UK General: We Must Lie on Twitter to Defeat ISIS
Jason Ditz, June 30, 2015
Print This | Share This | Comment
Earlier this year, US officials announced a plan to set up a State Department office to centralize all government anti-ISIS propaganda on Twitter and Facebook.
The efforts of middle-management bureaucrats to connect to the young people in an anti-ISIS manner, in hopes of countering ISIS’ comparatively successful recruiting on the site was, naturally, a disaster. As with most great government blunders, its one more people want in on.
This time, it’s the British military, as General Sir Richard Barrons cautioned the West is “losing the Twitter battle,” and that the military is therefore going to Twitter to lie.
That’s not a typo, by the way, that’s flat out what Sir Richard said, that British troops need to go on Twitter to spread “lies” to fight ISIS. Military information control at its finest.
But if civilian bureaucrats couldn’t connect with the young people, career military bureaucrats probably aren’t going to do any better. Indeed, the fact that Sir Richard went into the operation by telegraphing (ironically in the Telegraph) his plans to lie to the public suggests just how bad an idea this truly is.
http://antiwar.com/blog/2015/06/30/uk-general-we-must-lie-on-twitter-to-defeat-isis/
