> There are instructions on how to control an internet forum, including tips on “consensus cracking”: using a fake persona to express the ideas you oppose in such a weak and unconvincing manner that you can then use another fake persona to knock them down.

Why does this necessitate the neologism "concensus cracking" rather than the well-established term "false flagging"?

Because that's not at all what a false flag is. A false flag is a manufactured pretext to attack i.e. a way to paint an attack as a defense. People who are actually doing these things probably need to be precise.

Well for one thing, as I understand it, it is a term the antagonizers use themselves to train each other.

But also, a false flag pins blame on someone else in order to change public opinion.

Cracking consensus is any disguised action and does not require blaming someone else. It can just be secretive actions like a mod removal where the removal is not apparent to the logged-in author, like on Reddit.

See: https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/

Thanks for the links. The panel seemed focused on the right problems. I found Peter's input underwhelming and not very on topic, though. I might check out his book if it has more specifics on less obvious online opinion control measures.

The book is great. Here three paragraphs I highlighted, from different sections. You can check if they resonate with you.

> And it’s not just conflicts or elections that are affected. I see people I have known my whole life slip away from me on social media, reposting conspiracies from sources I have never heard of, some sort of internet undercurrent pulling whole families apart, as if we never really knew each other, as if the algorithms know more about us than we do, as if we are becoming subsets of our own data, which is rearranging our relations and identities with its own logic, or in the cause of someone else’s interests we can’t even see.

> When she interviewed Al-Qaeda recruits and their families, what struck her was how normal their backgrounds were, how distant fundamentalist purity was for most of them. Bin Laden's trick had been to take the different grievances of different groups and give them the illusion that if they united globally, they would achieve a better world, if only they could get rid of unbelievers.

> Russia, with its social media squadrons, haunts these [social media network] maps. Not because it is the force that can still move earth and heaven as it could in the Cold War, but because the Kremlin's rulers are particularly adept at gaming elements of this new age, or at the very least are good at getting everyone to talk about how good they are, which could be the most important trick of all.

> Russia, with its social media squadrons... at the very least are good at getting everyone to talk about how good they are, which could be the most important trick of all.

A key use of propaganda is demoralisation. Sapping the enemy's resolve and sowing seeds of doubt. It's a long march. For years I've noticed certain voices in tech forums who are not merely fearful of the negative effects of some technologies against liberal democracy, they positively celebrate them.

"Liberal values are doomed." - they tell us. "The battle is already lost." Their relentless message is that authoritarian technology is inevitable. It's already ubiquitous. Privacy is an illusion we are better to give up on. The corporations are too powerful. Against state actors there is no point even trying to secure your digital world. Regardless your choice or morals, eventually everyone will be forced to fall into line... etc etc ad-nauseum.

I see this as a corrosive meta campaign by voices that have unwittingly been recruited as denouncers of liberal democracy. They sound like the mocking voice of Lord Haw-Haw or the German denouncer in Saving Private Ryan, calling;

"The Statue of Liberty ist Kaput!"

BTW: This looks like a very interesting book I may be buying. Thanks for posting these snippets.

From the excepts, I felt as if I would not learn something really new or find out about specific shady misinformation tricks I should watch out for. The vibe is generally similar to what Peter said at the panel.

I wonder whether things like these are more intuitively understood by someone who grew up in the shadow of USSR and is always on the lookout for misinformation and propaganda.

That said, it seems some parts of the book could help me clarify/support my own experiences and provide wider context and more examples.