How to spot a professional dysinfo agent

[professorpan]

Why would anyone -- especially someone in the intelligence field -- bother paying people to do what they'll do anyway?

Exactamente, Señor Wombaticus.

It's amusing, and a little sad, that some message board scribes and prophets find their insights so threatening to the monolithic "PTB" that they envision hordes of Langley keyboard jockeys hell-bent on derailing the umpteenth recursive argument about thermite charges and free-falling steel towers. As if boards like this one -- however interesting and valuable we find them --- are of any real threat to their power.

Get over it, folks. I've yet to encounter a single person I could believe was a paid disinfo agent in my entire life online (which began in the text-only bulletin boards era of the early 90s). Assholes? Plenty. Fascist sympathizers? Plenty. Trolls? Dozens. Real disinformation peddlers in service to government/military? None. In my judgment.

Then again, I've been called a disinfo agent multiple times by people who post here, so why believe me?

[Seamus OBlimey]

Quite a few (':lol:'), Idiot, Asshole, Sociopath? Are you listening or just saying?

[alloneword]

Taking into account the maxim 'Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence' (Napoleon Bonaparte, apparently) there's a couple of filters I reckon need to be applied before dismissing someone as a 'Disinfo Agent'.

Reading through the criteria given sofar, I was reminded of this:

1. Qualitative impairment in social interaction;

2. The presence of restricted, repetitive and stereotyped behaviors and interests;

3. Significant impairment in important areas of functioning;

4. No significant delay in language;

5. During the first three years of life, there can be no clinically significant delay in cognitive development such as curiosity about the existing environment or the acquisition of age appropriate learning skills, self-help skills, or adaptive behaviours (other than social interaction); and,

6. The symptoms must not be better accounted for by another specific pervasive developmental disorder or schizophrenia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

Basically, a recognised medical condition which erodes a sufferers ability to empathise with others. I've heard of similar symptoms appear as a side-effect of treatment for depression using SSRIs such as 'Prozac'.

That said, there can really be no doubt that there are some very professional disinfo agents at work on the net. Whether they do it for reasons of ideology, avarice or both is immaterial - they do it and it works.

Check out the link below - I've deliberately broken it so this site doesn't show up in their referrer logs or google and prompt an invasion of 'Bushbots', which I'm sure y'all have no desire to have to 'reprogramme'. (c+p, take out the space after the 'y')

http:/y netnews.collactive.com/

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[chiggerbit]

Whether they do it for reasons of ideology, avarice or both is immaterial - they do it and it works.


I suspect, Alloneword, that those people are volunteers, for the most part. Funny, I was just wondering last night how to Google to prove or disprove that that lobby was organized and had been doing just that.

[orz]

Get over it, folks. I've yet to encounter a single person I could believe was a paid disinfo agent in my entire life online

Me neither, tho I have witnessed shill marketing posts which are a similar thing i guess in some ways...

[AlicetheKurious]

It strikes me that the RI board doesn't have (m)any zionist advocates, for such a busy board, discussing such topics...

I find it a bit odd, actually. Can't figure it out.

On edit: mind you, there don't seem to be any Bush fans either, nor rapture people, nor White supremacists for that matter, so maybe it's just not a receptive environment for that sort of thing.

If I were an "agent", I would definitely use my time more efficiently with boards that have: a) far more members, who are far less informed and therefore easier to manipulate; b) a broader-based appeal (I've tried getting friends to visit here, but they're turned off by all the alien- and demon-talk, etc.).

But what the hey, since I'm not an agent, I can go where there are people that I like, and where I can (usually) get a stimulating & informative discussion.

Yup. I'm going to bed now.

[jingofever]

alloneword: Hanlon's razor.
I was once accused of being a "disinfo agent", not here, and I'm not sure if they were serious (though I have a nasty habit of assuming that people are playing/joking rather than angry/mean). But from watching other people being accused of peddling disinformation, my initial reaction is that the accused is more credible than the accuser. If my disinfo experience was sincere, it turns out that he was the one spreading disinformation, and I was spreading garden-variety information; after all Planet X did not wipe out 90% of the human population. I believe those flipped roles are most often the case.

[wintler2]

Thanks for the trait tip greencrow, may be useful, but imho disinfo agents are just a version of fool. Treatment for both is similar, Rigor+references+focus is the only way forward (and makes good practice out of their looping lunacies).

[LilyPatToo]

This is a great thread. I've been guilty of jumping to the conclusion that a couple of jerks were real Langley-paid disinfo/COINTELPRO guys too. Since I post about mind control, I attract them like flies...Actually, mosquitos might be a closer analogy: bloodsuckers who carry nasty, thread-disabling microbes

Things I've learned so far:

Some appear to have no compassion/empathy because they're so far to the Right that they've exited humanity's band on the big chart.

Some can mime humanity very, very well, so the appearance of the above is not a reliable test.

Some are mentally-disordered in ways like Aspergers or Borderline that are complex and not easy to discern. Since I'm disordered myself (DID) I try not to throw stones, but sometimes I'm pushed beyond my tolerance levels and toss a couple of small ones. Afterward, I regret it and apologize.

The common bullies will get bored and wander away in search of more rewarding prey if I can ignore them long enough.

That's about it--I still have no fool-proof way to know from where a troll or Annoying Person is coming. This thread is a wonderful idea and I hope it's posted to lots more. Jeff's blog on Ted Gunderson was very helpful to me--I'd been thinking of contacting him despite my own reservations about him. Now I won't.

LilyPat

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

One was over at ProgressiveIndependent.com just after the site started up post-Katrina.

He kept posting short little comments that discredited the site in ways that exactly matched the worst characterizations of a 'hate America first kooky liberal' as painted by Limbaugh.

He'd write things like "the Iraq violence can only get worse and I hope more US soldiers get killed."

Crap like that over and over. Always just a couple of lines that noone bothered to call him out on. It might have been a freeper trying to see if anyone would react to this agit prop or intentionally trying to discredit the site. Who knows?

I pointed him out to the admin and eventually he got the boot. No, he didn't try to sell orgone accumulators or holy hand grenades.

[greencrow0]

Here are some more clues:

1. Turning every thread on the forum into a discussion of anti-semitism

2. Using their 'real names' as nicks in a pretense of openness

3. vacilating between debating styles of 'requests for 'honest broker' debate' and 'wild frenzy of name-calling' against posters who they believe are opposing the 'agenda'.

4. Pretending to be the 'only sane poster' on the forum.

5. Pretending that they have legions of supporters to their cause 'everybody knows' and 'nobody believes'.


Yeah...after a couple of years it's definitely not rocket science.

gc

[nomo]

Here are some more clues:

1. Turning every thread on the forum into a discussion of anti-semitism

Lovely. So now everyone who calls you on your veiled anti-Semitism is a paid disinfo-agent? Gotcha.

Just keep it up then, the sooner I can retire from this job.

[Gouda]

Disinfo agents are the ones not responding to my comments and pushing my threads to the bottom of the pile and somehow erasing views like an odometer in reverse!! Dagnapit!

Seriously though, GC, and this is something I need to better maintain myself, but if it seems some do not have the info you do, share it. If it seems they do not share the same perspective on the info, argue it. If they are arrogant or rude, stay cool and double up on your case. If that does not work, and they do not seem to be convinced, humbly review your arguments and information. If you find you are utterly convinced by your own arguments and information and that your worldview stops there, then you might be a selfagent against your own better interest. Maybe not, but maybe yes.

I don't know what to say if you find that over time, you have discerned misleading patterns from certain members. I personally have had my suspicions, but in the end, one must just keep trucking around them. Perhaps the real disinfo agents are not paid, but easily identified as those unwaveringly clinging to their "line" with little or no back up. Otherwise known as knuckleheads. Or lazy asses. Or dishonest unfortunates. Such as these shun the learning process. Not to say, however, that there are not real professional agents about. I think they eventually give themselves away, and it might not be in your best interest to call them out. Sometimes keeping your cards to yourself is wise.

Meanwhile, there are hundreds here who are quietly quite able to judge the good arguments from the bad; able to independently follow up on sources and info. And I have to say, it might even be a good thing to be put through the painful heuristic mill of disinfo now and then, taken for a ride, spun down a few blind alleys. If we stay rigorous, humble and strong of heart, we'll emerge better off and see our previous follies for what they were: a learning process.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Discussion boards have been generating behavioral stereotypes for years now.

Back when RI was warding off some anti-semitic types (a trait I believe is feigned to disrupt sometimes) and arguments were many I found this list of 375 types of 'flamer' which is now in the Media forum-
Good for a giggle. You'll recognize quite a few.



The list is really codified human interaction in groups.

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=9312
(375 Types of Flamer)

on edit: cool photo plus I meant that anti-semitism is the trait I believe to be sometimes feigned, not argumentativeness. Hell, anyone with a firmly held view can be argumentative and I welcome a more 'direct participation.' lol.

[philipacentaur]

Interesting timing. You're not honorable enough to actually say what you really want to say, so you continue to sow discord and suspiciousness here. You're a coward.