Propaganda

by **Accer** Mon 02 Nov 2020, 12:26 pm

Canadian military wants to establish new
organization to use propaganda, other techniques
to influence Canadians

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Nov 02, 2020

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/canadian-military-to-establish-new-organization-to-use-propaganda-other-techniques-to-influence-canadians

by **Lockey** Fri 06 Nov 2020, 4:48 pm

10/3 podcast: The military's plan to use propaganda to influence behaviour of Canadians

Author of the article:Postmedia News
Publishing date:Nov 06, 2020

Propaganda 0613_attic_norman-e1595528428565

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/10-3-podcast-the-militarys-plan-to-use-propaganda-to-influence-behaviour-of-canadians

by Marshall Fri 13 Nov 2020, 10:13 am

Canadians shouldn’t be viewed as “targets” – Military initiative to aim propaganda at public is shut down

Nov 13. 2020

Propaganda Dnd-sign-screen-shot-2020-01-23-at-6-2020111308_large

https://www.saltwire.com/news/canada/canadians-shouldnt-be-viewed-as-targets-military-initiative-to-aim-propaganda-at-public-is-shut-down-519901/

by **Accer** Thu 24 Jun 2021, 7:48 pm

Military violated rules by collecting
information on Canadians, conducting
propaganda during pandemic: report

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Jun 24, 2021

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/military-violated-rules-by-collecting-information-on-canadians-conducting-propaganda-during-pandemic-report

by **Spider** Fri 25 Jun 2021, 9:55 am

Military campaign to influence public opinion continued after defence chief shut it down

Murray Brewster, Ashley Burke · CBC News · Posted: Jun 24, 2021

https://www.cbc.ca/news/SOMNIA-1.6079084

by **Forcell** Thu 15 Jul 2021, 11:47 am

Canadians should hear the plain truth from their armed forces says retired senior Public Affairs officer

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Jul 15, 2021

Defence Watch

by Caliber Thu 12 Aug 2021, 9:24 pm

Military propaganda exercise that caused panic about wolves on the loose "lacked oversight" - investigation finds

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Aug 12, 2021

Defence Watch

by Dolland Mon 27 Sep 2021, 8:11 am

Military leaders saw pandemic as unique opportunity to test propaganda techniques on Canadians, Forces report says

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Sep 27, 2021

Defence Watch

by Momenter Mon 11 Oct 2021, 10:27 am

Canadian military’s bungled propaganda campaigns should be a lesson across NATO

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date:Oct 11, 2021

Defence Watch

by Hunter Fri 18 Mar 2022, 5:56 am

Jewish groups condemn Latvian parade to honour Nazis, warn it could be used for Russian propaganda

The march to honour Latvia’s SS Legion has been a controversial annual event, but pandemic health restrictions forced the cancellation of the celebration for the past two years. Latvian TV reported it was back on this year with several hundred people participating in the parade in Riga on Wednesday.

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date:Mar 17, 2022

Jewish groups are condemning a parade in Latvia to celebrate members of Adolf Hitler’s SS, warning that the continued glorification of Nazis is not only wrong, but could also be used for Russian propaganda.

The march to honour Latvia’s SS Legion has been a controversial annual event, but pandemic health restrictions forced the cancellation of the celebration for the past two years. Latvian TV reported it was back on this year with several hundred people participating in the parade in Riga on Wednesday.

For decades, Jewish groups have condemned the celebration and what they say is Latvia’s continued glorification of those who supported Hitler or took part in the Holocaust. There were also concerns the parade would give Russian leader Vladimir Putin yet another example to drive home his propaganda message that NATO nations and Ukraine are home to Nazis. Putin has already claimed his military needed to invade Ukraine to “de-Nazify” that country.

Marvin Rotrand, a national director with B’nai Brith Canada, said Latvia continued to ignore calls for the parade to be shut down. “They are honouring a SS unit whose members were involved in atrocities,” Rotrand said. “This year, in particular, there is an amazing lack of understanding of the damage a march like this does to the unity of NATO and the nations standing for democracy.”

Over the years, eastern European nations have erected monuments to nationalistic leaders who fought the Soviet Union during the Second World War, but many of those same leaders were Nazi collaborators and some were active participants in the Holocaust. The Nazis also created SS units drawn from men in Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and Estonia.

Holocaust scholars and Jewish groups note the easiest way for eastern European governments to undercut Putin’s claims that they support Nazism would be to put a halt to such celebrations and to remove monuments to collaborators.

But Latvian officials have doubled down on praise for the SS and argue the members of the legion are heroes who fought the Russians and had nothing to do with the Holocaust.

In 2019, Latvian Defence Minister Artis Pabriks called the SS members “the pride of the Latvian people and of the state.” Pabriks also called out those who condemned the parade, adding, “It is our duty to honour these Latvian patriots from the depths of our soul.”

Canadian government and military officials refused to condemn Pabriks’ statements.

In early 2019, however, Global Affairs Canada denounced the annual March 16 parade. Amy Mills, a department spokesperson, said Canada was “strongly opposed to the glorification of Nazism and all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, intolerance and extremism. That is why we condemn the parade to commemorate the Latvian SS Brigade held in Latvia on March 16th.”

This year, Global Affairs Canada took a less strident approach. It did not mention Nazis, nor specifically denounce the parade. “Canada has consistently supported Latvia’s freedom and independence, and condemns those who would co-opt those sentiments to promote hatred, extremism, and division,” department spokesperson James Emmanuel Wanki noted in an email Thursday. “To our understanding, these events are neither sanctioned nor attended by the Latvian government.”

The Canadian Forces has around 540 troops in Latvia as part of a NATO mission. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently concluded a visit to Latvia and announced a further extension of the mission. His office noted “Canada and Latvia’s relationship is rooted in our shared values.”

The Latvian SS Legion consisted of hard-core Nazi collaborators who had taken part in the Holocaust as well as conscripts. Among the Legion’s officers was Viktors Arajs, the anti-Semite who liked to refer himself as “Arajs, the Latvian Jew-killer.”

Arajs once regaled guests at a dinner party in Riga with his views on the best method to kill Jewish babies, according to the book The Holocaust in Latvia. Arajs told his dinner party participants he would throw the children into the air and then shoot them. That way he avoided ricochets that might happen if he murdered the babies on the ground.

Latvian TV reported the government had increased the police presence at this year’s parade and there were no incidents. Government officials denied a request to allow a counter-protest by those opposed to Nazi glorification.

The Latvian government and its supporters allege those denouncing the parade have been duped by “Russian disinformation.” The right-wing Macdonald Laurier Institute in Ottawa, which has received funding from the Latvian defence ministry, has also claimed some news articles outlining Latvians’ participation in the Holocaust and support for Hitler “essentially parroted the Kremlin’s tailored narratives.”

But Jewish groups have raised concerns such statements are aimed at whitewashing the Holocaust.

Dovid Katz, editor of Defending History, a journal devoted to Holocaust studies and fighting Nazi glorification, said it was “utterly sad” the parade was back on in Riga. “That they would this year again be gifted the historic centre of the capital is a folly rife with poor judgment and even poorer ethics in an act of de-facto state facilitation of a pathetic worship of Hitlerism,” he said.

Defence Watch

by **Starman** Thu 19 Jan 2023, 11:31 am

Canadian military finances technology to collect social media data despite claims it was shutting down such efforts

Defence firms and other companies were given almost $10 million to develop new ways to analyze social media and sift through accounts.

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen
Published Jan 19, 2023

Six months after National Defence claimed it was shutting down efforts to collect social media data of Canadians, the military was back again developing new technology to accomplish such tasks.

Defence firms and other companies were given almost $10 million to develop new ways to analyze social media and sift through accounts.

In November 2020, National Defence claimed it shut down a controversial plan that would have allowed military public affairs officers to use propaganda to change attitudes and behaviours of Canadians as well as collect and analyze information from the public’s social media accounts. The Canadian Forces had already spent more than $1 million to train public affairs officers on behaviour modification techniques of the same sort used by the parent firm of Cambridge Analytica, the company implicated in a 2016 data-mining scandal to help Donald Trump’s election campaign.

After details of the initiative became public, then chief of the defence staff Gen. Jon Vance ordered the program shut down, noting that information warfare capabilities should only be available for overseas missions and public affairs officers had no role in targeting Canadians.

But members of the same public affairs team behind the propaganda initiative were once again conducting activities under then acting chief of the defence staff Gen. Wayne Eyre, according to documents obtained by this newspaper. A technology demonstration of new techniques to monitor and cull social media accounts, funded by National Defence, was held in May 2021.

National Defence, in a statement to this newspaper, noted the technology demonstration day was for innovators, science evaluators and program representatives. “Public affairs is not involved,” it added.

That claim isn’t true.

In a May 3, 2021 email to senior military public affairs staff, including Brig.-Gen. Rick Perreault and then Brig. Gen. Jay Janzen, it was pointed out that the public affairs branch was a driving force with defence scientists and researchers behind many of the social media monitoring projects. The money spent to finance the projects was handled through Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) and the office of the Assistant Deputy Minister for Science and Technology (ADM (S&T).

“We have been partnering with ADM (S&T) DRDC on many of these initiatives,” Lt. Col. Doug Allison pointed out in a message to the public affairs senior leadership.

“The concept reached out to private industry with some problem sets, and asked them to propose solutions. One of the problem sets was understanding and making sense of social media on any particular topic, and tools that would help focus on issue/topic.”

Three firms provided solutions. Allison noted that the new technology could be adopted across the federal government or in a particular sector. “This is an excellent opportunity to gain SA (situational awareness) on cutting edge technology,” he added.

The funding for the new technology came on the heels of a number of controversial propaganda initiatives. Canadian military leaders saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to test out new propaganda techniques on unsuspecting public, a 2021 internal Canadian Forces investigation into the initiatives concluded.

A military team monitored and collected information from people’s social media accounts in Ontario, claiming such data-mining was needed to help troops who were to work in long-term care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. That initiative involved collecting negative comments Ontarians made about Premier Doug Ford and the failure of his government to take care of the elderly and then forward those on to the Ontario government.

Data was also compiled on peaceful Black Lives Matter gatherings and BLM leaders, again supposedly to aid military commanders helping co-ordinate work in long-term care homes.

Military officers saw nothing wrong with such collection of data as it was already in the public domain on social media accounts. “This is really a learning opportunity for all of us and a chance to start getting information operations into our (CAF-DND) routine,” Rear Admiral Brian Santarpia later told investigators.

When Eyre was army commander, the service held an exercise in September 2020 where military information operations staff forged a letter from the Nova Scotia government warning about wolves on the loose in a particular region of the province. The plan was to test techniques on how to influence local populations. But the letter was inadvertently distributed to residents, prompting panicked calls to Nova Scotia officials who were unaware the military was behind the deception.

The new public affairs strategy would have seen staff move from traditional government methods of communicating with the public to a more aggressive methods of using information warfare and influence tactics on Canadians. Included among those tactics was the use of friendly defence analysts and retired generals to push military PR messages and to criticize on social media those who raised questions about military spending and lack of accountability.

A number of military public affairs officers embraced the initiative, viewing themselves as information warriors and the Canadian public as targets to manipulate. Some openly referred to the news media as the enemy.

But retired senior public affairs officers repeatedly warned the initiative was a recipe for disaster and could do serious harm to the military’s reputation.

Janzen who was leading the initiative — later described as weaponizing public affairs — said at the time the military was “on the leading edge, and we were exploring uncharted territory. Innovation is sometimes prone to being misunderstood.”

Janzen left the Canadian Forces and is now a communications director at NATO headquarters.

It is unclear why National Defence officials tried to mislead this newspaper with its false claim public affairs branch was not involved in the technology initiatives.

But documents obtained under the Access to Information law show that the public affairs branch originally tried to limit reporting by this newspaper on some of the controversial propaganda initiatives.

In one email, Lt. Col. Andre Salloum, citing discussions with then Brig. Gen. Janzen, noted that direction had come from Sajjan’s office as well as the office of Deputy Minister Jody Thomas to limit the information to be provided to this newspaper.

The public affairs staff and Sajjan’s office were particularly worried about any references to a document which outlined how the military could take advantage of the pandemic to test new propaganda techniques on Canadians. This newspaper eventually obtained that document and reported on it.

Defence Watch

by Caliber Thu 11 May 2023, 11:37 am

Documents related to Canadian Forces propaganda program have disappeared — investigation is under way

“We do not currently have access to these documents.”

David Pugliese • Ottawa Citizen

Published May 11, 2023

Documents related to a controversial military propaganda program designed to influence and change the behaviour of the Canadian public have disappeared.

The Canadian Forces spent $1.2 million on behaviour modification training used by the parent firm of Cambridge Analytica, the company that was the centre of a scandal in which personal data of Facebook users was provided to U.S. President Donald Trump’s political campaign.

At the time, the Canadian Forces justified the cost in 2019 and 2020 to train 40 military and civilian public-affairs staff by pointing out that the fee also covered the purchase of the rights to the courseware, production of various reports and a test scenario of the behaviour modification techniques.

But National Defence now admits the detailed course curriculum, progress reports and a live case study conducted by Canadian Forces personnel using the behaviour modification techniques can’t be found. “We do not currently have access to these documents,” spokesperson Dan Le Bouthillier confirmed.

Details about the two contracts to a company called Emic Consulting were revealed in October 2020 in a report by Emma Briant, a Fellow at Bard College in the United States and a specialist in researching military propaganda.

Briant noted the training the Canadian military staff received was a direct descendent of SCL Group’s “behavioural dynamics methodology,” which promises to help military clients analyze and profile groups to find the best strategy to effectively influence a target audience’s behaviour.

SCL, a strategic communications firm, had been linked to propaganda campaigns used by various militaries, having drawn on psychological and social science research to distill techniques aimed at manipulating group behaviour. Its subsidiary, Cambridge Analytica, was at the centre of a scandal where personal data of more than 30 million Facebook users was obtained and later provided to Republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for their 2016 political campaigns.

The contract to Emic came at a time when the Canadian Forces was ramping up its skills in “influence operations,” propaganda and data mining for campaigns that could be directed at either overseas populations or Canadians.

This newspaper produced a series of reports detailing how information was culled by the Canadian Forces from social-media accounts of members of the public in Ontario and data was compiled on peaceful Black Lives Matter gatherings. Military commanders also proceeded with a plan to use propaganda techniques employed during the Afghanistan war, claiming that was needed to head off civil disobedience by Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, there was a September 2020 incident where military personnel forged a letter from the Nova Scotia government warning about wolves on the loose in a particular region. The letter, part of a military test of propaganda techniques, was inadvertently distributed to residents, prompting panicked calls to Nova Scotia officials who were unaware the Canadian Army was behind the deception.

A series of internal investigations in 2021 concluded that military commanders violated federal rules and acted without authority when they ordered intelligence teams to collect information on the public and to use propaganda techniques against Canadians. “Errors conducted during domestic operations and training, and sometimes insular mindsets at various echelons, have eroded public confidence in the institution,” noted a June 9, 2021, document signed by then acting Chief of the Defence Staff Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre and then Deputy Minister Jody Thomas.

Eyre, later promoted to full-time defence chief, was head of the army when its members launched the wolves propaganda initiative.

The Emic contract was part of a shift at National Defence headquarters to embrace “the weaponization of public affairs.” The department noted in 2020 the Emic training would help military public affairs staff “better identify and understand key audiences” so they could create communications campaigns that “are more customized and beneficial.” Staff were also taught strategic campaign planning and “audience research,” according to National Defence.

Le Bouthillier said the department contacted Emic officials to see if the firm had some of the records, but it had received no reply.

At least two complaints have been filed about issues relating to the Emic contract.

In April 2021, a Canadian Forces members filed documents with the department’s Assistant Deputy Minister of Review Services raising eight concerns related to the contract, including whether value for money was received. The department’s Assistant Deputy Minister for Review Services looked into the matter, but did not launch an investigation, National Defence confirmed.

The Information Commissioner of Canada is also investigating. It was launched after National Defence responded to an access to information request from the Canada Files website requesting the curriculum, progress reports and the live case study. The Canada Files, which describes itself as a socialist platform conducting investigations and analysis into Canada’s foreign policy and the military-industrial complex, was informed no records could be found. The Canada Files submitted a complaint to Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard and the investigation started in 2022.

Emic’s director, Gaby van den Berg, did not respond to a request for comment.

But she had previously noted to this newspaper that her company used science-based techniques to help NATO militaries and promotes ethical behaviour in its courses. Emic has no relationship with SCL and she has no professional interest or experience in election campaigning, Van den Berg added.

“As a company. we do not teach anything related to complex data analytics or ‘big data’; anything to do with the use of social media tools to ‘target’ communications campaigns (micro-targetting); nor anything that endorses or supports the use of deceptive or untrue communications,” Van den Berg stated.

Van den Berg said a military officer conducted ethics training during the Canadian course and her firm also had an ethics component to its training. “Ultimately — as with all knowledge, skills or equipment — the ethics of how something is employed lies in the hands of the user, or in this case the DND,” she added.

David Pugliese is an award-winning journalist covering Canadian Forces and military issues in Canada. To support his work, subscribe: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe

Defence Watch

by JAFO Thu 11 May 2023, 12:39 pm

Isn't it cute when they use the term 'disappeared' instead of the proper terminology in the military...

Here's a hint 'shred & burn'

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