US Reviews Psychological Warfare Operations Amid Disinformation Reports

The US Department of Defense has launched a evaluation of its psychological warfare operations after the invention of faux accounts on social media selling pro-West disinformation, an official confirmed Tuesday.

Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder confirmed the evaluation after a Washington Post report stated social media giants Facebook and Twitter had shut down various faux accounts suspecting they had been created by the US army.

Ryder didn’t say affirm or deny that the army was behind faux accounts, and stated the knowledge nonetheless wanted to be reviewed. 

He cautioned towards assuming that the Defense Department was behind the accounts, leaving it attainable that one other authorities company was concerned.

He stated the evaluation is “an opportunity for us to assess the current work that’s being done in this arena.”

The Washington Post famous a report final month by Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory on pro-Western covert affect operations.

The report stated Twitter and Facebook guardian Meta had eliminated almost 150 US and Britain-origin accounts in July and August partaking in “inauthentic behavior.”

The Graphika-Stanford investigation stated that, after analysing the accounts they found an interconnected net of accounts on eight social media platforms that had been utilizing “deceptive tactics” to advertise pro-Western narratives within the Middle East and in Central Asia.

The accounts got here from a collection of campaigns over 5 years relatively than one single effort, the report stated.

The accounts “consistently advanced narratives promoting the interests of the United States and its allies while opposing countries including Russia, China, and Iran,” it stated.

Citing unnamed authorities sources, the Washington Post tied no less than among the exercise to the Pentagon, and stated that officers of the US Central Command, which oversees operations within the Middle East, had been “facing scrutiny.”

Ryder stated the army’s psychological operations, or “military information support operations,” are structured and authorized, and are to help actions within the area.

“These are not public affairs operations,” he stated. 

“It’s an aspect of warfare as old as warfare itself, and we conduct those operations in support of national security priorities,” he instructed reporters.

He famous that army deception operations had been essential in World War II, and are an integral a part of the warfighting toolkit.

“There are opportunities in conducting operations against adversaries where you may want to use information in a way that is going to help them think a certain way – not truthful information,” he stated.

“What I would highlight is that they must be undertaken in compliance with US law and Defense Department policy and we have safeguards in place and are committed to observing those safeguards,” he stated.