AIDing the Crisis

There’s a rule of thumb for spreading disinformation: Use eighty percent truth with twenty percent falsehood. Then, others will latch on to the alleged idea, amplify the accusation, and add or create additional false information. Over time, that twenty percent lie becomes the main topic, which means that everything true isn’t even discussed, and it is one-hundred percent false, and verified by the fact that some of the information before was true. Remember that whisper game we all played in grade school whereby a sentence was relayed around the room? By the time it went through everybody, it became a different sentence. The sentence was true when it originally started, then only bits of it were relayed correctly, and some students would purposely insert something made-up so that it would be even funnier. We’ve been practicing the art of being influence agents since we were in elementary! With all this contradicting information comes a great deal of uncertainty. Uncertainty creates fear, and fear creates paranoia, which is accompanied by violence, riots, emotions, etc. This makes the U.S. citizens look weak, and the government looks weak right along with them. All of a sudden, you have a world power that looks like it can’t handle anything = Successful disinformation campaign. The Soviet Union used AIDS as a disinformation campaign in the 1980s. Watch how it works (Maybe this relates to today…an unknown disease). Early on with AIDS, the researchers did not know much about it. Dr. David Spencer, New York City’s health commissioner said, “It’s unfortunate we don’t have anything positive to recommend to people at the present time, we just don’t know.” Every week, a new theory was coming out as to how AIDS was spreading and why. Sound familiar? Here we notice that some uncertainty already exists. 

Then, a theory emerged from America’s gay rights community. The theory was that the government had funded and weaponized AIDS. The editor of a gay periodical called “Fag Rag”, Charley Shively, wrote that there was evidence that the CIA introduced the disease and that there was “a frightening likelihood that AIDS has been funded all along by the federal government.” Soon there was marching in the streets and the CDC was counting infections/deaths that were a product of this unknown disease, even though it had very little research on it. The fear of AIDS had spread much faster than the actual disease. Perfect time for a little disinformation game.

Insert an Indian newspaper titled “Patriot.” On July 16, 1983, the headline read, “AIDS may invade India: mystery disease caused by U.S. lab experiments.” The article mixed together mostly true information but added false information, this slowly convinced the reader that what they were reading was all true. It rightly noted that some countries stopped taking blood donations from the U.S. and that others were considering the same action. The article also mentioned that it is believed to be the result of the Pentagon’s experiments in new biological and chemical weapons.

As it turns out, the Indian newspaper, with a circulation of around 35,000 people, was funded by the Soviet Union. The very purpose of this was to submit and circulate stories that put the Soviet’s in a good light while publishing disinformation. Soon, the KGB (Russian Intelligence) made statements referencing the Patriot article and suggesting the disease was made for certain groups (homosexuals, Latinos, drug addicts, etc.). This soon kicked off the disinformation as other countries pointed to the CIA as creating a new biological weapon used for targeted assassinations. Jakob Segal, retired director of the Institute of General Biology at Humboldt University, helped create a booklet that was handed-out at a summit in Zimbabwe. Segal, a member of the Soviet Communist Party, was a great influence agent who was able to spread disinformation about the U.S. throughout Africa.

The narrative was picked up in Germany, the UK, Italy, and many other places. It spread so much that Dan Rather read a Soviet Military Publication to 15 million people on the CBS Evening News: “A Soviet military publication claims the virus that causes AIDS leaked from a U.S. Army laboratory conducting experiments in biological warfare. The article offers no hard evidence, but claims to be reporting the conclusions of unnamed scientists in the United States, Britain, and East Germany. Last October, a Soviet newspaper alleged that the AIDS virus may have been the result of Pentagon or CIA experiments.” Here we are in the middle of the Cold War, and one of the largest news sources in the U.S. was openly reading from our enemy’s military letter. (Does that read as ridiculously as it sounds in my head?)

Later, in 1992, the head of Russian foreign intelligence, Yevgeny Primakov, confirmed that the KGB executed the successful AIDS disinformation campaign. He stated that the goal was to distract the world from Russia’s own use of chemical weapons. Starting with a few lies sprinkled into a majority of truths, the Soviets successfully made the U.S. government the primary suspect in creating AIDS.

With the evolution of technology, social media, blogs, podcasts, YouTube, CGI, Photoshop and virtually every possible way of spreading anything, pulling off a disinformation campaign is much easier in today’s world. With more outlets and more people clinging to feelings, the information is spread much faster. This means that we are manipulated by more and at a much faster rate – we are in a constant state of receiving misinformation. And we are also the spreaders of this information because we share anything that allies with our thoughts. Much as Jakob Segal was an influence agent, we have all now become influence agents.

What should we believe? Why should we believe that? Well, if you do not know much about what you’re talking about, you’re the easy target. You’re also the person who probably shares something without even reading the whole thing or, most likely, you share it after only reading a title that goes with what you believe. And that is irresponsible. 

Ready for one more awesome example? A group of academics wrote what was billed as a pro-feminist scholarly article to be included in a pro-feminist journal. It was then published…but apparently not read thoroughly. See, the group wrote hoax articles that focused on social grievances such as race, gender, etc. Licking at the chops for any information that goes with their ideology, the journal actually ended up publishing 3,600 words from “Mein Kampf,” by Adolf Hitler. The section of Mein Kampf that was included was one that explained the reason why the Nazi party is needed. You can’t even make this stuff up. So, if you really don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t share stories about it. I don’t write about fashion because I don’t know anything about it. I have opinions about it, but they don’t mean anything so I just keep my mouth shut. I have studied disinformation for many years, but I will admit that I still have a lot to learn. Let’s not be unwitting agents of influence for some operation. AKA: stay in your lane!