What about disinformation?

Diffused by Complexity Digest 2002.08 February-21-2002

The Pentagon is developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false
ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new effort to influence
public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly
countries, military officials said.

The plans, which have not received final approval from the Bush
administration, have stirred opposition among some Pentagon officials who
say they might undermine the credibility of information that is openly
distributed by the Defense Department's public affairs officers.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/international/19PENT.html>Pentagon
Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad, NYTimes, 02/02/18

Editor's Note: Disinformation has been a traditional element of warfare
with often unexpected outcomes as a result of the interactions of hostile
audiences (those who always claim that the released information is false)
and the friendly audiences (those who want to believe that the released
information is true). Simulations to estimate the effect of any piece of
released (dis)information onto a multi-cultural audience certainly have a
high degree of complexity.

of <http://www.comdig.org/ComDig02/ComDig02-07/index.htm#19.1>Complexity
Digest 2002.07

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Received on Fri Feb 22 14:27:44 2002