Yuru Bezmenov bestowed a gift to America. In 1984, long before the rise of the internet as we know it today, he introduced to the west methods to destabilize a nation using Ideological subversion. As a former Soviet journalist, former KGB informant, part of his role was to spread disinformation to foreign countries to advance Soviet propaganda. Once he was able to defect to the west, Bezemenov provided significant insight into techniques employed that have eerily foreshadowed our current state of unrest, rising authoritarianism, and a civil society at odds with each other. As he describes,
“This is psychological warfare… Ideological subversion means changing the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country…
The highest art of warfare is not to fight at all. It is inefficient and idiotic – but to subvert anything of value of your enemy after such time that the perception of reality of your enemy is so screwed up that he does not perceive you as an enemy and your civilization, your system, your values are looked to as an alternative – not desirable, but at least, visible.”
The act of subversion is not illegal. As Bezmenov states it can be done by anyone – a student, an artist, an actor, or a neighbor. Subversion can only be successful if the receiving party is willing to be subverted. This can take considerable time and effort. He described 4 stages used by the KGB to gradually overthrow the US political system.
“When you’re not sure what’s right or wrong, evil and good, demoralization is justified. Violence is not justified but we can be led to believe it.”
The initial stage of demoralization in non-digital terms may take 15-20 years. When a population accepts a society of established religion, power structure, laws and their way of life, it is futile to attempt to weaken their resolve. This is far easier to employ in education, to cultivate a generation of students in shaping their personalities or their outlook at a time when these things are still in formation. The internet has been the stimulus to accelerate this stage by not only reaching discrete groups, but also to spread their propaganda more widely. The death of George Floyd, and Coronavirus have become the catalysts that have allowed all of us to pay more attention to embedded injustices, and the misinformation that has arisen in a time of self-isolation.
In forums like City-Data, with over 2 million members and 15,000 new posts per day, there are references to misinformation such as the number of deaths of Black men at the hands of police.
Stats like these have been circulated widely on Reddit and on Twitter without valid reference. City-Data has been known to have right wing and racist viewpoints. Site reviewers have claimed extreme bias with incidences of censorship or outright banning if opinion or evidence is presented to the contrary.
It’s these type of posts that materialize into the mainstream and continue to bolster fringe thinking. The influence of right-wing conservative outlets like Fox news had been able to misinform their viewers in the early days of the pandemic to discourage “protective behavior and worsened the severity of the outbreak”. In early June, the same network altered images of a Seattle protest that gave a chilling perception of a burning city marked by anarchy. The images were eventually taken down and an apology issued.
These belief systems continue to cultivate conspiracy theories within social platforms. While many of these fringe groups are fragmented, their opinions and sheer force have been surging and their spillover from Facebook, Youtube and Reddit, and are now being validated in the mainstream. The conspiracy against ANTIFA following the death of George Floyd perpetuated by right-wing news media to conflate peaceful protests with violent activity, with over 75% of the almost 27 million Antifa-related content between end of May – Jun 7 were sourced from right-leaning publications.
Sasha Baron Cohen’s recent stunt to expose a conservative racist rally signified a system that has been broken. He acknowledged that the Truth will NOT set us free. Common among ongoing hashtags #GeorgeFloyd #Covid-19 #BLM #mediamanipulation is what Baron Cohen coins,
“…an era of evidentiary argument [that’s] ending” with “knowledge constantly delegitimized and scientific consensus dismissed. Democracy, based on shared truth is in retreat and autocracy, which depends on shared lies, is on the rise.”
We are on the cusp of destabilization, Bezmenov’s 2nd stage to capsize the a political system:
“Destabilization: You don’t have to send a battalion of agents to blow up bridges; you let them do it themselves.”
According to Hypervisible:
“The “digital” in polarization has brought out from the shadows and made more visible what has long been seen, and believed in smaller internet chambers.”
The intention to deceive the public by condemning ANTIFA for the violence which occurred during the protests, very quickly exposed the Boogaloo movement. Bellingcat’s extensive research into “Boogaloo Bois” reveals a movement that tends to lean right or “fringe Libertarian”, declaring themselves anti-government and anti-law enforcement. An ex-military contingent, Boogaloo’s attempt to surreptitiously join the anti-lock-down protests to feign support, instead uncovered a faction, which origins have been traced to 4chan, fiercely guarding their constitutional right to bear arms, with the intention to instigate more pervasive violence across American cities.
Earlier this spring, a new report from Graphika, a technology research company focusing on investigating disinformation campaigns, released a report that exposed an ongoing Russian operation, activated as early as 2014, the same time Russia annexed Crimea. The campaign, called Secondary Infektion, sought to sow Russian propaganda campaigns against its critics. What Graphika discovered were “2,500 pieces of content distributed across six years, seven languages and more than 300 platforms and web forums… in Pakistan and Australia.” Among its campaigns included “Ukraine as a failed state”, “Muslims as aggressive invaders”, “Europe as weak and divided”. Despite its extensive reach, Graphika reached a conclusion that the initiative, in the end, was ineffective in advancing the political agenda. Full details of the report here.
The lack of cohesive information between the US administration and state officials has allowed misinformation to linger and thrive in fragments among the social platforms. Facebook has been a main enabler. In 2018, a former Facebook employee had this to say:
“One of the things that I saw consistently as part of my job was the company just continuously prioritized user growth and making money over protecting users… Making you angry, making you afraid is really good for Facebook’s business… What people don’t know about or see about Facebook is that polarization is built into the business model… Polarization is profitable.”
The #stophateforprofit campaign has elevated advertisers and the public’s stance that social networks must bear responsibility and accountability for the propaganda and digital polarization that is clearly dividing a nation.The national polarization has not yet lay claim to an imminent third stage:
“Crisis: When legitimate bodies of power, social structure collapse cannot function anymore so artificulture structures are injected claiming power.”
Perhaps Democracy is fighting back. The stage of demoralization and destabilization have also reinstated equal and opposing strength from a public, fighting for truth. The same methods to destroy our established beliefs has been met with just fervor in surfacing the unfairness in these long-standing systems. The death of George Floyd sparked an already growing #BlackLivesMatter movement into a national and international crusade. It’s this moment that has made more visible what has long been the presence of injustices and racial biases embedded in our financial systems, our education, law enforcement, and now, social media – biases and data misuse, quietly, over time, validated into convention.
Popular Information’s exposure into Facebook’s profiteering from prominent right wing sites like The Daily Wire’s user engagement revealed a troubling relationship that has explained their success on Facebook.
“While the New York Times published 15,587 articles in May, and the Washington Post published 8,048, The Daily Wire published just 1,141. On a per article basis, The Daily Wire receives more distribution than any other major publisher.”
“Popular Information has discovered a network of large Facebook pages — each built by exploiting racial bias, religious bigotry, and violence — that systematically promote content from The Daily Wire. These pages, some of which have over 2 million followers… all post content from The Daily Wire ten or more times each day… and share the exact same content from The Daily Wire at the exact same time. “
The resulting #stophateforprofit campaign that has left Facebook’s main revenue stream vulnerable is forcing this tech giant to re-evaluate its policies at the expense of its users. Reddit, Twitch, and Youtube are following Twitter’s lead and cracking down on far-right pro-Trump accounts to quell the spread of misinformation and avert the path into full-blown crisis.
And, an unlikely influence, K-pop, a South Korean music group has provoked some unbridled activism to help “defuse racist hashtags”, promote Black Lives Matter (BLM) and thwart a conservative political rally in the process. Their fandom have ”mastered the power of social media manipulation and (mis)information via their intensely intimate relationships with their beloved idols, and have a long history of utilizing their platforms in the service of social justice.”
It’s this convergence of polarizations that has brought us to this critical juncture that will ultimately test the will of the American people and the free world. We have not succumbed to these fringe beliefs nor embraced this authoritarian mindset veiled as an attempt to deliver us, and unite us.
The final stage of Normalization is the stabilization resulting from the success of the previous stages. “The beliefs and the rules appointed by this new system requires no radicalization nor revolution. “
Yuri Bezmenov advised,
“If the society is strong, brave and conscientious enough to stop importation of ideas that are foreign then the entire chain of events can be prevented.”
What we’ve come to embrace in the few short months is a prescription of the strength of humans as moral agents. A pandemic has tested our resolve and has allowed us to question the political and social dichotomies that weaken us collectively. The November election 2020 will be the true test. When we emerge from this pandemic, what we’ve learned and what we do differently will determine whether Russia has indeed succeeded in toppling this democracy.
