A must-read recommendation from Joey Skaggs: Don’t miss Adrian Chen”™s article, The Agency, in The New York Times, June 2, 2015
Wag the Dog, online and updated
David Strom’s Web Informant
June 3, 2015
In one of my favorite movies, Wag the Dog, we declare a fictional war on Albania in an attempt to manipulate a presidential election. While the movie (which was made 18 years ago) posits a ridiculous scenario, it is coming of age in today”™s era of ubiquitous Internet and inexpensive video editing and social media aggregation tools.
According to Adrian Chen”™s article in the New York Times, a secretive Russian agency has been fabricating various events for both American and Russian audiences using very similar “Wag the Dog” scenarios. Chen finds You Tube videos, fake Twitter accounts by the truckload, and phony websites and other postings that seem to all come from this agency. The effort is so realistic that many people are fooled into thinking its fabricated disasters, conflicts, and other newsworthy events are real, rather than the work of some clever and dedicated troll army. Continue reading “The Credibility Crisis: Who do you believe? Me or your lying eyes?”