To properly control information, one must be able to (1) stop unwanted content or speech, which is the purpose of content moderation or censorship software and some CounterSpeech techniques. One also must be able to (2) force or emphasize wanted content or speech on a population, which is accomplished in modern times by the Redirect Method software and some CounterSpeech techniques. This essay covers the Redirect Method, though the organizations involved in (1) stopping unwanted content or speech are also involved in (2) forcing or emphasizing wanted content or speech.
Hi-Tech Propaganda & Information Control
This article focuses on ad feed and/or search result manipulation, otherwise known as the Redirect Method. The Redirect Method
1. tracks users
2. profiles them based on their searches, link clicks, and data history
3. categorizes them into special “cohorts”
4. tailors the ad feeds of these users.
The think tanks that refer to themselves as counter-violent extremists (CVEs) are responsible for developing this technique. By “searches,” I am referring to a broader application than merely general search platforms like Google and Bing. Facebook and Twitter have search functions, and indeed, the Redirect Method is now built into these platforms. The CVE community is comprised of software developers and extremist “researchers.” The London-based Moonshot and Google’s special division, Jigsaw, are the principal authorities in the CVE community, though there are many others. With their origins in the War on Terror, the CVE community has largely shifted its attention from Islamic terrorism overseas to far-right extremism at home. Unfortunately, their new mission is built on a lie – a convenient narrative that neatly markets the four products produced by the CVE community – censorship, shadow ban software, ad feed manipulation [the topic of this article], and CounterSpeech initiatives.
The first step (tracking) in the process only works because the tech platforms store sensitive data on their users indefinitely – the first sin goes to the platforms. Also, this step works because the CVE software tracks users in real-time – the second sin goes to the CVEs. The profiling and sorting of users into CVE-defined “cohorts” is obviously another sin of the CVEs, but of course, the tech platforms agreed to it all by hosting the method. Obviously, the questionable “ad results” that show up in the last step of the Redirect Method involve a third set of organizations that are neither CVEs nor tech platforms. This third group of organizations is chosen by the CVEs to indoctrinate users flagged by the program. The “ad results” are often sources of groupthink and appeals to authority. They themselves are extremist organizations that target the mentally ill, children as young as seven years old. They teach people to simply trust in authority and not to participate in discussion.
The tech platforms are more than happy to host the CVE products because the narrative serves the tech platforms’ economic agenda, which is to expand their influence across all networks and crush those extremist-infested start-ups.
That is just the private sector. The security state agencies have an interest in network and information control as well. The three-letter agencies and the White House are not above funding and providing protection for the private sector CVE organizations, even if the CVE community’s narrative about far-right extremism is highly unscientific, harmful to the at-risk, and misleading altogether. This is quite a national scandal and proves that the dominant tech platforms at least exhibit traits of the de jure monopoly, meaning these corporations are privileged and have more rights than citizens and their competition. In short, the state and the state’s chosen corporations are colluding to govern; but this is a topic of another article.
The “Ads” and “Search” Results
The CVE community works with groups disguised as psychology researchers who are, in fact, highly ignorant of the field. In addition to fake psychology, the CVE community also works with fake sociology, fake criminology, and fake mental health organizations. Some of these organizations offer critical race theory courses and other far-left propaganda. As previously stated, some even tailor courses to children as young as seven years old. This is the type of content that the CVE community redirects internet traffic to via the Redirect Method.
Before a reader continues, consider reading ARKA’s summary of critical race theory, from the theory’s own sources,[1-4] and other criticisms of the theory.5 From CRT to a dogmatic trust in institutional media, the CVE community, and their favorite partners are undoubtedly biased towards the left, often the far-left.[7-12]
The Institute For Strategic Dialogue (ISD)
ISD, a favorite reference of the leftist think-tank CVE community, released their data collection[13] of social media posts that were critical of both the Black Lives Matter movement and voting systems in America. The collection of data took place from 28 August 2020 to 25 September 2020 and is frequently used by the institute and its allies in the CVE and intelligence communities to further their agendas. The validity of the claims in these posts were not considered in the article. As an example, any user on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and 4chan that characterized the BLM movement as ‘rioters’ was taken as a data point for extremism. This, despite the BLM movement causing two billion dollars in damage in just a two-week period.[12]14] Furthermore, any posts or comments that were critical of voting security in America or recent changes to voting systems were included in the data. Detailed analysis of the criticisms were completely neglected, and extremism was implied across these benign criteria.
ConnectFutures
ConnectFutures worked with tech platforms and the CVE community to redirect traffic to a propaganda page on Facebook.[9] We learned about ConnectFutures through a study produced by/for the CVE community where the Redirect Method and other CVE techniques were reviewed for their effectiveness in deradicalizing extremists (whatever that means coming from extremist organizations that target normal people, mentally ill people, and children).[16] Aside from acting as an advisor to the CVE effort, ConnectFutures offers far-left courses online where:
- Black Lives Matter propaganda, decolonization, white privilege, and collective learning are taught to young people.[17]
- Immigrant communities are targeted for similar training.[18]
- Teachers and community leaders are taught about “conspiracy theories” and fake news.[19]
- And more,[20] including neo-Marxist courses for children as young as seven years old.[21]
- ConnectFutures believes any nuance in the immigrant debate is considered to be “far-right extremism,” which includes pragmatic economic concerns. Organizations that bring up those points are categorized as extreme by ConnectFutures[22]
Life After Hate
The group ‘Life After Hate’ has closely worked with ConnectFutures, the CVE community, and the tech platforms. The group claims that “[t]oday, far-right extremism and white supremacy are the greatest domestic terror threats facing the United States”[23] despite far-right extremism proving less significant than far-left extremism.[11][15] Furthermore, not only is far-right extremism/terrorism incredibly insignificant, but hate crimes (white supremacy) are as well, which we proved in another article.[12]
‘Life After Hate’ is the propaganda page mentioned above in the CVE study. CVEs used Facebook to redirect traffic to the Life After Hate page.[9][16] The Life After Hate page campaigned for left-leaning institutional media, emphasized to their audience that discussion/debate are “escalation,” and taught users how to censor content on various platforms.[24][25]
Mental Health America
Mental Health America often receives preferential treatment on social media platforms. The page often finds its way onto the “ad” boxes of users without the user’s consent or knowledge. Note that when I refer to an ad or search result as “ad” or “search,” I am not being snide. Ads on tech platforms are a result of a market between paying customers who want to place ads in front of an audience and a business that provides that service. The Redirect Method uses the infrastructure and software that resulted in this market, hoping to keep users ignorant that what they are seeing is not actually an organic paid advertisement.
Given what we know about the data advantages of the dominant platforms,[26] Mental Health America appearing in ads and searches is unlikely accidental and has all the earmarks of the Redirect Method developed by the CVE community. Admittedly, we do not know for certain if Mental Health America is currently a part of the Redirect Method, but we do know that if a user types “critical race theory” into Mental Health America’s search function, the results include CRT propaganda and more CRT propaganda.
Many users that type in terms relating to mental health in a dominant tech platform will eventually find themselves looking at Mental Health America rather than a legitimate practitioner in the field of mental health.
Given the amount of false mental health and psychology pages, as well as the connection between these pages and modern Leftism, we conducted a comprehensive review of the psychology of trauma and resilience. We analyzed 57 independent research studies for sound data collection that isolated variables, sound empirical and statistical analysis of that data, and transparent scientific methodology. The true science of the psychology of trauma and resilience is fascinating and nearly antithetical to mainstream narratives of trauma.
Being one of the many false mental health pages, Mental Health America specializes in pseudo-psychology posts that sensationalize trauma and trauma treatments, despite the overwhelming empirical evidence that most people who encounter trauma don’t benefit from treatment. A significant portion of people actually regress from treatment.[27] In fact, more people are harmed by trauma treatments than those that benefit from treatments[27] if clinics do not properly screen out resilience. The science of resilience does not appear in Mental Health America’s content a single time. The fact that the false mental health page also pushes critical race theory is hardly surprising at this point.
The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism
This group is from the California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). The Center is a state-funded CVE and was the source of the Asian hate crime myth[28] by taking “data” from sixteen key police departments (from liberal cities) where zero, one, or in some cases, up to thirteen Asian hate crimes are recorded each year. With a change of definitions of “hate crime” and by neglecting real crime data, the center was able to argue that this phenomenon is on the rise. The center claimed that a rise from one Asian hate crime to three Asian hate crimes in San Jose, Ca, is an increase of 200%. The Center neglected to mention in press releases that the overall numbers were so low; and instead, the Center included the percentages by themselves.
Furthermore, the Center did not use real data, such as the Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which is comprised of over 15,000 agencies and shows no increase in Asian hate crimes. When dealing with single-digits and varying definitions, anything can be shown to have arbitrary 30% or 200% increases. Percentage differences are statistical tools and require error analysis for the method to be considered sound and scientific. With data points as few as the center used, the error analysis (or variation) is about the same size as the measurements themselves, which means that the center was not proving its statements. In science and statistics, measurements don’t have meaning without error. The CSUSB’s scientific and statistical ignorance allowed them to make an incorrect claim that swept through corporate media and dominant tech platforms, and even to this day, most do not realize where the myth came from.
What follows should not be particularly surprising, but the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism (again, out of CSUSB) is also a source of critical race theory training.[29][30]
From California State University San Bernardino
From California State University San Bernardino
Moonshot
Moonshot is the CVE of all CVEs. The pioneer of the Redirect Method,[7][31] Moonshot molded the CVE community into what it is now. No political commentary, news organization, or concerned citizen should mention “shadow-banning” or “leftist propaganda” without mentioning the far-left software developer Moonshot.
Many of the organizations listed above support Moonshot and other CVEs, or are supported by Moonshot. The software developer redirects traffic to radical left pages and uses unscientific papers to justify its expansion and existence.
Our 2nd Grand Manipulation article covers this organization, so we will only briefly prove how ideologically corrupt the organization is. Below are screenshots of the two CEOs and founders of Moonshot explicitly supporting the radical and manipulative ConnectFutures.
Retrieved from the Twitter account of Vidya Ramalingam, Founder and CEO of Moonshot
Jigsaw
Whereas certain topics should not be brought up without mentioning Moonshot, one should not mention “shadow banning” without mentioning Jigsaw, the pioneer of shadow ban and censorship software.[33] Jigsaw is a special CVE because it belongs to a platform, Google. Other CVEs are independent of the platforms, and Jigsaw mostly works independent of Google oversight while maintaining the data privileges of Google. Jigsaw also works with Moonshot on expanding and refining the Redirect Method.
This is a peculiar relationship. Our first Grand Manipulation article covers Jigsaw. We analyzed the group’s page on white supremacy,[34] which included 46 of their 47 cited works and a dozen subsequent citations (works cited by the primary citations of Jigsaw). Our deep-dive revealed that the narrative that “white supremacy is a significant threat” is a claim without empirical support. Indeed, even the theoretical support for it was highly flawed. The sociology and psychology papers that Jigsaw cited were either unscientific (which was the majority of the cases), were taken out of context, or were deliberately misinterpreted. There was no empirical evidence of Jigsaw’s claims about white supremacy. There was no quantitative analysis – only a qualitative analysis of 35 individuals who used to be white supremacists (ostensibly). There were no statistics or data. No evidence was produced to support Jigsaw’s theory that white supremacy is highly networked across the web.
In fact, it is well understood within extremism research that far-right extremist attacks are largely due to solitary actors, or “lone wolves,” rather than being from affiliated or group attacks. Ironically, far-left extremist attacks are significantly more affiliated, group-oriented than far-right extremists. The CVE’s techniques that they have been developing for two decades were meant to combat affiliated, group-based terrorism, meaning the CVE techniques would work better on far-leftism (though we, the ARKA Journal, and American Reveille do not condone such techniques) than on far-rightism.
It is critical that we consider the two principal assumptions of Jigsaw’s narrative – that (1) white supremacy is a significant threat and (2) it is a networking issue.
When combined, these assumptions lead to the inevitable conclusion that Jigsaw and the CVE community are needed to combat this threat across networks. Coincidentally, this special case also extends to Google’s economic control over networks that are currently not under the giant’s thumb. How convenient.
Conclusion
As the world becomes more aware of how far-leftism operates, there is more pressure to remove these authoritarian regimes from education, businesses, and policy. After discovering what critical race theory is, one would think that such a construction is doomed, along with many other far-left ideas. Unfortunately, the public is unaware of the spaces in which these terrible ideas are supported and propagated from. The public focuses on the obvious examples of far-leftism but neglects the origins of it.
There are many organizations in the CVE community as well as their allies not mentioned in this article, such as
- Bing
- 4chan (data is gathered from 4chan, but I am unsure as to the extent)
- The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
- The Newlines Institute
- Soufan Center
- The International Center on Security and Violent Extremism (ICSVE)
- The Adyan Institute
Some organizations, such as the Institute for Economics and Peace and The National Intelligence Council are not allies. They are misinterpreted by the CVE community in order to pursue the CVE agenda.[11]
This community of organizations is the origin. They are ground zero of this post-modern, authoritarian epidemic. Network and information control are merely the beginning signs of authoritarianism and eventually totalitarianism, and as I will show you in future articles, these efforts are not only international but also in close collusion with the government. This is a de jure monopoly conglomerate, state-sanctioned and state-funded private sector tyranny.
References
[1] Delgado, Richard. “Critical Race Theory, 3rd Edition”. NYU Press.
[2] Sensoy, Ozlem, and Robin DiAngelo. “Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education.” 2nd edition. Teacher’s College Press: New York, 2012.
[3] Thompson, Sherwood. “Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice.” Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
[4] Harvard Bridge. “Critical Theory.”
[5] New Discourses. “8 Big Reasons Critical Race Theory is Terrible for Dealing with Racism”.
[6] Matthew Kriner. Jon Lewis. “Pride & Prejudice: The Violent Evolution of the Proud Boys.” Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point.
[7] The ARKA Journal. “The World’s Leading Brainwasher: Moonshot.”
[8] The ARKA Journal. “A Hidden War On Free Speech: Google’s Jigsaw.”
[9] The ARKA Journal. “Leftist Indoctrination on Facebook.”
[10] The ARKA Journal. “The Agents in the False Ads.”
[11] The ARKA Journal. “The False Agenda.”
[12] The ARKA Journal. “Progressive Movements: How Unscientific and Harmful Are They?”
[13] Institute for Strategic Dialogue.Cooper Gatewood. Ciarán O’Connor. “Disinformation Briefing: Narratives around Black Lives Matter and voter fraud.”
[14] Breitbart. “BLM Riots are the most costly manmade damage to American property in history.”
[15] Institute for Economics and Peace. “Global Terrorism Index 2019 Measuring the Impact of Terrorism.”
[16] Erin Saltman, Farshad Kooti & Karly Vockery(2021)New Models for Deploying Counterspeech: Measuring Behavioral Change and Sentiment Analysis, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
[17] ConnectFutures. “Race Privilege and Justice.”
[18] ConnectFutures. “Building Resilience with New Migrant Communities.”
[19] ConnectFutures. https://www.connectfutures.org/news-press/
[20] ConnectFutures. “Rise of Far Right, Mixed Ideology & Hateful Extremism.”
[21] ConnectFutures. “Prevention Against Violence Youth.”
[22] ConnectFutures. “Youth Engagement Against Violence Extremism.”
[23] Life After Hate. “Life After Hate Fact Sheet.”
[24] Life After Hate. “How to Fight Fake News during Covid-19”.
[25] Life After Hate. “Life After Hate’s statement on the capitol building attack.”
[26] Subcommittee of Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law. “Competition in Digital Markets.”
[27] The ARKA Journal. “A Tale of Suppressed Science: The Psychology of Trauma and Resilience”
[28] Center for Study of the Study of Hate and Extremism. “Report to the Nation: Anti-Asian Prejudice and Hate Crime.” California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB).
[29] Center for Study of Hate and Extremism. “Preparing Anti-Racist Educators During a Time of Pandemics.”
[30] Center for Study of Hate and Extremism. “Intercultural Effectiveness…” California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB).
[31] Moonshot. https://moonshotcve.com/
[32] Nina Jankowicz. Jillian Hunchak. Alexandra Pavliuc. Celia Davies. Shannon Pierson. Zoë Kaufmann. “Malign Creativity: How Gender, Sex, and Lies are Weaponized Against Women Online” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. [April 2021].
[33] Jigsaw. “Issues.”
[34] Jigsaw. “White Supremacy.”
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