Ever get the feeling that your instincts are saying one thing, while everyone else seems to be saying quite another? Turns out there may be a very good reason for that, and that reason might just have emerged thanks to DOGE. Hold on to your handbags, because this is an absolute doozy called Large Scale Social Deception. What could possibly go wrong with that, right?
Before we get to the finer details of who or what that distinctly Orwellian phrase is all about, let’s have a quick recap. You may recall a certain rocket man/electric car guy popping up in the recent United States election. Emerging from that is Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, now part of the recently sworn in second Trump administration.
Now, regardless of how you feel about that administration (and I very much appreciate that it is EXTREMELY polarising), it’s arguable that never in the history of fresh governments have we seen such dramatic pace of execution. Particularly from DOGE, which despite the cute name is rapidly demonstrating that it has teeth. Sharp ones.
Among the dastardly deeds uncovered by DOGE is what appears to be a real-life example of what conspiracy theorists call a ‘psy-op’. Except the targets aren’t ‘the enemy’, but you. And me. Maybe all of us.
Psy-ops aren’t conspiracy theory by any means. Indeed, you’ll find plenty of info out there: short for psychological operation, it is a military operation aimed at influencing the emotions, motives, reasoning, and behaviour of individuals, groups, or governments.
Psy-ops are typically non-combative and use various forms of communication including radio broadcasts, leaflets (quaint), social media, TV and whatever other media the target group uses. The objectives are to undermine the enemy through that most popular of neologisms, gaslighting. Make people question reality, their sanity, their values, their mores. Doing so disrupts decision-making, reduces morale, and famously, encourages defection or surrender, while promoting favourable views towards those behind the psy-ops. Yes, a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, without the hostages.
You will, of course, recognise some of these tactics as being central to the ops of hackers. They too like to target, undermine, fool and misdirect for nefarious purposes. But even these bad actors have nothing on where we’re going with DOGE and the at-national-scale psy-ops being uncovered ‘in real time’ (again, quaint) more or less right now.
So where are we going with this? Well, check out this post on X https://x.com/i/bookmarks?post_id=1889899102705689018 and see for yourself. Turns out the American Department of Defense is engaged in an explicit psy-op which involves “Large Scale Social Deception”, for which it paid…and here’s where it gets spicy…mass media organisation Thompson Reuters several million dollars.
This begs a simple but profound question: who, exactly, is the target of this Large Scale Social Deception?
The answer to this question is less clear, but there is speculation that it was the American people themselves. And, given the consistency of many popular public narratives advanced in recent times from multiple media outlets who may or may not have been on the receiving end of American taxpayer money, one does wonder. (There are many examples of ‘singing from the same song sheet’, which might include ‘build back better’, or the sudden rise of the ‘misinformation/disinformation’ narrative, something I have written on previously, or even the thrusting of the transgender debate into sudden prominence, even after we all watched The Crying Game back in the 1990s).
Getting straight back to the point raised in my first paragraph. Good cybersecurity is all about vigilance and constantly querying if what appears to be, really is. It seems having eyes in the back of your head and a healthy dose of scepticism might be just as useful in your daily life.
And remember. It isn’t paranoia if they really are out to get you.
