CIA Propaganda Part 1 [Work in progress]

CIA propaganda is flooding social media. So much so that it is unlikely you haven’t seen one.

When I say CIA propaganda you might think of the recruitment video the agency released last year, starring an intersectional cisgender millennial diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. → https://yewtu.be/watch?v=X55JPbAMc9g

Everyone saw through this obvious attempt to whitewash the CIA’s roots. And it horribly backfired. The backlash was so unapologetic from all sides of the political spectrum that one would think this would mark the end of CIA recruitment on social media. But the opposite came true. The 2021 recruitment class was the third largest in a decade and the most diverse since 2010. The backlash helped get the CIA trending for multiple days and for an agency with such a troubled moral history, there really is no such thing as bad publicity.  https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/25/cia-recruitment-joined-social-media-age/

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/08/cia-least-covert-mission-510043

CIA now has a large social media presence, with multi-million-follower accounts on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. The agency is using social media as a recruitment tool but another mission of their social media arm is to make the public view the CIA in a positive light. Popular media such as spy movies and video games have been playing that role in the past. But the image was always focused in one direction – to show hyper-masculine agents getting dropped into dangerous zones putting their lives at risk to solve near world-ending scenarios. Mission Impossible, Jason Bourne, the Hitman game series. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/cia-makes-social-media-splash-with-i-spy-challenge-on-instagram&& https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/08/cia-least-covert-mission-510043

On social media, the clandestine agency seeks to draw a different picture. On Twitter, Facebook and others, playful posts by the official CIA accounts are designed to make you think like you could be part of the agency. The agency’s social media posts are always jovial and family-friendly, sometimes filled with pop-culture references, giving followers challenges to solve or jokes to laugh at. https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-race-and-ethnicity-intelligence-agencies-demographics-e22ea4d22d4564608d7972be95e570b9&& https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/cia-makes-social-media-splash-with-i-spy-challenge-on-instagram

On YouTube, the CIA has actually a very small official presence. There is virtually no content that could be considered viral, with the exception of the one recruitment video. But CIA’s official YouTube channel is not the kind of propaganda I am most concerned about.

The most dangerous form of propagation comes from ex-CIA employees who make numerous appearances on various podcasts and news outlets, coincidentally also selling a book they just published. → https://yewtu.be/watch?v=mUqeBMP8nEg&& https://yewtu.be/watch?v=SuSQ0HB8vOs&& https://yewtu.be/watch?v=KfkOSYpMTooDon’t buy their books.

In these videos and episodes, the former operatives aren’t really asked critical questions. They aren’t confronted. Instead they are presented in what seems like a cordial relationship with the publication or the podcast. If you type CIA interview into to the search bar, all you’ll see are these joyful videos and uncritical episodes. Wired and Insider are supposed to be critical news outlets. They are supposed to do hard journalism. Which is what they do in digital paper. On YouTube, all they do is viral sensationalism but no journalism.

I hate it when people who held positions of power are given a free pass to whitewash their past. But more concerning than that is that while these people are no longer officially on the job, they continue with the message the agency is trying to disseminate. The message as I will soon demonstrate, is often based on easily provable lies, willful omissions or intentional fabrication of facts. And almost none of this is ever met with a push-back from hosts of the channels these former CIA officers appear on.

YouTube doesn’t like propaganda on its platform. The company has a policy to identify all government funded channels and videos and label the channels that are either funded by a government or function as a public broadcast service. Some government media like Russian state-funded outlets have been banned globally in the wake of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

This policy went into effect 2018 to curb misinformation and propaganda on the platform but this policy has a loophole. The measure only applies to channels that have been identified as news publishers. Which means governments are free to have unfiltered presence on YouTube so long as their content avoids the flagging mechanism. https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/02/media/youtube-state-funded-media-label/index.html&& https://www.propublica.org/article/youtube-promised-to-label-state-sponsored-videos-but-doesnt-always-do-so

This means governments and intelligence bureaus can spread as much propaganda as they want without fears of getting flagged or removed from the platform so long as they themselves do not perform as state-funded news publishers.

To keep the scope of this video at a reasonable level, I picked a selection of clips from few podcasts featuring a former CIA employee. I found so much misinformation that need to be confronted that I decided it requires dedicated attention. There are many more clips and guests to address though so let me know in the comments if you like to see a follow-up.

Every video I made on state surveillance got demonetized and suppressed by YouTube. I talked about Australian intelligence, UK surveillance laws and the National Security Agency. YouTube’s hyper-obsession with family-friendly content makes it impossible for serious topics to be discussed on this platform. If it wasn’t for my Patreon supporters, this channel would have been long dead. This isn’t a hyperbole. My monthly revenue is now at or below $500. This is unlivable. I am still not selling out to sponsors or affiliates. I want to keep this channel free from corporate influence. The only one who can sustain the existence of this channel is you. I’ll let you vote with your wallet. Whatever happens, happens.