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neptunium1 ago

Ooh, interesting post! My brain isn't really working today...what's the significance of the Elgin AF base on Reddit? The military is on every alternative forum as far as I'm aware.

Oh_Well_ian ago

It would be totally illegal for government to have access to algorithms on social media platforms where they could manipulate likes, views and delete comments. That is in direct violation of the First Amendment and exactly what they were doing at Elgin AFB in the link provided.

http://washingtonsblog.com/2014/07/eglin-air-force-base-busted-gaming-reddit.html

neptunium1 ago

Brigade 77

New British Army unit 'Brigade 77' to use Facebook and Twitter in psychological warfare

The Behavioural Insights Team

The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), also known unofficially as the "Nudge Unit", is an organisation that was set up to apply nudge theory (behavioural economics and psychology) to try to improve government policy and services as well as to save the UK government money.[1][2]

Originally set up as a team within the Cabinet Office, it is now a limited company, Behavioural Insights Limited. It is headed by psychologist David Halpern.

The rise of nudge – the unit helping politicians to fathom human behaviour

Who has signed up an extra 100,000 organ donors a year, persuaded 20% more people to consider switching energy provider, doubled the number of army applicants – and will certainly be consulted on the spending review that calls for £20bn cuts to Whitehall budgets?

Step forward David Halpern, chief executive of the behavioural insights team, which has quadrupled in size since it was spun out of government in February 2014. Now a private company jointly owned by the Cabinet Office, Nesta and its employees, the “nudge unit” (nicknamed after the best-selling book by economist Richard H Thaler) permeates almost every area of government policy.

Steve Hilton's 'nudge unit' goes global

In a move which will delight David Cameron's former blue skies guru Steve Hilton, the Government is to contract out the services of its "nudge unit" to foreign countries – starting with Australia. The unit – officially as the Behavioural Insights Team – uses psychological techniques to encourage people to change behaviour.

The Weaponization of Social Media

“In 2008, Cass Sunstein, a law professor who would go on to become Obama’s information “czar,” co-authored a paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” in which he wrote that the “best response” to online “conspiracy theories” is what he calls “cognitive infiltration” of groups spreading these ideas.”

“Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action. In one variant, government agents would openly proclaim, or at least make no effort to conceal, their institutional affiliations. […] In another variant, government officials would participate anonymously or even with false identities.”

“It is perhaps particularly ironic that the idea that government agents are actually and admittedly spreading propaganda online under false identities is, to the less-informed members of the population, itself a “conspiracy theory” rather than an established conspiracy fact.”

**“Unsurprisingly, when confronted about his proposal, Sunstein pretended to not remember having written it and then pointedly refused to answer any questions about it.”

neptunium1 ago

Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) PhD Scholarships http://www.ucl.ac.uk/political-science/news/articles/011216

The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) is funding two PhD scholarships, which are held at the School of Public Policy at UCL. The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), commonly known as ‘the nudge unit’, is a social purpose company jointly owned by the UK Government, Nesta, and its employees.

Address: Department of Political Science, The School of Public Policy, The Rubin Building, 29/31 Tavistock Square, London

Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science (JDI) http://www.ucl.ac.uk/jill-dando-institute/secret

UCL SECReT is the £17m international centre for PhD training in security and crime science at University College London, the first centre of its kind in Europe. We offer the most comprehensive integrated PhD programme for students wishing to pursue multidisciplinary security or crime-related research degrees. We recruit our doctoral students from a range of scientific backgrounds to pursue research in crime or security domains across the engineering and social sciences.

Address: UCL SECReT, 35 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9EZ

Tavistock Square https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavistock_Square

In 1920 the Tavistock Clinic was founded in the square, a pioneering psychiatric clinic whose patients included shell-shock victims of the First World War. In 1946 the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations separated from the Tavistock Clinic. The Tavistock Clinic has since moved to Hampstead and the Tavistock Institute to Islington.