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[–]IncognitoDopeAccount 97 points98 points ago


Repost from a few months ago.

I don't want to immediately call bullshit or get out the pitchforks, lest I make a fool out of myself, just thought I'd mention this. What's up, OP?

[–]ios_k 39 points40 points ago


He's probably an army PR guy. They keep accounts with near zero comments and submissions and post heart touching army stories.

EDIT: OP deleted his account, a very common tactic among army PR guys.

[–]Heimdall2061 12 points13 points ago


I hear this a lot from people. I would really like to see some actual evidence that indicates this is true. Most often, the people who are supposedly "military PR people" give, on closer investigation, no indication that that is actually the case.

[–]quaxon 1 point2 points ago


[–]Heimdall2061 -2 points-1 points ago


I am interested, but honestly, I've got to say I'm very skeptical. Based on my own experiences in the Marine Corps in general and with PR officers in particular, the military is not generally competent enough to carry off something like that on a large, organized level. Now, I can see karma whores, and I can even see (quite plausibly) a or some relatively isolated mil PR reps doing something along those lines, but seriously, you have no idea how ludicrous it is for me to imagine the people I've known doing something like that. For fuck's sake, most of the military sites still don't have signed certificates.

Now, as to that Guardian article: it does specify, and it's clearly stated, that the software in question would not be used to address US based websites, notably Twitter and Facebook, and that it would be used in mainly Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, etc. websites to "counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda" outside the US. They explicitly said that to use such software to address US audiences would be unlawful.

Now, maybe I sound like some naive fool here, but have you considered the possibility that they really are just using that software for what they said- to put the US's side of the story out there on message boards in the Middle East? The thing is, I know a lot of people view the US military as this big, malicious, faceless thing, but there are several reasons I can think of why I think it's improbable that that tech is being used on reddit:

Firstly, there's a lot more oversight in the military than you probably think. I'm certainly not saying that somewhat sketchy operations or illegal coverups never happen, but when they do, it's quite often just one department or office vastly overstretching their bounds, or just trying to (illegaly) cover their asses. This sort of operation is not the kind of thing that could easily be hidden in the US military, which would mean a lot of people would know officially, and unofficial word spreads like wildfire anyhow- I know Marines, at least, gossip like damn jaybirds. What I'm getting at here is that you'd have the same problem that often exists with most conspiracy theories on that level- too many people would know, so a. someone would leak info about it (trust me on that one) and b. someone higher up in the US military hierarchy would hear, and get fucking pissed. See, there's a super-reliable system there already to prevent stuff like this: if anyone- anyone- ever leaks real info about it, the press will pick it up. People will ask the White House questions, media outlets will spread the story, pundits will, if possible, blow it up out of proportion and spin it to their own message- say, on FOX, "Obama manipulating children's minds," on MSNBC, "Military conspiracy to brainwash internet users," etc. When that happens, everyone who was anywhere near the project, and all of their superiors, up to and very possibly including some General was technically in charge of them and had never heard of this, gets fucked. I mean boned. Careers over, all of them, a lot of those directly involved might go to military prison, Bad Conduct Discharges all around, and massive political fallout inside the military. Basically, what I'm saying is, the higher echelons of the US military have just as much political bickering and internal backbiting as Congress, they're just better about putting a united front out to the world. That said, this sort of thing would be a career-destroyer if it came out, so if it existed, some General would certainly shut it down and try to just bury any evidence that it had ever been misused, and it wouldn't take long for such a discovery to happen, at the rate scuttlebutt moves in the military.

Whew. Secondly, and much more simply, I can pretty much guarantee you the military would have a really hard time trying to do something like that. You can probably find a more hidebound and internet-incompetent institution in the US than the military, but it'd be hard.

Finally, motive: they don't need to do that stuff. The US military doesn't need to post pictures of servicemen hugging puppies up on reddit, because other people (provably not military accounts, I mean, the ones that are super-obviously not) do it anyway. Hell, even if no one did on reddit, it doesn't matter. The US military is at one of its highest-ever points of popularity inside the US, people go out of their way to put "we love our Veterans" stickers everywhere, when I walk around in my dress Blues during the Marine Corps Ball, so many people say "thank you for your service" that it actually starts to grate on my nerves a little. Effectively, the military has no motive to engage in an illicit and probably illegal program like this, which is super-duper-high-risk, for the gain of... exactly the way things already are.

Now, as a postnote: it may well be that there are some individual accounts that are put on here by people explicitly to promote the US military. Maybe it's some PR guys in the Army, maybe it's some citizen's group or something, or hell, maybe it's some super- motivated First Sergeant sitting in a company office somewhere making one-off accounts because he feels like it's a good thing to do (non-military people, ask your military acquaintances- I swear, this is way more probable than it sounds. Back me up, people who know super-motarded career guys.) So yeah, basically, I'm not denying that such accounts exist, I'm seriously, seriously doubting, based on logic and my personal experience with how the military works, that there's a large-scale, organized propaganda operation by the US military targeted at US social media/message boards.

TL;DR: Yeah right! If you knew how the military worked, you'd stop suspecting it of massive conspiracies and start wondering how the fuck the whole thing doesn't just collapse on any given day.

PS: I am certainly interested in talking to you or others about perceived conspiracies regarding the military. It's my belief that if you understood more about the military, and how it works (or doesn't), and how we do things, you might reconsider somewhat. There are bad things that happen, and sometimes people do try to cover shit up to cover their asses, but overall, the military both a. isn't capable of most of these conspiracies, and b. wouldn't want to do it. Believe it or not, boot camp doesn't erase your personal morality. Also, you might be surprised how seriously a lot of us take our oaths to protect the Constitution and the people of the United States (i.e. not necessarily the government. Though usually the government, too).