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"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night.
I don't think it's any secret that intelligence agencies the world over have begun infiltrating message boards and comment sections in order to spread propaganda and shape public discourse. This of course also happens with other political and corporate groups, but intelligence agents often act as provocateurs, polarizing people and inciting them to post increasingly inflammatory content. Entire plots have been stirred up by intelligence agencies (see the "kidnapping plot" toward Gretchen Whitmer dreamed up by the FBI recently for example).
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/german-domestic-intelligence-running-100s-fake-right-wing-extremist-social-media
This post on Zerohedge discusses intelligence agencies in Germany posting incendiary right-wing content, presumably in order to keep tabs on potential violent actors or extremists. In the process, many of them are likely posting original incendiary content themselves.
In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Mother Night, the main character, who considers himself apolitical, is drawn into an intelligence operation where he becomes a major propagandist for the Third Reich. He is passing information to his American handlers in coded messages. In the process, however, he is contributing mightily to the propaganda arm of the Reich and inspiring the Nazis. This trailer from the movie, which was inferior to the novel in many ways, does serve to illustrate the point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYbXUWw61ug&ab_channel=RottenTomatoesClassicTrailers
As government agents "fight" extremism and the radical wings of their political foes, they'd do well to keep in mind that, for all intents and purposes, they are what they are portraying themselves to be. Another quote that seems apropos to me is by Nietzsche, who famously said "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster."
I don't think it's any secret that intelligence agencies the world over have begun infiltrating message boards and comment sections in order to spread propaganda and shape public discourse. This of course also happens with other political and corporate groups, but intelligence agents often act as provocateurs, polarizing people and inciting them to post increasingly inflammatory content. Entire plots have been stirred up by intelligence agencies (see the "kidnapping plot" toward Gretchen Whitmer dreamed up by the FBI recently for example).
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/german-domestic-intelligence-running-100s-fake-right-wing-extremist-social-media
This post on Zerohedge discusses intelligence agencies in Germany posting incendiary right-wing content, presumably in order to keep tabs on potential violent actors or extremists. In the process, many of them are likely posting original incendiary content themselves.
In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Mother Night, the main character, who considers himself apolitical, is drawn into an intelligence operation where he becomes a major propagandist for the Third Reich. He is passing information to his American handlers in coded messages. In the process, however, he is contributing mightily to the propaganda arm of the Reich and inspiring the Nazis. This trailer from the movie, which was inferior to the novel in many ways, does serve to illustrate the point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYbXUWw61ug&ab_channel=RottenTomatoesClassicTrailers
As government agents "fight" extremism and the radical wings of their political foes, they'd do well to keep in mind that, for all intents and purposes, they are what they are portraying themselves to be. Another quote that seems apropos to me is by Nietzsche, who famously said "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster."