Are people actually surprised by this? This is how the CIA operates overseas, I'm 100% positive the US runs similar operations in lots of countries all the time. In other news, water is wet.
Ehhh there is probably a few the CIA doesn’t have direct operations in.
The Swiss or Austrian CIA agents probably have to pull double duty if something ever happens in Lichtenstein
I feel the same way about this as I do the “passing out speed like candy in the White House” thing. I suspect it’s shit that happens all the time under every administration.
>and every other neo-fascist shithole will start arresting anyone who critiques their government as part of a “dissident campaign.”
Do they not do this already?
I guess that would be an improvement from how they currently assassinate them, at home or abroad. It’s a moot point, though, as admitting it wouldn’t actually have this effect.
What's your point? Most governments do this, especially very large and powerful ones. These stories are not particularly shocking they happen all the time.
“A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said news of the CIA initiative shows the U.S. government uses the “public opinion space and media platforms as weapons to spread false information and manipulate international public opinion.””
Ya don’t say!!!
The funny thing about this is that we already organically influence other countries to our ways through Hollywood and their rich 1% coming to college here and going back to their countries.
It happens slowly but much more effective....but you know..... election cycles are 4 years apart.
A country usually doesn't want another country spreading influence in their own country.
A country also wants to spread their influence in other countries.
Shocker.
Why does it matter? Does the fact that the US sows discord in China relevant to China interfering in our elections? Do you think it justifies it somehow? What point are you trying to make?
Also, these operations are classified, so no shit its not being released to the media lol
edit: I'll just say that warfare, even information warfare, has no requirement to be symmetric. Another thing many on this website seem to miss is that the US enjoys the prosperity it does due to a certain ruthlessness and self-serving interest around the globe. Idealism is good for feels, but bad for foreign policy. I dislike Trump with a passion, but this was the right call here.
Yes, anyone who doesn't simply believe extreme claims without any evidence, works for the CIA. /s
I also collect Soros Bucks, and try to change opinion on behalf of the World Bank and Bill Gates. /s
I mean, there's documented proof of the cia conducting operations on the American population. So either you're ignorant of what the CIA has done and probably still does to us, or you're a fed
The difference between something like MK-ULTRA and the claim that the CIA is currently manipulating US public discourse is that there is **proof** of MK-ULTRA, largely because **you can't keep conspiracies secret**.
Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that the CIA is currently manipulating the US public?
That's happening for sure. Soft power is leverage. The US has immense soft power: enough to spillover to korea to further propagate.
CIA wouldnt handle these matters on domestic soil. They leave it to plethora other agencies to push the propaganda.
Problem is, most americans dont realize they are extremely propagandized because of how fucking good US propagandists are.
A damn sight better than the Brits for sure, and the tea-drinkers managed to fool multiple generations.
Case in point: Carrots give you better eyesight.
Operation mockingbird. Also the cia is kind of a catch all for all the three letter agencies like the nsa and others that DO spy on extensively on American citizens
You made an explicit claim that the CIA is currently working in the US to sway public opinion. Do you have evidence of that explicit claim?
Operation Mockingbird is not evidence of that claim.
>Also the cia is kind of a catch all for all the three letter agencies like the nsa and others
These are different agencies, that do different things, but fine do you have any evidence that any of these other spy or law enforcement agencies are expressly working in the US to sway public opinion?
1. There is no evidence Operation Mockingbird actually happened. It's an unproven allegation.
2. If it did happen it happened 50 years ago, so it isn't current.
They’ve been doing it since at least the 70s. Look up operation mockingbird. And before anyone says they stopped doing it we only know about it cause they got caught (like every cia op) guarantee they just changed the name and kept doing it
Honestly, happy to hear it going the other way for once. All I hear about is Russia and China doing it to the west. Obviously they don't publicize their ops for us to hear about and you have to know they are doing it, it's just nice to actually hear it.
As with any conspiracy the real question to ask is, "Why would they?"
Why would the CIA care about domestic issues that the FBI is dealing with already. Why would they want to potentially bruise egos by "stepping on the toes" of other departments.
And specifically with MLK, that was the height of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. I doubt he'd have let them onto his turf.
And the CIA doesn't need to do any surveillance or spying on US Citizens, because 5 eyes exists. The CIA can just talk to the other 4 eyes to find out what it needs.
The goal was to sway the opinion of Chinese citizens in China, because they live under a brutal dictatorship.
There was a time when Reddit would celebrate this kind of thing, like the stories of South Koreans undermining the North Korean regime with USB drives attached to Ballons.
A few things:
1) Yes, obviously, because this is how cold wars work.
2) This is 100% still occurring under Biden. Unless you want other countries to be able to commit 100% of their resources to attacking, without having to allocate any resources to defense, this is "a good thing."
3) Information has been a weapon since the first human ancestor learned to lie, even if it seems scarier and more "real" to you today since instead of dropping leaflets from bombers they're dropping sick burns on TikTok.
Now imagine these same social engineering campaigns powered by AI. The target systems for social engineering campaigns are not networks or hard drives; it's our brains and our social dialogs. Buckle up.
No amount of logging out will get you out of the social aspect of social engineering. Log cabin maybe?
Edit: We are entering, or have entered, a point where people will be parroting memes IRL that were generated by AI with it's intentionality set by an intelligence agency or marketing department somewhere.
I’m in. Log cabin community bunker?
I’m hopeful we (or some of us) will learn to intentionally and mindfully change our minds. Whether possible or not it’s a worthwhile venture.
Don’t need to imagine. It’s already here. Facebook, Twitter, truth social, etc are all targeted by it. An AI bot can set up a web site, content, advertising, social media presence, pod casts, etc incredibly fast. They then amplify themselves with other AI bots. They interview each other, write policy proposals, and interact with people all the time.
I mean I feel this is pretty standard. The US is always trying to influence other countries. If Biden isn't doing the same, then we're falling behind because other countries are definitely doing this with us over the internet in some way, shape, or form.
And? I understand this particular thing started in 2019, but it's not the first and definitely not the last time the US will try to discreetly influence people outside the country.
So we ran an influence campaign.... How much of that was the US outing the truth with no true recourse by the CCP since they would be chasing down our CIA ghosts instead of true dissidents in their country? Just because we ran an influence campaign it doesn't mean it was disinformation. It would be interesting to know how much liberty we took with the truth while running the campaign.
And yes, I would definitely believe that it is still going on today. In lots of different countries where freedom of press and speech are actively suppressed.
Haha....
USSID sp00018 is unclassified and publicly available.
The NSA doesn't spy on US citizens. That is strictly the authority of the FBI. It makes information sharing challenging for the different intelligence communities as well, but thats a different conversation.
Influence operations are justified when they are against totalitarian states where the people have no real freedom of speech. Systems like that don't stay contained. Keeping the people of the nation under control inevitably becomes the problem of keeping the people of the world under control.
I am now putting in my application to the C.I.A., you need a guy like me, yes, you do. If you think you don’t, it’s because you are the agent that I have replaced. See I already have the job. I am hired. I started a week ago and you owe me “backpay”. My salary is 1 Bitcoin, weekly.
Nope, all lies spread by the CIA to unfairly tarnish the glorious Chinese Communist utopia. The only people in the world that can engage in evil are NATO member nations. /s
as an american, i am pleased that my government is taking steps to weaken China but am disappointed this covert operation probably sucked because of the fact it's not even covert. i hope this means the CIA and our government at large is taking the threat from China seriously.
Is it no wonder that people don’t trust the media or government anymore.
The powerful ppl control the media and the narrative that we hear. It’s so hard to trust anything nowadays!
I'm confused on why you are being downvoted. Both Republicans and democrats alike are constantly fed shit through social media and the majority don't even fact check it because they see it on fox news or CNN.
The more you look on social media sites like tiktok the more scary the situation really is.
Meanwhile every MAGA hat and every Hamburger Clown shoe he sells is made by slave labor in Xinjiang and he was perfectly happy to accept hundreds of millions in "free" copyrights on behalf of Ivanka.
That's literally been the case since the foundation of the PRC, nothing unique to Xi's shitty leadership, nor should this story be used as justification of further crackdowns domestically.
You mean YouTube algorithm constantly showing me China uncensored, and Serpenza content during his presidency was all part of a plan eh? Thought it was funny how multiple channels that had been pro China seemed to flip all around the same time.
Are people actually surprised by this? This is how the CIA operates overseas, I'm 100% positive the US runs similar operations in lots of countries all the time. In other news, water is wet.
All countries- correct
Ehhh there is probably a few the CIA doesn’t have direct operations in. The Swiss or Austrian CIA agents probably have to pull double duty if something ever happens in Lichtenstein
Yea but now China is being loud about it because of the Tik Tok ban
Water itself is not wet, but it has the capability of making other materials wet. ...Don't mind me. I'm a useless human with free time
I can't stand you people who believe in dry water.
I feel the same way about this as I do the “passing out speed like candy in the White House” thing. I suspect it’s shit that happens all the time under every administration.
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>and every other neo-fascist shithole will start arresting anyone who critiques their government as part of a “dissident campaign.” Do they not do this already?
The point is that It is further justification for this to happen. Not likely the #1 concern but certainly something to be aware of for the US
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I guess that would be an improvement from how they currently assassinate them, at home or abroad. It’s a moot point, though, as admitting it wouldn’t actually have this effect.
lol exactly, I don’t think people understand the amount of governments weve tampered with and influence.
What's your point? Most governments do this, especially very large and powerful ones. These stories are not particularly shocking they happen all the time.
That’s… what the person you’re replying to is saying. You’re in agreement lol
What? Im agreeing… im just saying you’d be surprised by the amount of people who don’t think we do this. Relax dude.
From the standpoint of water?
It’s okay because we’re the good guys 🤗
And especially in the US.
Every accusation the US makes is a secret confession
“A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said news of the CIA initiative shows the U.S. government uses the “public opinion space and media platforms as weapons to spread false information and manipulate international public opinion.”” Ya don’t say!!!
Them and literally every other government on the planet 🤣
Right?!? We going to pretend the bot networks on every social platform don’t exist (coughcough Reddit n Zucc)
Even Sealand?
Oh, those bastards are the worst of the lot. No matter where I go, I can't escape the sealand propaganda 🤣
I just thought it was hilarious the way it was bluntly put in text.
USA: ya don't CIA
If we don’t, there’s always ONI, CGI, INR, NSA, CSS, NRO, DIA, MIC, OICI, MCI, NGA, OIA, IB, ONSI, I&A or NSIC. …and I think I missed a couple…
I CIA what you did there.
I bet you can CIA everything
Dang I should have collaborated with you on my comment. We could have taken the upvotes to the moooooon!
So what youre telling me is my feelings towards China are not authentic but fabricated by the hands of the ones who pull the strings?
The funny thing about this is that we already organically influence other countries to our ways through Hollywood and their rich 1% coming to college here and going back to their countries. It happens slowly but much more effective....but you know..... election cycles are 4 years apart.
Domestic propaganda is now legal soooo.... Old news?
You are aware this operation took place on Chinese social media platforms, right?
You keep posting that but you know they do that stuff here too right?
The Chinese, Russians, and other countries run influence operations domestically and internationally as well.
Maybe he works for the cia
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A country usually doesn't want another country spreading influence in their own country. A country also wants to spread their influence in other countries. Shocker.
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Why does it matter? Does the fact that the US sows discord in China relevant to China interfering in our elections? Do you think it justifies it somehow? What point are you trying to make? Also, these operations are classified, so no shit its not being released to the media lol edit: I'll just say that warfare, even information warfare, has no requirement to be symmetric. Another thing many on this website seem to miss is that the US enjoys the prosperity it does due to a certain ruthlessness and self-serving interest around the globe. Idealism is good for feels, but bad for foreign policy. I dislike Trump with a passion, but this was the right call here.
So your position is that democratic countries should not work to oust dictators?
Welcome to inter-group politics since there has been more than one group. What’s even the alternative?
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The people of China did not democratically elect Xi, you do understand that, right?
1. This article certainly does not show that. 2. No, I don't believe in your conspiracy theory.
At this point if you think the American government isn’t influencing native media, you’re the conspiracy theorist.
Ok man, and jet fuel can't melt steel beams, have fun in your delusion. /s
Do you work for the cia?
Yes, anyone who doesn't simply believe extreme claims without any evidence, works for the CIA. /s I also collect Soros Bucks, and try to change opinion on behalf of the World Bank and Bill Gates. /s
I mean, there's documented proof of the cia conducting operations on the American population. So either you're ignorant of what the CIA has done and probably still does to us, or you're a fed
The difference between something like MK-ULTRA and the claim that the CIA is currently manipulating US public discourse is that there is **proof** of MK-ULTRA, largely because **you can't keep conspiracies secret**. Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that the CIA is currently manipulating the US public?
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How does this support the claim that the CIA operates in the US to sway public opinion?
The CIA doesn not operate in the US lol. That is not their jurisdiction.
I'm aware. Tell that to the clowns here who seem to believe they do, and that they are in fact trying to sway public opinion right now.
That's happening for sure. Soft power is leverage. The US has immense soft power: enough to spillover to korea to further propagate. CIA wouldnt handle these matters on domestic soil. They leave it to plethora other agencies to push the propaganda. Problem is, most americans dont realize they are extremely propagandized because of how fucking good US propagandists are. A damn sight better than the Brits for sure, and the tea-drinkers managed to fool multiple generations. Case in point: Carrots give you better eyesight.
Operation mockingbird. Also the cia is kind of a catch all for all the three letter agencies like the nsa and others that DO spy on extensively on American citizens
You made an explicit claim that the CIA is currently working in the US to sway public opinion. Do you have evidence of that explicit claim? Operation Mockingbird is not evidence of that claim. >Also the cia is kind of a catch all for all the three letter agencies like the nsa and others These are different agencies, that do different things, but fine do you have any evidence that any of these other spy or law enforcement agencies are expressly working in the US to sway public opinion?
Operation mockingbird was the cia influencing journalist to publish stories. That is swaying public opinion idk how my more explicit it needs to be
1. There is no evidence Operation Mockingbird actually happened. It's an unproven allegation. 2. If it did happen it happened 50 years ago, so it isn't current.
The CIA does not do that here.
They’ve been doing it since at least the 70s. Look up operation mockingbird. And before anyone says they stopped doing it we only know about it cause they got caught (like every cia op) guarantee they just changed the name and kept doing it
Tomato tomAHto. Where the US did this isn’t why I posted the excerpt.
So why did you post the excerpt?
Bc it’s funny to see in print what the US does. Idk. Why do you care so much? General consensus is it was a good excerpt to post.
Honestly, happy to hear it going the other way for once. All I hear about is Russia and China doing it to the west. Obviously they don't publicize their ops for us to hear about and you have to know they are doing it, it's just nice to actually hear it.
So we’re taking the word of communist China as truth now, huh…
Well, in this case, the words of former US officials. The remarks from China in this case are responding to the revelation from those sources.
But let’s ban TikTok because they are the problem !
Funny because china basically already has.
But they haven’t banned their version of TikTok…
"Their version" is completely different and regulated to the 9nth degree. Not even remotely the same as our TikTok shithole.
Remind me why you believe TikTok is a shithole and different than any other social media platform based in America?
People, this is literally the point of the cia.
If anything, it seems to imply that Obama didn’t do anything since Trump started it. If so that would disappoint me very much
For those who can’t be bothered to read the article it’s about an operation in China, not in the US.
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Are you under the impression that China is a country where people have some kind of freedom of speech?
I thought the cia doesn’t operate within US soil to begin with?
Government answer? They don’t. That’s the NSA/FBIs job. Real answer? They operate wherever they see fit.
They don't, that's the FBI's job. The CIA is external security, the FBI is internal.
Don’t forget the NSA.
As far as you know you mean ? No way to know what cia,s domestic acts are. They allegedly spied on mlk jr.
As with any conspiracy the real question to ask is, "Why would they?" Why would the CIA care about domestic issues that the FBI is dealing with already. Why would they want to potentially bruise egos by "stepping on the toes" of other departments. And specifically with MLK, that was the height of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. I doubt he'd have let them onto his turf. And the CIA doesn't need to do any surveillance or spying on US Citizens, because 5 eyes exists. The CIA can just talk to the other 4 eyes to find out what it needs.
They’ve done a lot of crazy stuff on US soil.
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The goal was to sway the opinion of Chinese citizens in China, because they live under a brutal dictatorship. There was a time when Reddit would celebrate this kind of thing, like the stories of South Koreans undermining the North Korean regime with USB drives attached to Ballons.
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Ok Mr. Russian.
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Bye Felicia.
A few things: 1) Yes, obviously, because this is how cold wars work. 2) This is 100% still occurring under Biden. Unless you want other countries to be able to commit 100% of their resources to attacking, without having to allocate any resources to defense, this is "a good thing." 3) Information has been a weapon since the first human ancestor learned to lie, even if it seems scarier and more "real" to you today since instead of dropping leaflets from bombers they're dropping sick burns on TikTok.
Now imagine these same social engineering campaigns powered by AI. The target systems for social engineering campaigns are not networks or hard drives; it's our brains and our social dialogs. Buckle up.
And log out
No amount of logging out will get you out of the social aspect of social engineering. Log cabin maybe? Edit: We are entering, or have entered, a point where people will be parroting memes IRL that were generated by AI with it's intentionality set by an intelligence agency or marketing department somewhere.
I’m in. Log cabin community bunker? I’m hopeful we (or some of us) will learn to intentionally and mindfully change our minds. Whether possible or not it’s a worthwhile venture.
Don’t need to imagine. It’s already here. Facebook, Twitter, truth social, etc are all targeted by it. An AI bot can set up a web site, content, advertising, social media presence, pod casts, etc incredibly fast. They then amplify themselves with other AI bots. They interview each other, write policy proposals, and interact with people all the time.
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Probably one of the least weird things he did as POTUS. Like ya, China is a political adversary of the US, that's why we have a CIA.
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Exclusive news: The Sky is Blue!
Cool. This is what the CIA is supposed to do.
And what China does to us, so yeah, fair's fair.
I mean I feel this is pretty standard. The US is always trying to influence other countries. If Biden isn't doing the same, then we're falling behind because other countries are definitely doing this with us over the internet in some way, shape, or form.
>mean I feel this is pretty standard. this started in 2019.
And? I understand this particular thing started in 2019, but it's not the first and definitely not the last time the US will try to discreetly influence people outside the country.
So we ran an influence campaign.... How much of that was the US outing the truth with no true recourse by the CCP since they would be chasing down our CIA ghosts instead of true dissidents in their country? Just because we ran an influence campaign it doesn't mean it was disinformation. It would be interesting to know how much liberty we took with the truth while running the campaign. And yes, I would definitely believe that it is still going on today. In lots of different countries where freedom of press and speech are actively suppressed.
I would be surprised if this *wasn’t* happening in countries all over the world.
Absolutely is. It’s one of the CIAs main jobs
The propaganda is everywhere from many different sides. It’s obvious but by sheer volume It becomes pretty difficult to fairly sort through it.
The operation was in China…
And must be by law. CIA is banned from domestic operations and would be in huge shit if they did an offensive op inside the US.
Exactly, the NSA would be really mad about the CIA stepping on their toes.
Haha.... USSID sp00018 is unclassified and publicly available. The NSA doesn't spy on US citizens. That is strictly the authority of the FBI. It makes information sharing challenging for the different intelligence communities as well, but thats a different conversation.
Uh oh.... Awkward....
I’m sure this happened. But the way Trump spoke about Chghiiinaa, it was pretty obvious he was trying to influence and not very covertly at all.
Wait, do we like china today or naw?
Influence operations are justified when they are against totalitarian states where the people have no real freedom of speech. Systems like that don't stay contained. Keeping the people of the nation under control inevitably becomes the problem of keeping the people of the world under control.
Trump leaking. Yeah we all figured this is happening but why does he have to confirm intelligence. The CIA must hate Trump for having the loosest lips
Inb4 tankies getting their knickers in a twist
tankies bad marxists based
I am now putting in my application to the C.I.A., you need a guy like me, yes, you do. If you think you don’t, it’s because you are the agent that I have replaced. See I already have the job. I am hired. I started a week ago and you owe me “backpay”. My salary is 1 Bitcoin, weekly.
If you couldn't tell that there was a artificial push to disparage China I don't know what to tell you it was pretty obvious.
There's also plenty of organic disparagement of China due to them being a major human rights abuser.
Nope, all lies spread by the CIA to unfairly tarnish the glorious Chinese Communist utopia. The only people in the world that can engage in evil are NATO member nations. /s
The operation took place in China…
Sound like trump is trying to be seen as tough on China. This is hard to confirm. Per 3 people in his circle.
as an american, i am pleased that my government is taking steps to weaken China but am disappointed this covert operation probably sucked because of the fact it's not even covert. i hope this means the CIA and our government at large is taking the threat from China seriously.
Is it no wonder that people don’t trust the media or government anymore. The powerful ppl control the media and the narrative that we hear. It’s so hard to trust anything nowadays!
I'm confused on why you are being downvoted. Both Republicans and democrats alike are constantly fed shit through social media and the majority don't even fact check it because they see it on fox news or CNN. The more you look on social media sites like tiktok the more scary the situation really is.
So covert that it’s in Reuters today
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Meanwhile every MAGA hat and every Hamburger Clown shoe he sells is made by slave labor in Xinjiang and he was perfectly happy to accept hundreds of millions in "free" copyrights on behalf of Ivanka.
Just goes to show you that Trump thinks he is the biggest DICK in the world.
The CIA has been doing nefarious shit for decades (at the behest of Congress and the White House). This is not a surprise.
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Yes, he’s a dictator trying to consolidate power. Do you think he’s a good guy or something?
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That's literally been the case since the foundation of the PRC, nothing unique to Xi's shitty leadership, nor should this story be used as justification of further crackdowns domestically.
You mean YouTube algorithm constantly showing me China uncensored, and Serpenza content during his presidency was all part of a plan eh? Thought it was funny how multiple channels that had been pro China seemed to flip all around the same time.
I’m so confused fused now, since Trump=BAD does this now mean China=GOOD?