Twitter has pushed the Pentagon’s war propaganda into the Middle East, and both will likely get away with it

The social media platform helped the US Department of Defense push its agenda through fake accounts

Reports continue to emerge that Twitter has knowingly become a conduit for America’s propaganda efforts abroad, serving only to create more violence and confusion. Unfortunately, the news was probably greeted with a collective yawn by the American corporate press and the American public.

A recent article by The Intercept details how Twitter has facilitated propaganda efforts by the U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, a division of the U.S. Department of Defense, through the use of fake accounts impersonating individuals, particularly in the Middle East and Middle East. field. These accounts were given special treatment by Twitter, giving them the same privileges as verified “blue tick” accounts, as described in The Intercept article. “It would provide several advantages, such as immunity to algorithmic bots that flag accounts as spam or abuse, as well as other warnings that result in reduced visibility or suspension.“And, of course, this happened at a time when Twitter was removing hundreds of accounts it believed to be associated with the Russian government and identifying other accounts.”Russian state media » even as with some of my friends like Fiorella Isabel, these stories were about what individuals wrote for themselves.

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An example of narration is givenpriority service” by Twitter was @yemencurrent (now deleted), among other things, “He emphasized that US drone strikes were “precise” and killed terrorists, not civilians, and encouraged an attack on the US- and Saudi-backed Houthi rebels. This whitewashing of the US-Saudi war on Yemen—a war that has received little coverage from the American press and is therefore hardly known to most Americans—is particularly infuriating given that it has been characterized by massive targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. . and with the US government’s failure to even properly estimate civilian casualties.

The U.S.’s own Government Accountability Office said in a restricted document provided to The New York Times in June that since the war began in 2015, “[t]The State Department and Defense Department have underestimated the use of American-made weapons in the civilian casualties and killings of the Saudi-led coalition’s disastrous war in Yemen. . . .” The NYT also reported earlier. “In August 2020, the State Department’s Inspector General released a report that found the department was failing to take adequate measures to reduce civilian casualties.” The result was more than 150,000 deaths, including nearly 15,000 civilians, making it one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in history.

However, Twitter has aided and abetted CENTCOM’s disinformation campaign through fake accounts claiming that civilians were not harmed in any way by US-made weapons — misleading claims about a war they’re funding US taxpayers and designed to prime the government for more aid. To this ungodly conflict, which President Biden has promised to stop funding.

According to The Intercept article, other fake CENTCOM accounts dominate Twitter “He paid attention to the promotion of the US-backed militias in Syria and anti-Iranian messages in Iraq.“Yet few Americans know that many of these militias are supported by the United States in Syria “moderate rebels” they themselves have committed terrible atrocities against peaceful people in this country. Fake Twitter accounts promoting these militias make this topic even darker.

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Closed “Anti-Iranian messages in Iraq” and elsewhere, The Intercept explains that some fake Twitter accounts are false, as previously reported by the Stanford Internet Observatory.It accuses Iran of “threatening the security of Iraq’s water supply and flooding the country with crystal meth,” while others make allegations that Iran harvests organs from Afghan refugees. Such propaganda serves a dual purpose: to inflame tension and conflict among Middle Eastern countries and to gain acceptance in the United States for a potential armed conflict between the United States and Iran.

In other words, Twitter assisted the US Department of Defense in war propaganda, which was defined as a crime at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II. If we had a fair and functioning international legal system, Twitter and Defense Department officials involved in such crimes would indeed be investigated. However, we do not have such a system. Therefore, once the American people learn of this type of misconduct from their own government and the social media companies they trust so much, it is incumbent upon them to hold them accountable. It is also up to Americans to finally understand that they have been constantly lied to when it comes to war and peace, and that they must refuse to acquiesce to our government’s traditional and social media-assisted wars. .