Reminds me of something I did in engineering school. I was part of a consulting engineering competition at school which was sponsored by a large oil and gas company. Their representatives (judges) gave us a real map of a “fictional” area, which we had to analyze for a feasibility study of water sourcing.
There was a unique shaped lake on the map. With access to GIS maps we found the actual location. It was very improbable, a tiny lake in a gigantic land area. We found all the wells in the area and who owned them. We found a town nearby.
Instead of a fictional study we went ahead and used real data, real examples, and we called real people in the town for their perspectives on the matter.
The O&G representatives judging our competition were nearly fired. They were terrified when they learned we talked to locals, and repeatedly asked if we mentioned O&G-CO’s brand name on the calls.
One aspect would be that they used real data for test data aspect and the whole data protection law aspect that can impact that as anybody who has had to produce test data will attest. The days of using a copy of existing data for testing taken many a blow over this.
Then the people factor - if you get a survey asking for your views of XYZ in the area, you will kinda start to think XYZ is happening and won't know the difference from students doing an exercise over official - it's a happening people.
But asking questions can often have unforeseen impacts. For example - if your company sent out a questionnaire to see who likes Christmas or not then some employees may well think that the company is going to cancel Christmas bonus or other worst cases as that is an aspect of human nature. So somebody asking for a training exercise some questions could see people joining dots and run with it and next you know, protests for something that was never going to happen.
The problem, very broadly, is that real-world actions can have real-world consequences, and a gaggle of students wandering off and conceivably engaging in real-world actions in the name of some company which they aren't actually affiliated with is unlikely to be a risk which that company signed up for.
NIMBY is strong. When people find out that O&G is making calls to residents in an area, people mobilize to protest. These people would be protesting something that didn't exist. Nobody likes fighting a negative PR campaign like that.
That's just a single example off the top of my head
Alternative interpretation: O&G Company was planning to get their plan in order first for how they would drill the area, then figure out how to convince the residents to support the project.
By flipping the script, and revealing the information early they gave the residents more power to push back against the project or expect more equitable compensation.
No I did not. Don't read into things that aren't there.
Just because I used the phrase NIMBY does not mean I am against it. I detest how O&G companies behave, however, I can also see exactly why this example would drive them mad. They have to gear up for exactly this type of reaction when they do want to move into an area, so to have to gear up for a fight when there are no plans just means spending effort on something totally stupid.
That's what I told my literature teachers in school. Just because you have your accepted interpretation of the written material doesn't mean I can't have mine. "Yes, but you are wrong" was always the response. Can't imagine why I took to math & science over prose instead.
Wait a second. "The fake letter was part of new skills being tested by the military as it hones its expertise for launching propaganda missions at home and abroad."
The Canadian military is launching propaganda missions in Canada? (Or at all, for that matter)? WTF?
"The Nova Scotia propaganda training comes as the Canadian Forces spools up its capabilities to conduct information warfare, influence operations and other deception missions aimed at populations overseas and, if necessary, the Canadian public."
Uhhhh... like.. hey you're saying the quiet part out loud, guys.
Briant revealed on Monday the Canadian Forces spent more than $1 million in training its public affairs officers in skills to influence targeted populations.
Your personalized propaganda, brought to you by your own tax dollars.
You'd rather they dropped bombs than drop leaflets? The level of naïveté here is bothersome.
Truth is the first casualty of war, and it's always been that way.
The Rwandan Genocide was entirely perpetuated with propaganda, and it's unwinding had to (and continues to) make to use propaganda.
The Russians and Chinese are actively engaged in campaigns right now inside and outside their borders, this is not a conspiracy theory it's reported on regular news outlets.
At very least it's something Western Military should have reasonable mastery of, like anything else.
White propaganda is fine and even necessary at times. There was plenty of it by western countries during WWII and the Cold War.
It's that this propaganda contained false information on both the source and the details that is problematic. Black propaganda is wrong. We don't need it to win, and when it is exposed it undermines our credibility, which undermines our white propaganda and efforts to contrast our values with the values of our adversaries.
I take a similar stand with politicians. I'd rather vote for an honest person that I disagree with on a majority of issues than a dishonest one that shares my political party. For especially honest politicians I go out of my way to vote for them. Trust in government is paramount. The rest breeds corruption and eventual democratic decline.
You don't want to go down that path, because will result in endless finger-pointing.
Why Japan joined WW2? Because they were playing catch up with European powers and doing what they did to Japan a some time earlier, and were trying to avoid the fate of China (see Opium wars)
Why Germany and Italy were heavily involved in both WW? Because they were the only European country with no colonies, in part due to their recent unification (specially Italy in this case), and the other European countries were screwing with them.
But... why? And so on, you will end with a huge chain of whys and finger pointing until you blame God for creating Adam.
> Why Japan joined WW2? Because they were playing catch up with European powers and doing what they did to Japan a some time earlier, and were trying to avoid the fate of China (see Opium wars)
That is not a very accurate take of Japanese involvement in WW2. Japan was planning several wars of naked territorial expansion during WW2, invading China twice in the 1930s, calling off an invasion of the Soviet Union after a border incident they started didn't go their way, demanding that Vichy France hand over French Indochina, and of course its very well-known invasion of US, British, and Dutch colonies to better secure needed supplies for its ongoing war with China. By WW2, Japan didn't see itself as playing "catch-up" (that period would have been the Meiji period, about 70 years prior to WW2), and instead saw itself as racially superior; nor did the European powers see Japan as an inferior power playing catch-up, but instead as a competitor and likely future adversary.
> Why Germany and Italy were heavily involved in both WW? Because they were the only European country with no colonies, in part due to their recent unification (specially Italy in this case), and the other European countries were screwing with them.
Italian Somaliland, Triplotania, Cyrenaica, Eritrea, German West Africa, German Southwest Africa, German East Africa, German New Guinea, German Samoa. (Germany was especially uninventive with its colony names). Italy was enticed into the war by promise of territory, but the promised territory was Sudtirol and the Dalmatian coast, which would be part of Italy proper and not any Italian colonies. Japan itself joined the war primarily to steal Germany's colonies in the Pacific, which they did.
Your post is simply nonsense. You've repeated the excuses of the aggressors without acknowledging that Germany and Japan enslaved and deliberately starved civilians on the scale of tens of millions.
The League of Nations told Japan to leave Manchuria long before WW2 started. There was no confusion on any side.
Just so HN readers understand what happened, Japan tried to build "New Tokyo" in inhabited areas of China - in other words, ethnic cleansing long before the term became well-known in the Balkans wars.
I suggest you re-study pre-WW2 and WW2 history and formulate a more solid argument.
Propaganda never stops when a war does. If you would like a great documentary on this, look for Century of the Self [1]. It explains how Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, taught governments and companies how to control people in peace time. Apologies in advance, it is a black-and-white film.
We live in an information environment that is wide open. With the internet, any of our enemies can launch psyops campaigns against us at almost no cost. In such an environment, their campaigns must at least be countered, or else we would be steamrolled.
>>"We don't need it to win, and when it is exposed it undermines our credibility, which undermines our white propaganda and efforts to contrast our values with the values of our adversaries."
Fair enough. Now, the only problem left is to determine who is "we".
> At all times and in all places, DND employees and CF members shall fulfil their commitments in a manner that best serves Canada, its people, its parliamentary democracy, DND and the CF
So from the CAF's point of view, "we" is "Canada, its people, its parliamentary democracy, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces"
(sidenote: The Canadian military was recently renamed from "Canadian Forces" (CF) to "Canadian Armed Forces" (CAF), thus the differences in acronyms.)
I don't know. Don't take my comment too seriously, but if I was Canadian, I think these guys sending me fake administrative notes and filling the night with wolf sounds would qualify more like "them" than "we".
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan are examples of politicians that I mostly disagree with their views but I've never regarded them as personally dishonest.
Reagan secretly sold illegal weapons to Iran to fund bloody coups and death squads in South America. I’d say secretly committing treason is a pretty big lie.
Also worth noting is the October Surprise, where Reagan foiled negotiations with Iran to bring US hostages back, in order to help his election chances.
That's what I meant by "personally" honest - their governments they led had all kinds of problems but I don't think that was caused by fundamental dishonesty by those individuals.
Maybe. But if dishonesty works, it's because the populace as a whole rewards it by (re)electing the liar. IOW a lot of people prefer to be lied to. Don't confuse the disease with the symptoms.
Are you saying propaganda is incompatible with a democracy?
So this WW2 propaganda poster from the UK encouraging men to sign up for submarine service because their women will admire them means the UK isn't a democracy?
Propaganda isn’t always all bad. It can be re-assuring messages during wartime, reminder that rationing X is helping Y, or that wearing a mask is preventing the spread of a disease.
Especially when we have groups trying to convince swathes of the population that public health matters are not public health matters, and that we're against each other rather than working together.
Unfortunately, that is the reality facing us right now.
The military doesn't serve the public. Every person in the military serves the one above them, and the ones at the top serve the politicians as long as they keep getting money and being treated like they are the best people in existence.
> The Canadian military is launching propaganda missions in Canada
Yes, and the Canadian military is very good at it. The fact that your reaction upon reading on it is incredulity and denial is proof enough at how good they are.
Keep in mind that "propaganda" does not necessarily mean nefarious. Almost all countries use propaganda, and I'd argue that most corporations use it too.
Is there any law against the military or government running an operation like this?
Shouldn't there be?
I feel like if military personnel and politicians were told "If you try this kind of thing, for training purposes or otherwise, you will serve <X> years in prison" it would be a good deterrent. And I feel like such strong laws should exist.
I'm always reminded of the phrase - One persons propaganda, is another persons politics. Which if you look at political manifesto's by mainstream parties - does make for a very fine line depending upon how interpreted.
Not new that the Canadian government is using propaganda. Go look up on CBC "about-our-social-experiment" where they got caught red handed trying to push that all Canadians are white supremacists. Or how about CBC articles that are in Urdu saying Canadians are adopting and killing Indian/Pakistani children. If you try to use google translate or bing translate it will fail. Or how about the endless 'parents' articles about how it's sexual assault if you don't have consent to hug your own 5 year old child. How about 'dear white people' where the CBC clearly says that racism against white people is impossible.
Whoa there, settle down boomer. There's a difference between "real" propaganda vs what you're using loaded phrases to describe. You're free to be as right wing (or left) as you wish but this is hyperbole & exaggeration, and doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. Save your outrage for your local Facebook group not here.
I'm a millennial. Out of curiosity why do you open with an insult?
>There's a difference between "real" propaganda vs what you're using loaded phrases to describe.
You're no true scotsman.
> You're free to be as right wing (or left) as you wish but this is hyperbole & exaggeration, and doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. Save your outrage for your local Facebook group not here.
So you insulted me. Then just disqualified my points as exaggeration without addressing anything and then said I'm not contributing to the discussion?
I'm sorry, how does pointing out your perceived racism against white people relate at all to this article? The words "white people" or "racism" or "Urdu" or "Pakistan" aren't referenced at all in the article and are personal opinions.
Don't take it as an insult, take it as a suggestion that you're not on topic. If you want to talk about how the world is out to get white people, that's fine for a different venue (lots of places on Facebook for instance) but let's stay on topic on Hacker News - and the article at hand.
“Marketing” might be more precise, though not originally in the context of business. Specifically, Propaganda fide, from which the term “propaganda” entered general usage, was the older name for the Vatican organization that is now the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Right, I'm sure the ones you know are "good guys". But they aren't going to refuse an order. Personally, I'd be asking them what they know about the NS shooter. Probably another one of their well-intentioned psyops gone awry.
I know the value of propaganda but the idea that a mlitary trains to produce patently false propaganda targeted at its own civilian in the guise of the civilian government without its knowledge is disturbing.
Especially when the training has nothing to do with military matters and, as in this situation, is completely untrue and impersonates part of the civilian government. This seems like a massive violation of ethics.
Given what happened (Actual loudspeakers deployed) I doubt the official "Tt was as an internal training aid and never actually meant to be put into practice" explantion, that seems to require a set of steps that requires extraordinary levels of stupidity to the point that I don't believe Hanlon's Razor is adequate reasoning.
And if it is just colossal levels of stupidity / lack of oversight / lack of process then I do not believe the military should be trusted with such operations in the first place, training or no training.
>I know the value of propaganda but the idea that a mlitary trains to produce patently false propaganda targeted at its own civilian in the guise of the civilian government without its knowledge is disturbing.
You ought to look up Operation Mockingbird, the Nariyah testimony, there are other examples. The activities you describe are widespread in the US. There was also someone did a study of some cable news network that found 92% of guests were current or former government officials, retired generals etc (AKA likely on CIA or military intelligence payroll)
I always wonder if the US is an outlier in stuff like this with Mockingbird, MKUltra etc. or if they are the ones that get caught and publicised the most in relation to other countries.
I'm guessing US is one of the very few countries that have enough money flowing to the military and intelligence that they can afford such projects. Most other countries probably prioritize their limited budgets on less... exploratory endeavors.
This made me remember the story that early Nazi Party was full of government spies tasked in destroying Nazi Party, Hitler being one of them.
They were supposed to act like true Nazi and infiltrate them heavily until they had enough information to dismantle it... but the spies quickly overran real members (seemly when Hitler and others were sent, the party had 15 members or so... and for a while the party had more spies in it than real members), the spies, that weren't "real Nazi", while trying to blend in introduced more and more ludicrous ideas and ended convincing people for real, seemly including themselves...
> Especially when the training has nothing to do with military matters (...)
This assertion is patently false. The goal of the military is to force your will onto others while stopping others from imposing their own will onto you. You don't achieve that exclusively by killing. In fact, arguably propaganda and intelligence is far more effective than military action.
Please bear in mind, for example, that the Normandy invasion, and consequently WW2 and the preservation of liberal democracies in Europe and the world, was won due to the role of a single man in posting this sort of propaganda: Juan Pujol García.
>> Especially when the training has nothing to do with military matters (...)
> This assertion is patently false.
I am referring to the use of "Lets convince our OWN civilian population that wolves are a threat by impersonating our own government" - This is so far out of military matters that it is absurd that it is used as a training aid. Why is the military using training aids (that are theoretical and never supposed to be implemented remember) based on targetting their own civilian general population.
This should not be the role of the military, it should not even be in the list of aids. If you have to have stuff like that then at least make the training aids focus on psyops against populations of probable adversaries.
>Given what happened (Actual loudspeakers deployed) [...] that seems to require a set of steps that requires extraordinary levels of stupidity
Note they say "a loudspeaker" and "the loudspeaker" (singular) in the article, so the setup needn't have been arduous: it could have been as simple as a single person walking through the woods with handheld equipment.
Thumbs up for the use of the appropriate word “disturbing” instead of more shriek-y terminology.
Thumbs down for the term “massive” for the ethical concerns. “Massive” violations of ethics occurred during the Nazi regime.
Thumbs down for the term “colossal”. “Colossal” stupidity was shown by governments during the 1940s Bengali famine and the 1960s Chinese famine. Nothing here reaches “colossal”.
Never underestimate the folly of large organizations of any stripe. They are all comprised of individuals who are just as silly as you are. There are just more of them and sometimes they have greater firepower.
Don’t know what you mean by “such operations” in the final sentence. Do you mean no “psyops”? Talk-talk is almost always better than bang-bang. If you were targeted with both, I think you would agree as well...
> The fake letter was part of new skills being tested by the military as it hones its expertise for launching propaganda missions at home and abroad.
Wow. If the Canadian military should be practicing anything on its own civilians, it should be identifying and stopping propaganda. But test offensive tactics is ridiculously unethical
I think that's where we're presently running into a paradox, though.
Many Canadians (as elsewhere in the world) are falling victim to propaganda like "Covid is a hoax", "Covid is a plot by Bill Gates to implant everyone in the world with microchips", "Masks don't work", "Your rights are being trampled upon", etc etc.
One crux of the messaging that comes along with those is that the government is lying to you about absolutely everything and will do whatever they can to prevent you from seeing that information and the "truth".
So the Canadian government and military working to identify and stop propaganda in any method validates the misinformation for those people who have fallen victim to it, and subsequently validates the rest of the nonsense they're ingesting that is coupled with it.
Catch 22.
So I'm just guessing that it was decided the best way to beat it is to undermine it by "being there first"... in short.
Are you trying to make the citizens of your country distrust everything the media and government says? Because this is how you make the citizens of your country distrust everything the media and government says.
In fact, it's not impossible that this is the exact intended effect of this mission. It's easy to think this is just ineffectual bumbling; but the real test might be to see how this "revelation" is used by those who are already suspicious of authority.
“The Nova Scotia propaganda training comes as the Canadian Forces spools up its capabilities to conduct information warfare, influence operations and other deception missions aimed at populations overseas and, if necessary, the Canadian public.”
“the Canadian public”?? Canadian here. Wow. Well, there goes a whole bunch of support and respect I may have had for the Canadian Forces and their leadership.
What the fuck is going on in Nova Scotia? First a mass shooter, in a replica police car, with $50k in the trunk from a gov't bank account. No explanation required apparently.
Now a fucking psyop against civilians? That is not OK.
Something is rotten in Canada. The only saving grace is the immense ineptitude.
> The Canadian Forces stresses that it follows ethical guidelines in its propaganda operations.
Can there be such a thing as ethical propaganda?
My understanding is that propaganda, by definition, includes at the very least a distortion of the truth.
I don't think it's quite that simple. There are all sorts of small things people can miss during document forging: leaking of metadata (not stripping a PDF), leaking of IPs, bad forging (a notable example is the "Killian documents", purportedly from 1973 but which were probably made with Microsoft Word[0]).
Distribution/guiding matters too, especially on the internet: what's the best way to place it so it will spread? What techniques will be caught? Should you run a botnet? How difficult is it to evade detection? Light touch or heavy handed? Do you need a base of fake accounts years in advance, or can you create them at the time?
Red team/blue team exercises are valuable for defense. If you "practice" only by examining real-world propaganda, you can't debrief the opposition at the end. And if you can't debrief the attacker, you can't find out what you missed and what would have been effective.
Well, at least if they are going to do evil we can rest assured that they aren't very good at it. Speakers in the woods with wolf noises? This sounds like a bad Disney halloween movie. Or that episode of Father Ted. Or that PSA in Talladega Nights about the packs of vicious dogs who control most major cities.
I'm concerned about the negative portrayal of wolves. No matter who is saying it, making people overly afraid of wolves endangers the wolves. Even in wolf country, you are still far more likely to be shot by a hunter than eaten by a wolfpack. Wolves are to be respected, not demonized.
I’m guessing all the real talent is sucked into the spy agencies and American consultancies. Poor small time military information warfare centres don’t get the best thinkers.
But still I could see some legal implications since it was used on potentially thousands of civilians. Rumours like that spread fast.
I’m not sure what their operation achieves. Citizens of a democracy and state of law will, of course, trust an official letter from a public government body and believe what it says. What’s the big surprise here? “If we send a letter with fake info but make it look like it was sent by the provincial wildlife dept, people will believe what it says. Hahaha what a bunch of idiots these citizens”
Especially that the wildlife department has so little incentive to lie when you think about it: what are they selling? I would have trusted that the letter contains true information myself without really questioning it.
It’s concerning this happened at all, but I don’t see the value of this “experiment”.
You're projecting a lot on others. There are a lot of people who given an official notice would read it and (depending on the contents) go "hahaha what a bunch of idiots these bureaucrats" and throw it in the trash.
And this is coming from someone who lives in a US state that is certainly in the top 10 for "blind deference to government".
Maybe it's not an experiment but training. You know you can do it, but your people need to be trained to be able to do it effectively. Of course, actually sending the letters out means the whole training thing has gone off the rails.
Wow that's sure embarassing. Aesop's boy couldn't afford half as many fake social media accounts as the Canadian Forces have and he yet he still got the job done.
'Halifax Rifles Reserve Unit' LOL! This is some guys's weekend beer fantasy. This would be a good Netflix comedy.
I think some commenters here are overstating the situation. This is not 'National Defense HQ' thinking 'hey let's try this out on the dumb plebes' - this is 'Bob' the 'Captain' in the Halifax Rifles but really a Restaurant Manager by day, who watches way too many History Channel war documentaries who decided to do his own training - or something along those lines. I don't know the truth but I would be shocked if this were approved from those above the reserve unit.
You have all been 'victims' of propaganda in the last few months with respect to COVID, it's happening in front of our eyes.
Propaganda is just heavy-handed PR used especially during times of crisis, and usually by civilian governments, not the military.
In fact - this military exercise really is more under the category of 'psy ops' or 'battlefield disinformation' rather than 'propaganda'.
The most classical forms of 'propaganda' would be the glorification to the point of misrepresentation of activities to ensure popular support and calm concerns back home during a war. So, the short-reels produced by the government and distributed to movie houses during WW2 would have been a form of propaganda. The classic 'Uncle Sam Wants YOU!' posters as well.
As for contemporary propaganda - right now, during COVID we are absolutely being subject to forms of propaganda particularly related to masks.
Do you remember at the start of the pandemic and they were saying don't wear masks?
And now everyone is shaming those that don't?
“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” - Dr. Fauci, March 8, 2020.
How on earth could we pull a 'moral 180' on some behaviour so quickly without really any new information?
"Why are you wearing that mask! Dr. Fauci said no!" ----> "Why are you not wearing a mask, spreader! Dr. Fauci said we need to wear masks!"
The line of reasoning was that masks were in deep shortage, and in the scenario it made more sense to get supplies to front line medical staff, and particularly to avoid people hoarding masks.
The effectiveness of masks was purposely downplayed to affect desired outcome of the population.
You were lied to point blank, or rather, the information you were given was completely misrepresented, on purpose. Note that Dr. Fauci's statement in March 2008 was not 'a lie' - it was in fact factual, just misrepresentative, or rather, it was a specific articulation of facts with some kind of objective in mind.
Take a moment of self awareness to grasp this implications of this, and that it was probably rational and necessary.
This is the tip of the iceberg, and government officials are concerned with this issue of communications on a daily basis. 'What you are being told' and how you are being 'messaged' is very much controlled, it's not just an information dump of transparency. What we want and need is for behaviour to adapt, not so much for people to be specifically informed, especially on issues that are not hugely practical like the details of r0. This is propaganda.
This is a pretty good example of what propaganda is because it demonstrates the moral ambiguity of 'truth, communication and outcomes'.
FYI I should note, I'm not against masks or even the current public communications (i.e. propaganda) measures being used there, rather, just illustrating this is absolutely propaganda, i.e. "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view."
> The line of reasoning was that masks were in deep shortage, and in the scenario it made more sense to get supplies to front line medical staff, and particularly to avoid people hoarding masks. The effectiveness of masks was purposely downplayed to affect desired outcome of the population.
No. The line of reasoning was there was a deep shortage and with the information they had at the time, they did not think that masks were necessary or useful for the average person. They didn’t lie and say masks don’t work, they said masks don’t work like people think they do and they didn’t believe it was necessary or productive to wear them. And masks don’t provide meaningful protection to the person wearing them. They provide meaningful protection to the people around the mask wearer. So going and getting a non-N95 to keep from getting covid, was and is wrong.
> “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” - Dr. Fauci, March 8, 2020…How on earth could we pull a 'moral 180' on some behaviour so quickly without really any new information?
This can’t possibly be serious. We have been learning new information about this completely novel virus every single week. It is a completely new virus we knew nothing about a year ago. That statement was made on March 8th, when there were a few thousand cases in the US. We had a very different understanding of the fatality rate, the R naught value of infection rates, the methods of transmissibility, the incubation period, the rate of asymptomatic cases. The list goes on.
> This is a pretty good example of what propaganda is because it demonstrates the moral ambiguity of 'truth, communication and outcomes'.
This is a terrible example because it relies completely on both hindsight bias that people knew then what we know now about a novel virus, and on a basic lack of understanding of how masks even work, failing to understand the statements made about them.
What was true about masks 9 months ago is true now. Wearing a non-N95 mask will do very little to protect you if you are exposed to Covid. Wearing a mask will drastically reduce you transmitting the virus to other people. The mask shouldn’t be seen as an individual prophylactic. The mask should be seen as a collective protection measure.
Your last paragraph is accurate but it's not 1) the sensible line that is being pushed via propaganda or fines, laws etc and 2) what the mask wearing population believe.
Social shaming and mass compliance needs exaggeration and propaganda. fear of the stick not think for yourself.
I was not arguing whether or not propaganda should be used. I was only debunking the conspiracy theory that propaganda was used in regards to mask wearing guidance during a rapidly evolving situation involving a novel virus.
First - even if my example is wrong (and I don't think it is) you're missing the point on what propaganda is and why it is used. COVID is just an anecdote.
Second - our understanding of Corona with respect to masks has not hugely changed to the point wherein that decision would have been otherwise 6 months ago.
1) We know what Coronaviruses are (remember SARS?)
2) Our medical staff have absolutely been wearing masks since day 1. Why? Because obviously we knew they helped in some manner.
3) Asian countries wear masks and have 'done well' very early in the game and have been begging us to mandate masks.
4) We obviously would err on the side of caution and worn masks were it not for the shortage.
The only thing that has really changed is the widespread availability of them.
So while I do think that 'perspective on masks' has moved a little bit on the policy-making front .... we still knew they could be effective.
If Dr. Fauci were being totally transparent 6 months ago in March, he would have said:
"Masks can possibly help, but not as much as you think, so wear one if you want, but don't believe that this will protect you to the point of taking other, risky behaviours"
But he didn't say that. He literally said:
"There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask".
Read that again:
"There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask".
That's a really, really powerful statement from the 'Nations Most Credible Doctor'. A mistake of enormous proportions, one that without the 'shortage caveat' would seem inexcusable, given the otherwise 'low opportunity cost' of asking people to wear them even if they were ineffective.
We knew masks could help, but we were more worried about shortages, that was the impetus for the public communications, as an example of 'propaganda'.
> First - even if my example is wrong (and I don't think it is) you're missing the point on what propaganda is and why it is used. COVID is just an anecdote.
No I’m not missing the point. I understand how propaganda works. Using something that is incorrect to make a point doesn’t make it not important that it was incorrect.
> Our medical staff have absolutely been wearing masks since day 1. Why? Because obviously we knew they helped in some manner.
Saying “trained personnel in a specific high risk environment do X, therefore X is helpful and appropriate in drastically different situations” is not good reasoning.
Race car drivers use 5 point harnesses and helmets. We know they help in those high speed crashes. But it wouldn’t being lying if the head of the National Highway Safety Administration said “There’s no reason to be going out and buying racing seats for your car. When you’re in the middle of the highway, wearing a harness might make people feel a little bit better and it might even protect better in a crash, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the straps and may wear them incorrectly.”.
> "Masks can possibly help, but not as much as you think, so wear one if you want, but don't believe that this will protect you to the point of taking other, risky behaviours" But he didn't say that. He literally said: "There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask".
You are literally cutting out everything he said that you just talked about being important and using a single sentence to try and completely twist the message. He said “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” His very next line acknowledges that it can provide some protection. That is not lying. That is not propaganda.
> Asian countries wear masks and have 'done well' very early in the game and have been begging us to mandate masks… We obviously would err on the side of caution and worn masks were it not for the shortage.
They have a culture of sick people or people that think they are sick wearing masks, which is how those masks provide protection. And they did better because of overall better management of the pandemic, of which mask wearing was a part. Lockdowns, quickly developing testing kits and aggressively testing, extensive tracing efforts, targeted quarantining, among other measures were how they did well. This report by the Center For Strategic & International Studies [1] written in April about the southeast Asian response doesn’t even list mask wear as one of the reasons for their early success.
< We knew masks could help, but we were more worried about shortages, that was the impetus for the public communications, as an example of 'propaganda'.
That is not what propaganda is. Propaganda is misleading people or outright lying to people to push an agenda. He never mislead people. He didn’t lie. He didn’t mislead. He never made false statements about how masks work. He never lied to hide that mask shortages were an issue. In what world is it wrong to say “we have a limited resource to deal with this problem. I advise people not to use this resource right now in a way that is largely ineffective so that we can use it in ways that are very effective”. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it is. That is the opposite of propaganda. That is the opposite of an “inexcusable mistake”. That is clearly laying out the situation and making a recommendation. How could it be clearer than.
1. We have a limited supply of masks
2. Masks are very effective at stopping the spread for healthcare workers
3. Masks are not very effective at stopping people from becoming infected out in the regular world
4. I advise people not use this resource in a wasteful and largely ineffective manner so we can have as much as possible to use in an effective manner.
5. We will continue to update this guidance as the situation changes. If mask levels increase, we may change the guidance. [2]
Propaganda is lying to the public to get a desired outcome. Guidance is advising the public what you believe is the best way to handle a situation based on all the evidence.
1) "“trained personnel in a specific high risk environment do X, therefore X is helpful and appropriate in drastically different situations” is not good reasoning."
The reasoning is fine - the point here is not to illustrate that medical usage is 'hard evidence' that others should use masks, rather, that we had some understanding of the situation.
2) "You are literally cutting out everything he said"
No, I 'literally' didn't and you're misrepresenting everything about this part of my comment.
First - I included that full quote in my OP.
Second - You're missing the theme of 'communications' here - Do you think that CNN's headline is going to make sure to contextualize every element of Dr. Fauci's exact phrasing? Possibly, but generally not, and words matter.
Words in propaganda, especially matter. In that statement, he was definitely advising against masks.
Third - it's all moot - he made similar statements during the same time. His exact and repeated statement on 60 minutes was "People should not be wearing masks." [1].
Fauci went on national TV and repeatedly asked Americans to not wear masks.
How much clearer can the man be?
There's no decontextualization here.
3) So the report from CSIS didn't mention mask wearing ...
... are you arguing that masks are 'not important' in combatting COVID?
So the people concerned about the shaming and forceful wearing of masks are not conspiracists?
This isn't helping your argument.
While you're right to point out 'there are a lot of factors in Asia' - the situation was fluid and ambiguous - and we know that they have a 'mask wearing culture' which clearly must be 'part of the overall solution', which would indicate that in the context of a pandemic that's about to kill masses of people - the mask wearing might be a good idea.
How could we possibly not err on the side of mask wearing?
Because: “We are concerned that the mass use of medical masks by the general population could exacerbate the shortage of these specialised masks for the people who need them most,” - WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Gheybresus
4) "use this resource right now in a way that is largely ineffective"
You're seriously contradicting yourself here.
Masking wearing is 'largely ineffective' during the explosion of a pandemic (?!?) while at this very moment Dr. Fauci literally wants to legally mandate mask wearing? [2]
If masks are 'effective now' then they would have been 'just as effective then'.
The science has not changed - what has changed is the availability and prioritization of masks.
5) Dr. Fauci and the WHO directly advised against masks full well knowing that there are material benefits, at the very same time they were publicly, acutely concerned about 'mask shortages'.
They were playing a very obvious game of 'wartime triage' in order to ensure the best possible outcome at the time, given priorities.
Their propagandistic communications strategy really quite obvious.
> Masking wearing is 'largely ineffective' during the explosion of a pandemic (?!?) while at this very moment Dr. Fauci literally wants to legally mandate mask wearing? [2] If masks are 'effective now' then they would have been 'just as effective then'.
This whole thing is actually a perfect example of the difficulty of scientific communication to a large audience. You need to communicate concise easy to understand guidance about complex topics. You asking “are masks effective” but that depends. The first is “effective at what task”, the second is “to what extent”, third is “in what situation”, fourth is “with what risks and tradeoffs”. I’ll be talking about the non-N95 masks unless specifically stated, to avoid any confusion.
Masks are not very effective at preventing an uninfected person from contracting Covid when in proximity to someone infected with Covid. The masks do not form a seal around the mouth and nose, allowing significant amounts of air around the mask when breathing in, as well as not being able to prevent being infected through the eyes. They do provide some protection, including possibly reducing the severity of the infection if contracted while wearing the mask, but that is not their primary benefit.
Mask are effective at preventing the spread from an infected person (either asymptomatic or symptomatic) to others. Breathing out directly into a mask allows the material to catch and trap the majority of the virus carrying condensation, and what gets out around or through the mask is slowed down significantly, allowing the droplets to be pulled down by gravity before traveling as significant distance (or fog up your glasses). Especially when combined with social distancing, this is very effective of prevent the spread of the virus. This is the masks primary benefit and is effective when there is large scale adoption, so that people that have the virus but do not know don’t unknowingly pass it. Its effectiveness comes as an aggregate effect similar to herd immunity, rather than an individual effect, since the vast majority of transmission comes from people unaware they are carriers.
Mask come with risks. People tend to touch their face more while wearing masks, and contracting the virus by touching your face is a primary infection mode. People tend to relax other more effective protection methods when wearing a mask, both unconsciously and due to a false belief in the protective capabilities of a mask.
So, in March we had a situation where we were running a shortage of masks. We had people wearing masks (either homemade or surgical) because they believed the mask provided good protection from contracting the virus, which is not true, and may cause people to engage in risky behavior that would put them and others at more risk. We also didn’t have enough masks to be used for their actual benefit of “herd immunity”. The assessment was that non sick people wearing masks was likely to put the individual at greater risk, and deplete the resource from places it was needed, without providing a medical benefit to the individual greater than the risks. In March, the average non sick person should not be wearing a mask.
Now, we have a situation where we do not have a shortage of masks. We have a situation where the public has been educated through awareness campaigns on how masks work, like the “My mask protects you. Your mask protects me.” campaign, so people are less likely to use the masks incorrectly and put themselves and others at greater risk. The assessment is that high compliance of mask wearing will have a greater positive effect through “herd immunity” to outweigh the risks and tradeoffs. But make no mistake, the risks are still there. Now the average non sick person should be wearing a mask.
If you don’t understand the underlying medical complexities of the situation, it seems like they can’t both be true. And when an expert organization is trying to provide a clear, short, easy to understand list of recommendations from analyzing and evaluating all those data, they can’t go into to a 45 min presentation every time. Dr. Fauci even tried to add context. He talked about how the masks don’t provide protection in the way people think they do, how it can cause people to put themselves at greater risk, both through a false sense of protection and other behaviors like face touching, and how masks protect you from infecting others, not the other way around. If you go back and look at his quotes at the time, he consistently tries to bring that additional context into it, but since it is a complex issue of competing risks and benefits, it’s hard to convey how masks can be good in some cases and bad in others.
> Dr. Fauci in March. “When we get in a situation where we have enough masks, I believe there will be some very serious consideration about more broadening this recommendation of using masks. We're not there yet, but I think we're close to coming to some determination. Because if, in fact, a person who may or may not be infected wants to prevent infecting someone else, one of the best ways to do that is with a mask, so perhaps that's the way to go.” [1]
> And of course his 60 Minutes interview. “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”
Also, “Canadian military tested propaganda mission on Canadians that went off the rails” could be read as the military were testing the propaganda on Canadians who as people were deemed to have “gone off the rails“. Also you can’t test a mission, you can only test an approach to achieving a mission.
How about “Snafus during in-country training exercise on propaganda techniques by Canadian military”? As close as I could get...
I was a bit cramped by the char limit, just tried to use as many words from the original article title/subtitle as possible while still retaining the original meaning
That would be "Canadians who went off the rails." It's silly to get this pedantic as long as the statement isn't misleading. The meaning is fairly clear here; even the "prey vs. pray" issue is unimportant. We all know what the author meant.
There was a unique shaped lake on the map. With access to GIS maps we found the actual location. It was very improbable, a tiny lake in a gigantic land area. We found all the wells in the area and who owned them. We found a town nearby.
Instead of a fictional study we went ahead and used real data, real examples, and we called real people in the town for their perspectives on the matter.
The O&G representatives judging our competition were nearly fired. They were terrified when they learned we talked to locals, and repeatedly asked if we mentioned O&G-CO’s brand name on the calls.