Government-sponsored Internet trolls are damaging free speech

The reporter that helped Edward Snowden disclose the NSA abuses has just released a stunning piece of information that details how government-sponsored covert agents are infiltrating the internet to attack ideologies and individuals that governments deem enemies. This appears to be an escalation of the Orwellian police state that should be troubling to Americans.

According to Greenwald, government agencies are attempting to "control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse".

According to information gained from Edwards Snowden (who was also a former CIA agent) the agencies achieve their goals in the following manner:

(1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting
material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums.

Anyone who has ever participated in online forums can understand how easily something like this could be implemented and how effective the methods could be. Typically, the protagonists are those that post anonymously and might "troll" on various sites. Conversations on such sites often deteriorate rapidly and one can come away wondering what happened. Other methods as described above, may be even more insidious than trolling comment sections.

Greenwald believes this practice is an abuse of government power and is damaging the intergrity of the internet.

What can be done about it? Sites can start by requiring posters to sign in with their real names and moderators can do a better job of policing trolls that seem to be there to cause trouble. But the real change would need to come from governments themselves that should be forced to stop this manipulative practice immediately. Congress needs to act to outlaw this practice. President Obama should speak out against it and work with Congress to rein in the spy agencies that are exploiting this covert tactic.

We own the internet and we have a right not to be abused on it by our own government that should be protecting not damaging our free speech. In government, often what begins as a targeted campaign, grows to be a widespread practice. Radicals may be the first targets but you could be next. Please call your Congressman and ask her to intervene to stop this abuse of government power.

At the same time, if you use the Internet, Don't feed the trolls