Beware Social Media

Glad you're reading this. Let's talk about social media. We all know that the elites (government, the wealthy, etc.) will try to influence your thoughts and behaviors through overt or subversive means. Operation Mockingbird is one obvious example of government intervention. As for the wealthy, things like Crisis PR firms being able to get blatantly false stories spread in major news outlets, or major publications like the Washington Post being owned by Jeff Bezos are a few little key hints. But there are more subversive means. Let's talk about somewhere most people don't know about. A little town in Florida called Eglin Air Force Base. It's a small place, a bit less than three thousand people live there. But it's also a majorly important place in terms of the government, being host to a division of the Air Force Research Laboratory. That's a more complex organization. Let's talk about them.

The Air Force Research Laboratory "provides leading-edge warfighting capabilities keeping our air, space and cyberspace forces the world's best." That's in the words of the AFRL themselves. That's an interesting one. Cyberspace? Since when was the Air Force interested in Cyberspace? And interestingly enough, Eglin Air Force Base is host to the 692nd Cyberspace Operations Squadron. I wonder what kind of things the AFRL has put out? Oh, what's this, a researcher from the AFRL, based out of Eglin AFB, put out a paper? Let's see it. Oh, that's interesting. "This work specifically aims to investigate how peer pressure from social leaders affects consensus beliefs (e.g., opinions, emotional states, purchasing decisions, political affiliation, etc.) within a social network, and how an interaction algorithm can be developed such that the group social behavior can be driven to a desired end." That's fun. And that's from a paper with an author based out of Eglin AFB, home of the 692nd Cyberspace Operations Squadron. I wonder what else Eglin AFB has done. Oh, what's this? They're the source of the most internet traffic on Reddit, the popular social media platform? That's interesting isn't it. So next time you see people saying very strange things online, keep in mind that they very well could be a government agent part of a propaganda campaign.