Twitter assisted U.S. Military PSYOP contrary to policy

Twitter released another round of Twitter Files, their eighth round. These files highlighted Twitter’s support for U.S. Military PSYOP. Twitter did this quietly, as its official position was that it would shut down state run covert information operations and deception. However, Twitter worked with the military so that they could get information operations accounts verified. Twitter also refrained from suspending these accounts.

From the Post Millennial:

“Twitter has claimed for years that they make concerted efforts to detect & thwart gov-backed platform manipulation. Here is Twitter testifying to Congress about its pledge to rapidly identify and shut down all state-backed covert information operations & deceptive propaganda.

“But behind the scenes, Twitter gave approval & special protection to the U.S. military’s online psychological influence ops. Despite knowledge that Pentagon propaganda accounts used covert identities, Twitter did not suspend many for around 2 years or more. Some remain active.

“In 2017, a U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) official sent Twitter a list of 52 Arab language accounts “we use to amplify certain messages.” The official asked for priority service for six accounts, verification for one & “whitelist” abilities for the others.

“The same day CENTCOM sent the list, Twitter officials used a tool to grant a special “whitelist” tag that essentially provides verification status to the accounts w/o the blue check, meaning they are exempt from spam/abuse flags, more visible/likely to trend on hashtags.

“The CENTCOM accounts on the list tweeted frequently about U.S. military priorities in the Middle East, including promoting anti-Iran messages, promotion of the Saudi Arabia-U.S. backed war in Yemen, and “accurate” U.S. drone strikes that claimed to only hit terrorists.

“CENTCOM then shifted strategies & deleted disclosures of ties to the Twitter accounts. The bios of the accounts changed to seemingly organic profiles. One bio read: ‘Euphrates pulse.’ Another used an apparent deep fake profile pic & claimed to be a source of Iraqi opinion.

“One Twitter official who spoke to me said he feels deceived by the covert shift,” Fang wrote.

“Still, many emails from throughout 2020 show that high-level Twitter executives were well aware of DoD’s vast network of fake accounts & covert propaganda and did not suspend the accounts,” Fang continued. “For example, Twitter lawyer Jim Baker mused in a July 2020 email, about an upcoming DoD meeting, that the Pentagon used “poor tradecraft” in setting up its network, and were seeking strategies for not exposing the accounts that are ‘linked to each other or to DoD or the USG.'”

“Stacia Cardille, another Twitter attorney, replied that the Pentagon wanted a SCIF & may want to retroactively classify its social media activities ‘to obfuscate their activity in this space, and that this may represent an overclassification to avoid embarrassment’,” Fang’s thread continued.

Military PSYOP consists of more than just the Army MOS that does military information support operations. It is a vast network supported by an infrastructure that includes government employees and allied civilian organizations. They even have civilians, who do a detailed culture and psychographic analysis of the target audience, who have PhDs in Psychology and in other related disciplines.

The above accounts would have been run by government employees rather than military personnel, and they would have focused on operational and strategic level information operations. Army PSYOP (37F/37A) is not allowed to do what the article describes, which is either Black PSYOP (misattributed source/deception) or Gray PSYOP (ambiguous source/validity), depending on the information being posted. Tactical PSYOP units use White PSYOP (verifiable source).

The Post Millennial has additional information here.

Category: Military issues