Snowden: Training Guide for GCHQ, NSA Agents Infiltrating and Disrupting Alternative Media Online

Snowden: Training Guide for GCHQ, NSA Agents Infiltrating and Disrupting Alternative Media Online

21st Century Wire says…

Ed Snowden’s latest leaked documents open the lid on what is perhaps the most vindictive and disgusting aspect of the government-corporate joint surveillance state seen yet…

This is Britain’s GCHQ guide to Online Covert Action, which is shared with US agencies like the NSA.

According to these latest documents, there are paid government agent/contractor persons on social media posing as someone they are not, whilst on the payroll of the government. Their job is to befriend members of the alternative media, embed themselves in the ebb and flow of day-to-day communications, and then to engage in elaborate subterfuge – by any means necessary. The training exercise below uses terms like “befriend”, “infiltrate”, “mask/mimic”, “ruse”, “set-up”, “disrupt”, “create cognitive stress”, “use deception”, “ruin business relationships”, and “post negative information on appropriate forums” – all of which is not only illegal and morally bankrupt, but also runs completely contrary to the very fundamental ‘values’ and indeed founding principles, of a modern free democratic society or constitutional republic.

Government targets in this malicious operation appear to be bloggers, activists, journalists, social event organisers and anyone else deemed to be a ‘emerging leader’ or voice in the public sphere, or alternative media online.

This obviously extends way beyond the practice of employing paid ‘trolls’ to pollute comment sections and redirect forum threads – which still exists under both government and corporate umbrellas.

read on:   http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/02/25/snowden-training-guide-for-gchq-nsa-agents-infiltrating-and-disrupting-alternative-media-online/

Love Always
mudra

Internet trolls are also real-life trolls

Why do some people find so much pleasure in harassing others online? A new study attempts to shed light on the behaviour of internet trolls


My brother and I have a childhood history of internet trolling under our belts. Innocent enough, yes – but disruptive nonetheless. From the same room at our parents’ house, we’d play Yahoo! Graffiti (the internet’s version of Pictionary). The word was “dinosaur” and it was his turn to draw. He’d illustrate a beautifully elaborate rainbow. All the while, players would be guessing “rainbow,” “RAINBOW,” “RAINBOW!!!” and wonder why they weren’t scoring points. I’d wait until five seconds were left on the clock and finally, calmly, contribute “dinosaur”. We’ve been banned from Yahoo! Gamerooms until 2016. (With any luck, I’ll have my PhD by then and show Yahoo! that I’m a changed woman.)

A “troll”, in internet slang, is someone who deliberately upsets others by starting arguments or posting unnecessarily inflammatory messages on blogs, chatrooms, or forums. In recent years, it’s gotten so bad that YouTube needed to develop a way for users to moderate their video’s comments section, and Popular Science shut down its comments section entirely. Indeed, for trolls, the anonymity of the internet is the perfect playground.

But a new study by Erin Buckels and colleagues at University of Manitoba in Canada wanted to figure out who, exactly, these trolls are. Using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website, internet users (mostly male, with an average age of 29 years) answered survey questions designed to assess what’s called the “Dark Tetrad of personality”. This tetrad includes narcissism (egocentrism and preoccupation with prestige), Machiavellianism (tendency to deceive and manipulate), psychopathy (lack of empathy and inhibition), and sadism (pleasure of inflicting pain or humiliation on others).

Buckels and colleagues asked about the participants’ internet behavior, including how frequently they comment on blogs and forums. They also gauged how the subjects commented, asking whether they preferred debating, chatting, making friends, or trolling. Of the 418 participants, 59% said that they actively comment on websites. Among those, nearly a tenth admitted that their favorite activity was trolling other users.

Scores on the Dark Tetrad personality test revealed that trolls are, by far, more likely to have narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic personality traits. Okay, so that’s not so surprising. But Buckels and colleagues wanted to take it a step further: how much enjoyment are these trolls getting from their online shenanigans? The researchers constructed their own Global Assessment of Internet Trolling (GAIT), which asked such questions as “I have sent people to shock websites for the lulz” and “The more beautiful and pure a thing is, the more satisfying it is to corrupt.” (Sadly, some people indeed answered these questions with a “yes”).

Trolling enjoyment was very strongly associated with a sadistic personality, and was also correlated with Machiavellianism and psychopathy. In fact, further statistical analysis revealed that most of the Dark Tetrad correlations with internet trolling were because of overlap with sadism.

So basically, the study shows that people write nasty comments because they enjoy harming others. Big deal, right?

read on:   http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/feb/25/internet-trolls-are-also-real-life-trolls

Love Always
mudra

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/online-trolls-are-psychopaths-and-sadists-psychologists-claim-9134396.html

Online trolls are psychopaths and sadists, psychologists claim

Canadian researchers have confirmed what most people suspected all along: that internet trolls are archetypal Machiavellian sadists.