Psychological Operations in the Cyber Age — 2
Greetings to all,
In the second article of our series, I will talk about the method of psychological operations by examining real-life examples. While doing this, I will take care to choose examples from the cyber world as per our topic.
The news of a puppy whose limb was amputated in Sapanca
In 2018, a puppy was found in Sapanca with its legs amputated, and then died shortly after being treated. What happened to the puppy, of which only this sad photo remained, aroused great anger in the society and the incident went viral for a while.
Meanwhile, as the investigation into the incident continues, the video below started to circulate on social media. The video was watched by 35 thousand people only on Facebook in a very short time and its source is still unknown today. Various news sites and celebrities also contributed to the spread of this video.
The claim accompanying the video was interesting. It was claimed that the two Syrian children in the video were responsible for this incident. In the video, a black puppy was indeed being tortured by some children with a sickle.
Subsequently, statements about the video came from Teyit.org and the Turkish Police. It turned out that the video was shared on a Facebook page two years before the Sapanca incident and was actually recorded in Jordan.
The incident we mentioned above is just one of the disinformation about Syrian refugees. But this case has important differences from the others. Let’s briefly analyse it.
- The origin of the claim is unclear. It has not been put forward by any real person or institution. Hence it is anonymous. With this feature, the claim should be classified as Gray Propaganda.
- The content of the video is very close to the context of the event that took place in Sapanca. The fact that such a video was found and served very soon after the incident may indicate that there is an important financial support behind this.
- Shortly after the claim was made, it was shared by various news sites, celebrities and public figures. This situation can be considered as supporting the second item.
- An event that was in the heart of the whole society at that time is being exploited with a baseless claim. It is clear that the feeling of anger arising from the event in the society is intended to be directed. As you can remember from the first article, the use of emotion and agitation as opposed to persuasion and argumentation makes this event closer to the ‘PsyOps’ end of the spectrum.
Covert actions such as psychological operations try to achieve their goals indirectly. Therefore, when examining such activities, it is necessary to consider their second and third-order effects, instead of its direct effects. In this context, it’s more useful to cluster similar cases and analyse them together.
Consider the anti-refugee disinformation. First observable effect is the feelings of anger and hatred aroused in the public. A long-term second-order effect may be to make people move away from political parties that pursue pro-refugee policies. If there is planned disinformation, second- and third-order effects can provide us with an idea of the actor’s possible intentions.
However, it is necessary to know that; Since 2nd and 3rd degree effects of PsyOps can be observed in a very long term, the analyses to be made cannot go beyond assumptions.
In addition, the analysis itself is based on the assumption that the disinformation is indeed a planned one. However, it is impossible to know whether something shared in the internet is planned or unplanned. This slippery ground creates a very fertile environment for state and non-state actors to influence public opinion in line with their own interests. On the other hand, it makes it very difficult to fight such activities.
See you in my next article.
