episodes anywhere you
get your podcasts, I cannot wait to
21
00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:53.200
keep your company whenever and wherever you
like to listen to your podcast. Hello
22
00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:59.439
and welcome to Cause of Death one
hundred Seconds to Midnight. The one hundred
23
00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:05.200
Seconds to Midnight episodes addressed the doomsday
clock and the events that keep it ticking
24
00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:09.520
down and the things we can do
to stop it. The doomsday clock was
25
00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:15.439
set at one hundred seconds to midnight
in twenty twenty and the time remained one
26
00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:20.879
hundred seconds to midnight until January twenty
fourth of twenty twenty three, when the
27
00:02:20.919 --> 00:02:25.680
hands moved even closer to midnight.
The time was set at ninety seconds to
28
00:02:25.759 --> 00:02:32.719
midnight. It's ninety seconds to midnight
and there is a recycled form of terrorism
29
00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:38.879
being implemented by bad actors close to
corrupt governments. It's a quiet war,
30
00:02:39.199 --> 00:02:46.439
and we're all under attack through something
so mundane that we don't even recognize the
31
00:02:46.599 --> 00:02:53.639
threat. Propaganda, misinformation, lies, disinformation, fake news. These things
32
00:02:53.680 --> 00:02:59.120
have been around forever, but it
seems that during the last ten years the
33
00:02:59.199 --> 00:03:06.919
information has gotten more and more unreliable. We are surrounded by disinformation that affects
34
00:03:06.919 --> 00:03:09.960
our daily lives. We don't know
who to trust or who to believe,
35
00:03:10.199 --> 00:03:16.439
and it's causing discent and division in
our communities and our society. We are
36
00:03:16.520 --> 00:03:24.120
being inundated with propaganda through advertising,
news reports, and especially social media.
37
00:03:24.599 --> 00:03:30.599
Disinformation operations are created by governments or
those close to governments to create narratives that
38
00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:38.719
could potentially bring down businesses, governments, or individuals. The division we see
39
00:03:38.759 --> 00:03:46.080
in the US is a prime example
of how disinformation campaigns can divide a country,
40
00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:51.400
divide and conquer. It's a strategy
as old as time, wrapped up
41
00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:55.319
in a new and improved package,
and the war zone includes all of us,
42
00:03:55.599 --> 00:04:02.000
and we don't even know we're under
attack. Let's begin by defining some
43
00:04:02.039 --> 00:04:06.639
of the terms that I'll use when
I'm talking about disinformation. Just so the
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00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:13.919
water doesn't get too muddied. Propaganda, disinformation, and fake news are often
45
00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:20.519
used interchangeably. These terms describe the
various ways that sharing information intentionally causes harm.
46
00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:30.040
Disinformation is false information shared to intentionally
cause harm. This is a post
47
00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:34.600
from some source that we don't know
who posts something radical. The post usually
48
00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:41.439
contains comments for or against a particular
government entity, hate speech, or a
49
00:04:41.519 --> 00:04:46.680
conspiracy theory that they promote as truth. This will be the original post in
50
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:51.160
the chain. Sometimes there will be
several posts with different names, and the
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00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:56.680
post may change just a little,
but the narrative will stay the same.
52
00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:03.480
Misinformation is false information shared with no
intention of causing harm. We all do
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00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:11.120
this. We share information with no
intention of causing harm. Sometimes we share
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00:05:11.160 --> 00:05:15.079
posts that we disagree with so we
can put our two cents into the comments.
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00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:19.959
We have the intention of embarrassing the
original writer, but what we are
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00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:29.000
actually doing is making that post go
further down the chain. Malinformation is true
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00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:35.199
information shared intentionally to cause harm.
Think about a ten second SoundBite that is
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00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:41.800
used out of context. The speaker
did make that comment, but the comment
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00:05:41.959 --> 00:05:46.519
was clipped in such a way that
it sounds like they were saying something completely
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00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:51.360
different. I've mentioned that the Board
of Atomic Scientists has expanded their concerns to
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00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:57.879
disruptive technology. This is the first
time that I'll actually talk about the negative
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00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:02.439
uses of artificial intelligence. The things
I talk about today are just the tip
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00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:10.480
of the iceberg. Disinformation has been
around longer than the printing press, but
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00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:14.519
the printing press sure helped it move
on down the chain a little faster.
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00:06:16.199 --> 00:06:23.079
False statements first appeared on a large
scale in newspapers. These privately owned media
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00:06:23.160 --> 00:06:27.680
sources were sometimes the only ones in
town, so there was no scoop,
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00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:33.079
and the First Amendment gave journalists the
leeway to print whatever they wanted. Benjamin
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00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:41.319
Franklin actually bought a newspaper so that
he could spread disinformation on the smallpox vaccine.
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00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:46.360
He was very much against the smallpox
vaccinations, and he wanted everyone else
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00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:53.279
to know how dangerous and terrible they
were. His paper came out once a
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00:06:53.360 --> 00:06:57.720
day, and in every issue there
was a story about how the smallpox vaccine
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00:06:57.839 --> 00:07:03.360
was worse than getting smallpox. These
stories were often untrue. Yes, I'm
73
00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:10.120
talking about one of our founding fathers
spreading lies about something that he was steadfastly
74
00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:15.399
against. Don'n acts are shocked.
It's not the first time I've talked about
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00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:19.439
things like this, and it won't
be the last. Anyway. Back to
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00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:26.160
Ben, his disinformation campaign came to
a screeching halt when his four year old
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00:07:26.279 --> 00:07:33.639
son died of smallpox. He later
wrote in his autobiography, quote in seventeen
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00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:38.800
thirty six, I lost one of
my sons, a fine boy of four
79
00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:44.800
years old, by small pox taken
in the common way. I long regretted
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00:07:44.879 --> 00:07:48.519
bitterly, and still regret that I
had not given it to him by inoculation.
81
00:07:49.079 --> 00:07:57.480
End quote. Franklin's news outlet began
printing a different view on vaccination after
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00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:03.759
his son died. He used his
own example frequently to start promoting vaccination.
83
00:08:05.160 --> 00:08:11.079
During both World Wars, flyers threatening
citizens of both sides would be dropped on
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00:08:11.160 --> 00:08:16.560
cities. These flyers would give some
insight into what might happen if that community
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00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:22.720
didn't surrender. This was done immediately
after the first atomic bomb was dropped on
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00:08:22.839 --> 00:08:28.560
Hiroshima. Within days, the US
government dropped flyers on the city that warned
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00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:33.840
that the Japanese needed to surrender immediately
or the same thing would happen again.
88
00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:43.279
Then there came television Leaked news by
governments was easy to promote through news agencies
89
00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:48.639
since they didn't have great ways of
verifying information. This is where the game
90
00:08:48.720 --> 00:08:54.600
of telephone began. One leak and
information could be spread, whether true or
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00:08:54.639 --> 00:09:01.519
not, all over the world quickly
and without any verification whatsoever. This happened
92
00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:05.159
during the Vietnam War when Jane Fonda
chose to take sides with the Vietnamese and
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promote US soldiers as baby killers.
Her disinformation campaign caused countless US soldiers their
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lives. Many were lost forever.
They never came home, alive or dead.
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Then came the computer age, beginning
with chat rooms an Aol messenger.
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Email scams were popular back then,
especially chainmail. Pass this along and you'll
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have good luck. Don't end,
do you die? I believe this is
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where the Nigerian Prince scams started.
It's surely where computerized disinformation campaigns got their
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start. And this brings us to
now. The war wages on, but
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the battlefield is different and we're all
under attack every day. Twenty four to
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seven. During October of twenty nineteen
and December of twenty twenty, Russian businessman
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Yevegne Progosan created a covert social media
presence to targeting Libya. Both of these
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campaigns created Facebook pages masquerading as independent
media sources. They mostly posted political cartoons
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targeting the Libyan government. During the
twenty twenty campaign, one of these fake
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media outlets expanded their presence to include
the sale of branded merchandise and a daily
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podcast. Between twenty eighteen and twenty
twenty, Facebook and Twitter announced that they
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had taken down one hundred and forty
seven influence operations that targeted businesses and governments.
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Facebook describes these operations as coordinated inauthentic
behavior, while Twitter calls it state
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backed information operations. These takedowns were
attributed to specific governments or groups of people,
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not individuals. In twenty twenty,
some of these campaigns were run by
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the Iran broadcasting company, the Royal
Time Military, and an IT company based
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in Tehran. After the takedown of
his campaign, progos Soon responded to Facebook
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by saying, quote, most likely
the era of Facebook will come to an
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end and states will finally close their
borders to such political perverts end quote.
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He seemed unfazed blaming Facebook for taking
down his campaign, even making it sound
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like he had nothing to do with
it. He was just a guy making
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a million posts the day targeting the
Libyan government. After Twitter removed seven thousand
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accounts linked to the youth wing of
Turkey's ruling Justice Development Party, a senior
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government communications official responded a bit differently. Quote, we would like to remind
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Twitter of the eventual fate of a
number of organizations which attempted to take similar
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steps in the past. End quote. Does this sound like a threat to
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you? It should, because it
was definitely a threat to take down Twitter.
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Profile pictures are very important when making
fake accounts. People trust those faces,
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del friend them, and follow them. Now, disinformation campaigns are using
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AI technology to create profile pictures that
look like real people, but the facial
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recognition software used to reverse search them
doesn't come up with anyone. That's because
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the AI generated images aren't real people. They just look like real people.
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A student group to the Communist Party
of Cuba used this technology to target the
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Cuban people in a disinformation campaign.
A Russian linked militant operation targeted the US
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the same way. Another tactic used
by operatives is called handle switching. The
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account may have been involved in an
operation in Sudan. At one point,
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but the operation switched targets, so
the tweets for Sudan would be deleted and
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the account would begin to target Morocco. For instance. Handle switching goes beyond
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just deleting tweets and adding more.
They'll change their user name and their bio.
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They'll also change their handle by adding
a few letters or changing the name
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just slightly. When this happens,
the account becomes a new persona, but
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it retains its followers. This tactic
was most recently used by individuals who were
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linked to the Saudi government. This
entity created Twitter accounts for the purpose of
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spreading a rumor about a coup in
Qatar. The accounts posed as Katari interim
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government officials and Katari royals living in
Saudi Arabia. This tactic was also used
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by Russian operatives who paid social media
users in Ghana to target black communities in
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the US, this scheme was discovered
when these accounts changed their names and mass
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in an attempt to evade detection and
move on to the next scheme. Operatives
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are also employing pr and marketing firms
to do their dirty work. Troll farms
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in the Philippines, strategic communication firms
in the US and PR firms in Ukraine
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have all been accused of running disinformation
campaigns on behalf of corrupt governments or other
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operatives. These firms are used as
a front for the campaign itself, to
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evade detection and to have a scapegoat
when the disinformation is detected. Since this
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is technically an illegal process, the
PR firms will often cover for the operatives,
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leaving the firm holding the bag when
it comes to punishment. A firm
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in Saudi Arabia used hashtags as a
means to spread disinformation for a client.
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The hashtags were often nonsensical and really
really long. They often advertised for an
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extermination company that was also a client
at the firm. Most of them would
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blend in narratives that criticize Qatar.
This was done in an attempt to get
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the hashtags to trend and drive the
attention to the posts. Targets change often,
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but three seem to stay on the
top of the list. The US,
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the UK and Egypt have stayed on
top for a few years now.
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During twenty nineteen, they were joined
by Ukraine and Qatar. Ukraine was and
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still is a target for Russian operatives
and Qatar was targeted by Saudi Arabia.
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Both countries came under fire since the
opposition has geopolitical interests in those countries.
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The US and the UK are also
targets for the same reasons, but since
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they have open media environments, this
also makes them easy targets. Telegram is
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an encrypted messaging app much like WhatsApp. Telegram is based in Dubai and it's
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used more outside of the US.
Telegram doesn't suspend disinformation content, so operatives
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will use it as a super spreader
type. Squatting allows operatives to pose as
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legitimate news sites. Several operatives have
used this method to spread disinformation through social
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media. An operation linked to the
Islamic Movement of Nigeria, a group that
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advocates the installation of an Islamic form
of government in Nigeria, claimed to represent
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najafox dot com. This was a
news site that published articles with a distinctly
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anti Western slant. The site has
since been seized by the FBI, so
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don't go looking for it. A
network that originated in Iran and Afghanistan included
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a Facebook page and an Instagram account
pretending to represent Afghanistan's most popular television channel.
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An Iranian align network used Bloomberg by
replacing the G with a queue to
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confuse readers. These actors may also
invest in their own websites or domains just
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saying and its cause of death one
hundred sex dot net Everyone remember that.
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Okay, so I've given some examples. Most of the ones I've given are
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outside of the United States. But
can you really see how these campaigns can
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be harmful? Governments and other operatives
use these campaigns to suppress human rights,
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discredit political opponents, and stifle dissent
in their own countries. Smaller countries like
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Azerbaijan, Zimbabwe, and Bahrain have
been targets of these sorts of campaigns.
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In Tajitstan, university students were paid
to set up fake accounts and share pro
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governmental views. Russian operatives traveled to
Myanmar to train them on the use of
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social media for disinformation campaigns. This
was with the intention of not only targeting
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Myanmar, but also other countries.
The US and Ukraine come to mind.
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So we've talked about hired trolls and
fake accounts. Let's get into how artificial
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intelligence adds into the mix. This
information travels at a rate of one post
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every six minutes twenty four hours a
day, seven days a week. This
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isn't done by humans alone. Some
of these fake personas are bots that are
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set up to push information on a
mass scale. The more you see something,
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the more apt you are to click
on it. The more clicks,
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comments, and shares a post gets, the more information spreads. This is
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called astroturfing. Bots put out different
posts with the same narrative constantly, so
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that people who scroll the net will
come across those posts Several times. After
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that, well, it gets reposted, sometimes with added narrative, and then
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it's a game of telephone, or
sometimes it turns into a fish story.
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Flooding is a bit different from astroturfing. Flooding is where trolls will leave negative
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comments on a post or a YouTube
video in order to change the narrative of
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the video. It's called flooding because
there will be several posts with the same
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narrative flooding the comments section. This
drowns out the original message or any positive
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comments that are there. At one
point, I was being trolled on YouTube.
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I don't really do video, but
my podcast does show up there for
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more exposure. Every time an episode
would drop I'd get negative comments from listeners.
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I don't have a huge following on
YouTube, so it would only be
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one or twbe but I shut the
comments off on my YouTube so I didn't
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have to deal with all of it. I knew what was going on there,
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and I don't have the time or
the energy to play the game.
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Then there's cheap fake and deep fake. Cheap fakes use video clips and sound
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bites that are strung together to promote
a certain narrative. These can beat choppy,
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but they're very popular on YouTube.
Pictures flow one into another, an
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edited narrative goes with them. Deep
fakes are everywhere in advertising, social media
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campaigns. YouTube deep fakes are sort
of amazing in a horrible, illegal kind
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of way. A deep fake uses
AI technology in the form of facial recognition
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to clone a person's actions and their
voice. It only takes a short video
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clip for the AI to pick up
the person's natural movements, and a short
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audio clip will clone their voice after
that, putting them together as easy,
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a video can be created that looks
and sounds just like the person that the
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operatives are targeting. During March of
twenty twenty two, Russian media promoted a
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deep fake of Voldemar Zelenski telling Ukrainian
troops to stand down. The Russians hacked
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Ukrainian news agencies and this fake video
was shown on Ukrainian television. This is
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one reason that my dog is the
face of this podcast on TikTok. People
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hijack TikTok to use in deep fakes
all the time, and there is no
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way to stop it. The pro
Chinese political spam network Spamoflage Dragon. Yeah,
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I'm not kidding, that's their name. They used AI to generate social
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media profiles, then produced and released
cheap fake videos attacking the US policy during
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June of twenty twenty. Remember June
of twenty twenty, we were coming down
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off of lockdown from the COVID nineteen
pandemic. People were mandated to wear masks,
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Social distancing was a thing. The
vaccines were only in the works,
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they hadn't been created. People were
dying in droves, but certain news agencies
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and social media were flooded with posts
and news stories about how this was a
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government conspiracy to take away our rights. China knows how to hit us where
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we live. During the twenty sixteen
presidential election, Russia's military intelligence agency,
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the GRU used fake at experts and
set up fake think tanks and news sites.
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They populated these news sites and social
media with personas that didn't exist.
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The subjects of these posts ranged from
support of Russia's invasion in Syria and the
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two fourteen invasion of Ukraine to social
injustice in the US. The US influence
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was done to sway the presidential election
and their man won, and more influence
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was put on the twenty twenty election
by Russia and China. Disinformation as a
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service exists as a marketplace on the
dark Web. It costs about forty dollars
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a month to rent one thousand bot
net Twitter profiles. Fake news articles can
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be had for fifteen dollars for one
thousand characters. A fake social media post
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can be gained for eight dollars for
one thousand characters. It's cheap to ruin
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00:25:06.920 --> 00:25:11.480
an individual, a business, or
even a country, and it's big business.
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Pr and marketing firms have employees,
for oh one case, paid leave
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and receptionists. Maybe they know they're
promoting disinformation and maybe they don't, but
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they're making money from certain clients.
Once these little parts are paid for,
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the rest is free. Each social
media platform has an algorithm that promotes the
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posts, and operatives know how to
use those algorithms to their best advantage.
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It costs them nothing to do so
there is always some truth to the posts,
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and that's what makes them so believable. Sometimes we even believe these narratives.
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Political groups and conspiracy through will buy
into these campaigns. They'll change the
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00:26:03.839 --> 00:26:08.359
narrative a little and share these posts
and the beat will go on. Podcasts
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00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:14.799
will pick up on these things and
use them in their episodes. Steve Banion's
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00:26:14.839 --> 00:26:21.960
War Room was tagged as having more
falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims than any other political
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podcast out there, even more than
Joe Rogan, and we all know how
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I feel about Joe. We are
inundated every day with fake news and propaganda,
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00:26:37.240 --> 00:26:40.720
and there's no way to stop it. The best we can do is
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take steps to recognize it and stop
sharing the narrative. This podcast is dedicated
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to bringing listeners truthful and valid information. I pride myself on being able to
259
00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:57.359
sort through the garbage and give you
what you need to hear, even if
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I don't always like the answer.
I want you to be able to trust
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00:27:03.079 --> 00:27:07.559
that what I'm telling you is valid. I sometimes have a hard time getting
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00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:12.279
the information. My Google algorithm has
figured out that I don't always want the
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00:27:12.319 --> 00:27:18.680
most popular information to show up.
I want the most valid, so it
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00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:22.880
gives me sites that I can trust
for the most part. But once in
265
00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:26.759
a while I'll get bad links and
I have to sift through and figure it
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00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:33.400
all out. And now I'm going
to give you a piece of sage advice.
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When looking for information, always make
sure that the link you're clicking is
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00:27:38.440 --> 00:27:45.279
valid, make sure that what you're
reading makes sense, and make sure that
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00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:49.240
you have at least two, if
not more, valid sources that say the
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00:27:49.400 --> 00:28:00.119
same thing. The keywords here are
valid sources, not just sources. It's
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00:28:00.119 --> 00:28:03.400
not always easy, but the truth
is out there and it's what we strive
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00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:11.240
for. It's ninety seconds to midnight, and disinformation campaigns designed to bring discent
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00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:17.680
and division are threatening our way of
life, our prosperity, and our government.
274
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We all need to be smart and
aware when it comes to our social
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media platforms and our news outlets,
or we could find ourselves in the midst
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00:28:26.680 --> 00:28:33.440
of an internal conflict that has the
potential to turn violent. Much of the
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00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:38.720
world is willfully ignorant of the information
they consume and what they choose to believe.
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The only hope we have as individuals
is to make sure that we are
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00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:51.720
getting good information, checking our sources
and cross referencing materials so that we know
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00:28:51.799 --> 00:28:56.079
that the information we're getting is true. I want to thank you all for
281
00:28:56.160 --> 00:29:02.000
listening to Cause of Death one hundred
seconds to night. I encourage all of
282
00:29:02.039 --> 00:29:06.480
you to subscribe, rate, review, and share these episodes with everyone you
283
00:29:06.599 --> 00:29:11.440
know. If you'd like to support
the show, please subscribe on Patreon or
284
00:29:11.480 --> 00:29:18.240
Apple Podcasts. Subscription started a dollar
a month. Patreon has several levels with
285
00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:22.960
several different perks. You can get
merch scripts, ad free episodes, and
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00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:30.440
bonus content. I'll be doing a
show on nuclear armament in season seven.
287
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:36.279
If you have a story about your
experience during the Cold War, please contact
288
00:29:36.359 --> 00:29:41.279
me at Jackie at cause of Death
one hundred sex dot net or on the
289
00:29:41.319 --> 00:29:49.160
website at www cause of Death one
hundred sex dot net. If you visit
290
00:29:49.240 --> 00:29:52.759
my website, you can see my
blog, sign up for my mailing list,
291
00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:57.640
leave a voicemail, or contact me. There are also links to my
292
00:29:57.720 --> 00:30:03.680
episodes, my Patreon on page,
my socials, and more. Again,
293
00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:07.079
thank you for listening to Cause of
Death one hundred seconds to Midnight, and
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00:30:07.160 --> 00:31:08.400
I'll see you in two weeks when
I'll be talking about batulism m h m hm
