Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ How to recognize a psyop in three easy steps

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This is a bit of an update on the topic of fake news and misinformation. The use of the term 'psyop' is a clever way to externalize (and militarize) the use of language as a weapon. Reading through the three steps, however, I was first struck by it being centered on U.S. politics (the first step is "pay attention to media messages that paint groups of American people as foreign, or somehow not quite "real" Americans"). This is known more generally as 'othering' and can be used anywhere. But I was also struck by how dated and clumsy the mechanisms are. Misinformation today is far more sophisticated, personalized and targeted, generated by AI, used to create not just othering and criminalization but also loyalty, affinity, identification and many more attitudes, and used widely for commercial, political and military purposes. Via Ben Werdmuller.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Oct 08, 2024 11:54 a.m.

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