Not self promotion or VC tomfoolery, I am talking about public discourse management. Opinion shaping, multiparty, and on some topics, guaranteed like clockwork.
Just wondering, because... damn. This is different.
https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
Take it how you will.
So connecting these observations to "spies" is absurd begging of the question.
Maybe this little catalogue seemed insightful in the 80s era of USENET news, but today it's simplistic and anarchistic.
MSM and FAANG have gone so far beyond these points in strategy and tactical manipulation of opinion that trying to reckon MSM / FAANG concerns and approaches with a litany about interpersonal behaviors of ordinary, singular net users is like confusing an interaction with a next door neighbor is the same contact with aliens in another solar system.
Even just members of this forum, through my observation of how they operate over the last decade are prone to the same forces. It isn't alien. Quite the contrary. Most bloody human thing on the planet. People organizing against other people. Tale as old as time. We have the manual. It is in use. It isn't perfect. It can be worked around. But you have to know about it to do it. The first step is learning. The second step, is resistance. There cannot be the second without the first.
That being said, I think you need to have concrete examples of opinion shaping for this thread to get any constructive discussion.
I don’t mean groupthink or the opposing groupthink that comes in response, though. I believe I can tell the difference, and I believe this is new and systemic.
If you don’t perceive the same thing, I may simply be wrong or projecting. It’s why I asked.
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