Monday, February 17, 2014

Fanning the flames

You know those paranoid folks that are always talking about how the government is keeping tabs on them?  I know a few and you probably do to.

So what do you do if you are in government and you think they are a real problem?

Well, you might suggest infiltrating their chat rooms and social media spaces, or even joining their groups in the real world.  Why would you do this?
Our principal claim here involves the potential value of cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, designed to introduce informational diversity into such groups and to expose indefensible conspiracy theories as such.
So wait, let me see if I have this right.  These groups believe that the government is out to get them, that the government may even be spying on them, and your solution, Mr. Sunnstein, is to infiltrate them?  Great.  We are going to infiltrate groups that believe the government is out to get them in order to prove to them that they are mistaken.

Hmmm.  What could possibly go wrong there?

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