Foreign Manipulation and Social Media -- Veterans Before Refugees

 

Quick post here, hopefully one of several discussing the way the internet is shaping and changing society, American society in particular.  Let’s start with a simple subject   ---Foreign created memes that target the ignorant and emotionally driven, and then after getting their attention, use them to divide society.  There are many of these as there are foreign governments that have agencies that create these all day and insert them into social media. Their intent is to destabilize, demoralize, and divide American society, weakening our social fabric.

 

These generally are not too complicated as they are, after all, often aimed at people with low education and low critical thinking skills.

Let’s try a simple two part pattern.

First, we need an issue, a cause, something few people could disagree with. This makes the reader go “Yeah! I want that to be changed.”

Second, we need a scapegoat, someone to blame. After all the purpose here is to divide society, spew hatred, tap into unfocused frustration and anger, and then give it a focus and divide society further.

 

So let’s try this simple two step method.

The pull, the cause. “Many veterans are suffering unnecessarily. They should be helped more.”

Few out there would disagree with this.

 

In fact, a normal follow up to this would be, could be, even should be, “Contact your elected officials and encourage them to do more” or “Give to the following charities” or “volunteer your time at the following  agencies or charities.”

 

Any one of these things would help suffering veterans. Additionally, many other actions would help suffering veterans including several actions that are not even focused specifically on helping veterans would help suffering veterans. These could include donating time, money, or canned goods to food banks, increased access to housing for low income people, better access to mental health services for everyone, and countless other things.

 

HOWEVER, THE GOAL WITH TROLL FARMS IS NOT TO ACTUALLY HELP VETERANS. IT IS NOT TO ACTUALLY HELP ANYONE (except arguable foreign governments that wish to undermine the USA). 

The goal is to foster hatred and division, tap into unfocused anger, and divide society.

 

Hmmmm? What could we use?

Let's take a real example. How about this one here:

What is the message? Veterans are suffering. (Although it is vague on which ones or why, but nevertheless, the message is veterans are suffering. The whole intent here is to appeal to emotions, Details only muddle things when one appeals to emotions.) And what should we do about it according the meme? 

Should we: 

a) Petition our elected representatives to provide more services to suffering veterans? 

b) donate time or money to charities that help suffering veterans? 

c) work to create a society in which all suffering people, including suffering veterans, get access to services that might help them?

d) consider more carefully and plan better before sending our military off to war, thereby reducing the number of suffering veterans? 

or

d) blame refugees who probably weren't even in the country when these guys were serving in the military, and their only connection to the US military might have been to help them as translators or provide other services when they were overseas, and who, generally speaking, tend to become hard working, tax paying, legal residents and citizens who open businesses, buy property, take a strong interest in their children's public schools and so on pretty quickly.  I mean, seriously, probably the only people on earth who have suffered more in war than military veterans are the civilian refugees trapped in the war zones, but, hey, again, this is supposed to be emotional. No need to think things through here. (And I suppose, I'd be way out of line if I mention that I just got contacted by the US Peace Corp asking me to give a refugee now naturalized citizen a reference for their programs. Sounds like a patriotic thing to do to me, by the way. If anyone wonders, I gave her a glowing one. I mean she's already lived through most of the worst things a Peace Corp volunteer might see or experience.) 

Well, if you look at the above meme, the answer, illogical as it is, is pretty clear and the additional message is that you are patriotic if you accept this without thought. 

And, by contrast, you are not patriotic if you think it through and realize that it makes no sense.  

Never mind that there is no more connection between veterans and refugee issues than there is between veterans issues and farm subsidies or veterans and the licensing of ice cream trucks, somehow the foreign troll farms have drawn a connection and a lot of people out there have unthinkingly latched on to it. Sad, but true, and we as citizens of this great nation need to learn to educate ourselves and our neighbors on critical thinking to avoid being manipulated by foreign agents.

Sad, isn't it? 

Now I first saw this meme on the page of a Facebook friend that I have never met, someone who at one point I interacted with and thought I might enjoy other interactions with. Sadly, he did not seem aware that he was being manipulated and that the entire premise that if veterans aren't getting the help they need it is somehow due to refugees. Clearly, this is a false dichotomy, an illogical premise based on nothing but a desire to connect one poorly understood issue with another poorly understood issue in the minds of people who know little about either of them. 

For those who wonder, this meme, according to the New York Times, did indeed originate in a Russian troll farm. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/russian-social-media-posts.html

Some of the Popular Images and Themes the Russians Posted on Social Media

Using an array of accounts on multiple platforms and targeting a variety of demographics, the Russians have generated millions of interactions with their posts.

Scott Shane

By Scott Shane

Dec. 17, 2018

"Here are a few of the Russians’ greatest hits.

Posted Sept. 8, 2016, by the Being Patriotic Facebook page

Image

With the message:

“At least 50,000 homeless veterans are starving dying in the streets, but liberals want to invite 620,000 refugees and settle them among us. We have to take care of our own citizens, and it must be the primary goal for our politicians!”

640,390 ‘Shares’

Using a weathered veteran’s face, this post contrasted the desperate condition of many American veterans with the supposedly more fortunate fate of refugees, using a number that Mr. Trump had cited in an attack on Mrs. Clinton. (The number was judged by PolitiFact to be false). Like a huge number of posts, it appealed to conservatives, used dubious statistics and tapped into the presidential election two months away. Despite its somewhat awkward name — the Russian meme makers were not native speakers of English, after all — the Facebook page called “Being Patriotic” garnered 6.3 million “likes,” presumably from Americans who believed they were supporting fellow patriots.