Disinformation: ATS's Nemesis.

The WHO is a subsidiary of the UN. The UN is ALWAYS rabbiting on about "sustainable development" and the effects of population growth on poverty, the environment, etc etc.

A random search for "UN population":

www.unece.org...
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development has highlighted the interaction between population, environment and sustainable development. An increasing number of countries is aware that rapid population growth imposes growing constraints on social and economic development, with negative effects in particular on the environment and on the natural resource base. To help solve these problems is also a challenge for the United Nations member countries of the region. Moreover, the political, social and economic transformations of historical importance, and the birth of the new democracies in the countries in transition, have created new possibilities for European cooperation. In recognizing that international cooperation, especially that to support the efforts of countries with rapid population growth, is more urgent than ever, member countries should seize the opportunity for closer cooperation within the region as well as with the developing countries, which has been created by the end of the East-West conflict and the consensus on the elements of a global partnership for development. This cooperation in the field of population should be permanently based on respect for fundamental human rights and the responsible exercise of such rights for all individuals.

And "family planning" is the UN keyword for abortion.

The WHO does vaccinations like Debbie does Dallas.

Quick quote:

www.who.int...
Following the impressive success of the smallpox eradication programme, the World Health Organization looked for other activities that could build on what had already been achieved. In 1974 the Expanded Programme on Immunization was created.

Have a look at where they've been and where the AIDS virus, and even Ebola, pop up. Have a look at the Hep B vaccination program for young gay men in Manhattan in the late 70's and where the AIDS virus started in the US.

Regarding the AIDS in simian kidney cells bit, you're talking about accidental creation of the virus. We're on a different track there...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the WHO is wrong about second-hand smoking. Not at all. As I said...information and disinformation, layer upon layer and all mixed up together. Otherwise it'd be too easy to spot.


Did I just derail the thread? Sorry. Feel free to ignore me... Or this could just be one of my unconscious disinformation tactics.

[edit on 2005-10-17 by wecomeinpeace]

Is disinformation always a bad thing ?

If it challenges views and provokes a more robust and verifiably based standard of evidence to support the truth against which it presents itself - does it not then become it's own nemesis ? What it sets out to 'discredit' becomes stronger as a consequence of it's intercession ? In that way it becomes a tool for examining the evidence, or a stick to measure it by, if you will.

I wonder if some things do have a single truth anyway - take this thread for example www.atsnn.com... " target="_blank" class="postlink">Bomb Blasts Rock Iran - Tehran Accuses Britain of Involvement- where does this one bottom out. If we follow the chain of reporting mentioned in the press quotes I'm not really sure I could say where that story even starts.

That one appears to be so complex, and has run over a length of time that unravelling it all may not even be possible owing to the truth and untruth that will have slipped in here and there, either by omission or commission. (I'm not flaming that post by the way - in fact quite the opposite, as it's a perfect example of a complex story where any amount of truth or untruth could be introduced at almost any point in the last 15 years or so).

This for me is part of the acceptance of analysis of information - it's knowing and accepting that the lie (howsoever defined) is there too, and that it has to be considered along with everything else. Disinformation and information - just two sides of the same coin are they not ?

"The opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement, but the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth." - Niels Bohr

What a great topic - thanks for posting it.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Is it a disinfo tactic to point out a logical fallacy or a factual error?

No, but I have been labeled a disinfo agent many times for doing so.

Is it a disinfo tactic to deliberately place quotes of other posters in your signature to make a public spectacle of them and thus intimidate them from debating anything with you? Probably.

Whatsoever thou sowest, so shalt thou reap.

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace
Is it a disinfo tactic to deliberately place quotes of other posters in your signature to make a public spectacle of them and thus intimidate them from debating anything with you? Probably.

Whatsoever thou sowest, so shalt thou reap.

To be honest he only seems to put the really funny ones, I mean look at the current one about the sonic boom and cars being flipped other!

EDIT - looks like it's changed now...

To be honest such an uneducated statement is hardly a slip of the tongue, it's would be wrong to do it over petty things but this is pure entertainment!

[edit on 17-10-2005 by AgentSmith]

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace
Is it a disinfo tactic to deliberately place quotes of other posters in your signature to make a public spectacle of them and thus intimidate them from debating anything with you? Probably.

Whatsoever thou sowest, so shalt thou reap.

Is it working yet?

LMFAO!!

I'll pay that one!

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Obviously a web site whose daily traffic features threads with subject lines like “Pod people" grown on trees in India,” and actually get two pages of follow up posts is not always going to be 100% correct on every subject.

Don't worry too much about that. It has taken that thread 10 months to get that many pages.

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace
Did I just derail the thread? Sorry. Feel free to ignore me

Okay


The reality is that the WHO is made up from the UN and has many members like any other government association. Disinfo can easily come from there just like it can from our individual governments.

U.S. Government tips on how to identify mis(dis)information.

usinfo.state.gov

How can a journalist or a news consumer tell if a story is true or false? There are no exact rules, but the following clues can help indicate if a story or allegation is true.

Okay lets take a look at what they have to say.

Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?

Does the story claim that vast, powerful, evil forces are secretly manipulating events? If so, this fits the profile of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are rarely true, even though they have great appeal and are often widely believed. In reality, events usually have much less exciting explanations.

What? Vast, power forces secretly manipulating events? No that is impossible.

The U.S. government (vast, powerful force) is telling us that a story that claims that a vast, powerful secretly manipulating events is rarely true?
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Take a look at the whole page. What you think? Is this page a disinformation tactic?



Similar articles can be found at beijing.usembassy-china.org

Umbrax,

thanks for pointing me to this awesome thread.

Yes, I believe there are disinformation people here around the boards.

Nice thread. I had the "disinformation" finger pointed at me in one thread when the subject was about something I indeed knew about and was giving my personal experience in it. (No need to get into what it was). What happened was, because I was an "insider" I was CERTAINLY in on it and anything I said was a lie.

To be dismissed like that was quite a shock, and I did react with the "how dare you" attitude. I've since come to the conclusion that your are going to be suspect if you have any first-hand knowledge of something and now shape my arguments around that premise.

One interesting and favorite disinformation technique at play here and in other "paranormal" forums is the addition of fantastic or ridiculous details to the general discussion mix that help paint everyone with the same brush, so to speak. UFO study, for instance.

Most UFO sightings are so mundane and boring that they are usually dismissed even by the ordinary people who have them, because there's really little to say about them. In other words, perfect for scientific study and analysis. But when UFOs get associated with wild stories of creepy reptilian aliens and time traveling Masons living on the Moon, then few or no legitimate organizations that fund scientific study will touch the subject with the handy, old 10 foot pole.

As someone in another thread recently said, it's easy for people who are either serious about sidetracking real research or just want to confuse the issue for fun to create some insane story to diffuse a piece of information that "somebody" would just as soon prefer you ignore. Interestingly, there's a second level of real kooks who will come along and verify everything the disinformationist says, no matter how outlandish. In fact, there's almost nothing more outlandish that can be added to what's already out there. If I said the Bush Administration is a bunch of Satanic cannibals who feast on kidnapped babies, I can probably find a site that already claims that and has the grainy, indecipherable photos to prove it. So now they can quote me as saying the same thing, which in some way gives their crazy story more legitimacy. And so it goes.

I suppose this is just my way of saying that I agree that disinformation is right up there near the top of the list of things getting in the way of real research (and "The Truth") here on ATS and elsewhere. In fact, I'd rank it even higher than not having enough evidence of something. Because under most circumstances, there is plenty enough evidence of odd things happening to warrant serious investigation of things like UFOs, but disinformation trumps it almost every time.

What to do? I guess that's where a personal filtering system and strong appeal to reason and logic come into play. The analogy I've used before is panning for gold. Somewhere among all the rocks and mud and gravel there's a little flake of gold. The trick is to develop tools and skills to recognize it, isolate it, and see how it compares to other similar flakes. Maybe try to put a cohesive object together. Sure ain't easy.

Great thread.

I stumbled across the list just today and bookmarked the page. Shucks, didn't get a chance to use it.

See here for "Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist"

I'm new to forums and have already discovered that skeptics are often simply ignored.

NC

Oh no, I've murdered a thread.

NC

No, NC, you haven't murdered the thread...BUMP!

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
Someone once spent an inordinate amount of time tracing down a famoux hoax about Russians drilling deep into the earth and discovering Hell --

Heh...That was me, way back here. There was a total of 3 threads that brought that old hoax up for discussion & I had to post in all of them. It seems that religious groups were spreading the hoax around longer than anyone else, even after it was revealed as a hoax.
Credit where credit is due.
Hey, why do you think I use the title of "Ignorance Assassin?" Socrates, as (arguably) the world's most famous "doubtful skeptic" is my own personal inspiration!

Originally posted by Umbrax
Those who spin the deceptions are very good at it. They have had practice.

Some even have formal training at it...Note the proverbial "PR Flack", on the payroll of pretty much any government or corporation.

Originally posted by Jadette
Awesome post. I was looking for a list like this JUST the other day in fact, to reply to a thread here where nearly EVER reply fit one of these catagories.

Ummm...That wouldn't happen to be right around here, would it?
I've lost track of how many threads have been getting derailed & I've tried to get them back on track.

Good info about disinfo Umbrax...Much appreciated, the input is.
I gave you a WATS for it, even as late as I am getting here.

Dag nabbit! I can't find a WATS voting button for you! I guess I'll have to figure out something else.

[edit on 12-10-2006 by MidnightDStroyer]

I've seen most of the stuff on that list being done in forum arguments. So apparently it's just human nature.

What you've left out is the tendancy for politicians to just ignore an entire accusation or issue altogether. They seem to do this on the premise that if they don't attend any interviews about it, and dont answer any questions about it, they'll avoid substantiating it, and that will have the effect of making it look like a bogus wild accusation.

So many politicians do this and then there are so many that don't, often in stupid situations where they both could've and should've ignored the issue, but instead substantiated it and made a bigger issue out of it by responding to it.

There is one type of Disinformation that I did not see listed: Hybrid

Hybrid is the most difficult form of disinformation to detect. It was origionlly created for the specific Purpose of fooling enemy intelligence. See the trick is to Mix true information in with little bits of disinformation. It works on the theory that when most people try to varify the value of information, they usually don't have the time or the committment to verify Each and Every fact individually. So the fastest way to authenticate something is to pick out a few key facts and attempt to verify them. The reader then makes the assumption that: If the rselected facts are TRUE, the rest of the information is most likely true as well.

By carefully placing verifyable facts and cerdible sources throughout something, the disinformation expert can often fool even the most trained intelligence operatives. It this mixed approach to disinformation that you really need to be careful of.

Tim

[edit on 15-11-2006 by Ghost01]

Thanks dude, its good to see the whole concept of disinformation presented

Thank you Umbrax.

This thread is entirely what was needed on this site.

Awesome work.

Thank you umbrax, this thread deserves a bump. I think it contains important information for all members. Also I want to add a shorter list of forum manipulation techniques. The list circulates widely around the web. I was unable to find the original source/author.

There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a ‘uncontrolled forum.’

Technique #1 - ‘FORUM SLIDING’ If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by ‘forum sliding.’ In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to ‘age.’ Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a ‘forum slide.’ The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a ‘forum slide’ and ‘flush’ the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then ‘replying’ to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting ‘slides’ down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

Technique #2 - ‘CONSENSUS CRACKING’ A second highly effective technique is ‘consensus cracking.’ To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made - but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favour is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger ‘evidence’ or disinformation in your favour is slowly ‘seeded in.’ Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely be dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then ‘abort’ the consensus cracking by initiating a ‘forum slide.’

Technique #3 - ‘TOPIC DILUTION’ Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a ‘RESOURCE BURN.’ By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a ‘gossip mode.’ In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion. The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to ‘drive in the wedge.’ By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator.

On the website The Information Underground I found a reference to abovesecret.com. It stated, that technique 2 (consensus cracking) can be found on abovesecret.com all the time.
theinfounderground.com...

continued in next post

[edit on 6-4-2010 by Drunkenshrew]