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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

I'd be very interested in seeing if there's a similarly worded vkontakte or livejournal post from their admins, about removing "coordinated inauthentic behavior" from american sources.

Edit: I'm not alleging the US is doing such a thing in an organized manner, as the Russian "internet research agency" does, what I'm asking is whether the knee jerk response from Russian Facebook competitors (or state media like RT, Sputnik) will be to make the same allegations but in reverse. And if so, what form that will take.

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It does beg the question of whether Facebook will, or will be even allowed to, combat covert Western influence operations.

(I'm OK with overt influence operations that are clearly labelled, like the BBC World Service)

In my past experience the US' foreign language government run media operations are pretty transparent. The BBG, broadcasting board of governors, is part of the federal budget and is regularly audited, is subject to FOIA requests, etc.

BBG is the parent entity of Voice of America, etc.

The US runs a lot of foreign language media which people might not know exists, if they aren't a native speaker of the target language/culture.

For example Radio Azadi, which is the VOA/RFE for Dari speakers in Afghanistan. It also produces Pashto content.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Azadi

And Farda for Iranian Farsi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Farda

The transparent ones are visible, but what about the deniable ones we can't see?

Totally personal opinion, but they're more likely funded by private corporations that want to influence society to buy more of their product, or slush funds of lobbying money similar to how the Kochs fund PACs in the USA. Mercer family funds, etc.

People who have vested interests in organizations such as Saudi Aramco maintaining the status quo.

It's worth noting that US propaganda operations even on US soil are not unprecedented. During his tenure Obama signed a national defense authorization act[0][1] that some claim has re-legalized propaganda operations on US citizens. The CIA has admitted doing so during Operation Mockingbird[3] and in other situations[4] in the past. Given that I suggest that you remain highly skeptical of all media and independently verify claims as much as possible as it seems historically governmental as well as corporate interests have manipulated the media for their purposes and that is appears it is legal for the CIA to do so today.

[0]https://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-20...

[1]https://www.rt.com/usa/propaganda-us-smith-amendment-903/

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinio...

Edit: made comment more clear

While what you say is almost certainly true, I note the irony of linking to a Russian propaganda news organisation to support it.

Even more ironically the only reason people follow RT is that they're often covering things that the western media status quo has a blind spot to.

I noted that myself, rather suspiciously western media failed to cover it at the time. I can find the text for the bill and prove that he signed it via official government sources but business insider is the only reasonably reputable source that covered in the US to my knowledge. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not going to assert that it does what they say it does but it leaves me skeptical.

> I noted that myself, rather suspiciously western media failed to cover it at the time. I can find the text for the bill and prove that he signed it via official government sources but business insider is the only reasonably reputable source that covered in the US to my knowledge. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not going to assert that it does what they say it does but it leaves me skeptical.

The take you're promoting seems to have originated with Buzzfeed, then got picked up by BusinessInsider and amplified by Russia Today. Given that it's pretty unbelievable that there's a coordinated Western-media conspiracy to suppress it, my bet is that take has some major flaws and/or there's less to it the take makes it seems.

Based on some quick Googling, the law that was modified was the one that authorizes The Voice of America and related organizations, and (according to Wikipedia) the prohibitions on its US dissemination were originally put in place because some Congressmen in the 40s thought the State Department was full of commies (really).

This NY Times from 2018 gives some perspective (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/technology/facebook-ads-p...). VOA is still not permitted to advertise to Americans, and it characterized the law RT was writing about as:

> As with all affiliates of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is governed by the Smith-Mundt Act, a 1948 law that banned government-funded media outlets from disseminating their content inside the United States. The law was amended in 2014 to allow state-funded media organizations to distribute their content “upon request” to American viewers.

It seems that it amounted to giving organizations like the VOA permission to send their content to individual Americans who ask for it. It seems like prior to that it was available "for examination only."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act#Provis...

I would only be skeptical of something based on an RT story if you actually do the digging yourself to see if there's really a there there. In this case, I don't think there is.

That New York Times article is interesting, if it is indeed illegal to target propaganda to American citizens it seems that VOA did so in violation of law and only stopped when caught doing so.

That leads me to one of three conclusions:

1: Someone working for VOA felt that it was not illegal for them to do this making Business Insiders interpretation of the law at least plausible if not correct.

2: VOA knowingly used Facebook to target Americans with illegal propaganda.

3: Workers implementing VOA advertising were unable to understand that if you select "United States" as a target in Facebook's geo-targeting tool[0], that advertising indeed will be shown in the US.

Three seems the least likely to me personally given the historical context and since being skeptical of news releases is likely good practice anyway I'm not convinced that you shouldn't be.

To quote the same article:

Weston R. Sager, a lawyer with firm Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell who has written about anti-propaganda laws, said that it was disturbing to see government-funded news agencies targeting Facebook ads at Americans, no matter their content.

“I’m concerned that we’re seeing the beginning of government efforts to try to influence public opinion in the United States through the B.B.G. and its affiliate entities,” Mr. Sager said. “It’s one thing to read a tweet by Donald Trump. It’s another to receive a very polished news story from an organization that holds itself out as objective and fact-based.”

[0]https://www.facebook.com/business/help/202297959811696

> That leads me to one of three conclusions:

There's a fourth speculative possibility:

4. The VOA ad-buyer isn't a robot and bent the rules to target ads at the US for testing purposes (e.g. to see with his own account).

You could call such an act "propaganda illegally targeted at American citizens by the US government," and while technically true, it'd also be a hyperventilating overreaction. Especially since:

> The ads included several human-interest stories about Russia and a graphic about NATO’s popularity.

It's also worth noting a fact about the VOA's history. It was meant as an antidote to Soviet propaganda efforts, which featured heavy censorship and deliberately concocted lies [1] [2], by reporting truthfully according to Western journalistic standards. While that might still arguably be classified as propaganda (in its broadest form, an effort to convince someone of something), I'd find it difficult to honestly condemn it. I've read memoirs of dissidents that spoke very highly of it and its reporting, and they wouldn't have done so if it had been merely censoring and lying with a different bias. In my view, the modern desire to keep it out of the US is mainly born out of tradition and an abundance of caution.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation#Defections_reve...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infektion

> Three seems the least likely to me personally given the historical context and since being skeptical of news releases is likely good practice anyway I'm not convinced that you shouldn't be.

I'm appropriately skeptical of news releases, but it's possible to be over-skeptical as well. That over-skeptical state is actually the goal of some forms of propaganda.

> "they're more likely funded by private corporations"

With the state the American political system, I'm not convinced that's a distinction worth mentioning.

> overt influence operations that are clearly labelled, like the BBC World Service

Huh?

Until very recently it was funded by the Foreign Office. It effectively serves as a sort of low intensity advertising for Britain and "soft power".

Interesting, didn't know that. Thanks!

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