An Indoctrination Technique on the World's Largest Platform

Imagine the existence of a nonprofit organization that protects the world from extremists while converting those extremists into productive citizens. This organization operates in harmony with tech platforms and software partners for the good of all society.

Such an organization does exist on a government grant paper, which was approved for $750k. ¹ In reality however, this group is called Life After Hate and their actions are not quite as noble as their mission statement would have us believe.

The counter-violent extremist (CVE) community, which included Life After Hate (LAH) the moment $750,000 of taxes was awarded to them, are the Great Brainwashers of our time. Contrary to the claims made in their state-funded research, one has a higher chance of being struck by lightning in North America than attacked by a far-right group. In fact, the highly politicized CVEs and LAH neglect the more severe far-left extremism for the less severe far-right extremism, despite the former being a collective extremism that the CVE techniques were designed for and the latter being "lone wolf" extremism. ² Regardless, Life After Hate claims that "[t]oday, far-right extremism and white supremacy are the greatest domestic terror threats facing the United States." ³

What is the purpose?

Users are redirected depending on the (1) profile of a user that Facebook keeps of them and (2) what that user is actively typing in Facebook's search function. Redirected users are indoctrinated with what appears to be leftist indoctrination, but of course this was funded by the state, so it is in fact, state indoctrination. This technique appears on several platforms, but on Facebook, redirected users find themselves looking at LAH.

Life After Hate campaigns for left-leaning institutional media,⁴ characterizes discussion and debate as "escalation" and trains their audience to be censors on various platforms. ⁵

A group that closely works with and advises LAH is the even more radical ConnectFutures. ⁶ ConnectFutures offers Black Lives Matter propaganda, decolonization, white privilege, and other collective learning courses tailored to young people. ⁷ This radical group also targets immigrant communities to create conflict between them and the countries they immigrated to, ⁸ as well as offering left-leaning courses to teachers and community leaders. ⁹ This group even tailors courses to children as young as 7 years old. ¹⁰

Despite accepting consultation from such a group, accepting state funding without making that knowledge accessible, not openly admitting the nature of redirection or their special relationship with Facebook, and indoctrinating users into being state censors, LAH describes their resources and techniques as "support, education and referral services." ¹¹

How is LAH Implemented on Facebook and Instagram?

The Redirect Method ^12|13 is indoctrination software developed by a counter-violent extremist (CVE) organization called Moonshot with the aid of other CVEs. ^14|15 CVE organizations are also responsible for censorship software. ¹⁶

In the case of indoctrination software on Facebook and Instagram:

The Redirect Initiative helps combat violent extremism and dangerous organizations by redirecting hate and violence-related search terms towards resources, education, and outreach groups that can help. This initiative is based on Facebook’s “Get Help” search based modules...evolved to fit Facebook and Instagram. ¹⁷

[W]hen people search on Facebook for terms related to white supremacy in the US, results are directed to Life After Hate, an organization founded by former violent extremists that provides crisis intervention, education, support groups, and outreach. ¹⁷

Moonshot aided Facebook's ad feed and search result manipulation, otherwise known as the Facebook Redirect Program (FRP). In November 2020, Moonshot produced analysis ¹⁸ of the FRP and even stated that "Life After Hate was initially approached by Facebook" ¹⁸_p.6 for the FRP campaign. Facebook approached Life After Hate. A dominant tech platform approached a group, who was then funded by the state to nefariously indoctrinate users to become individual censors and activists.

Moonshot further adds that the

purpose of the FRP is to ensure that Facebook users searching for dangerous individuals and organisations on the platform are offered authentic, meaningful and impactful support off-platform. The purpose of the pilot was to test the programme design with a view to informing and improving future deployments. ¹⁸ _p.2

By "off-platform", Moonshot is referring to Life After Hate and others (EXITAustralia and EXITUSA) that serve as the proselytizers users find in their search or ad results online. By "authentic, meaningful and impactful support", Moonshot refers to the convincing of people that their fellow countrymen who happen to question government are dangerous and that the state ought to be trusted over individuals. This is coming from a CVE that has routinely fabricated data in reports that lack transparency; from a CVE that boasted of having unprecedented control over America's internet during the 2020 election. ¹⁴

Moonshot and Facebook don't release the keywords used to target internet users, but Moonshot states that 191 keywords were used ¹⁸ to redirect users from Facebook to Life After Hate, and advises Facebook to use more keywords in the future. 191 is quite a lot, but small compared to Moonshot's database of 30,000 keywords – clearly an arbitrary approach to target "extremists" that Moonshot typically uses to collect "data".

Tens of thousands of Facebook users were flagged by the FRP, which by itself is a clear indicator that the Facebook-LAH partnership is focused on indoctrinating at-risk users. After all, similar programs target the youth (ConnectFutures) or the mentally ill (Mental Health America) for nearly identical brainwashing. Of the initial tens of thousands flagged, thousands went on to engage with partner sites, and only 25 individuals chose to begin a "conversation". ¹⁸ That is quite a lot of users that were targeted to begin with, and we can compare that to real extremist data from the Institute for Economics and Peace.

The Institute collected data for deaths caused by terrorism across a 27-year period. Far-right terrorism caused an average of 4.5 deaths per year in North America, ¹⁹ a region of over 370 million people. Globally, the Americas and Caribbean have the lowest rates of terrorism – yet Moonshot and Facebook focus their resources on these areas. ¹⁸

This is about information and network control. This is about the security state agencies funding and partnering with Facebook and 3rd parties as a sort of proxy government, where the old state propaganda of 'public interest' is appealed to.

This ambition is also necessary, now more than ever, to protect online spaces and the global communities that use them. We look forward to the continued evolution of Facebook’s Redirect Programme. ¹⁸_p.3

 - state-funded researchers

“The Left”

The government official uses collective arguments to appeal to:

Democracy - the will of the people is to…
Socialism - the good of society requires…
Nationalism - the security of the nation requires...

As was the case with radio, then broadcast television, and now the internet, government attempts to justify its existence and potential expansion by appealing to one of the groups above, and that group will have a place on the network of the time since government agencies find ways of controlling communications. Any group that believes statist arguments will have a platform to speak (nearly) free of opposition, which further radicalizes them as statists. “The Left” is simply the current group being appealed to. The only difference is the hi-tech methods used to indoctrinate new statists as well as new censorship techniques to silence or ignore libertarians and capitalists.

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References

[1] Certificate Regarding Lobbying. Tracking Number for Grant: 13144504. Department of Homeland Security. Web (2020)

[2] Institute for Economics and Peace. "Global Terrorism Index 2019 Measuring the Impact of Terrorism." (2019).

[3] Life After Hate. "Life After Hate Fact Sheet".

[4] Life After Hate. "How to Fight Fake News During Covid-19".

[5] Life After Hate. "Life After Hate's Statement on the Capitol Building Attack".

[6] Offield. "Leftist Indoctrination on Facebook". The ARKA Journal.

[7] ConnectFutures. "Race, Privilege, and Justice".

[8] ConnectFutures. "Building Resilience in New Migrant Populations".

[9] ConnectFutures. https://www.connectfutures.org/news-press/

[10] ConnectFutures. "Prevention Against Violence".

[11] Life After Hate. "Life After Hate working with Facebook to help individuals leave behind hate groups."

[12] Offield. "How Far-Leftism is Forced On Us". The ARKA Journal.

[13] Offield. "The Agents in the False Ads". The ARKA Journal.

[14] Offield. "Propaganda and Nationwide Monitoring of Conservatives during the 2020 Election". The ARKA Journal.

[15] Moonshot. "The Redirect Method."

[16] Offield. "Shadowbanned". The ARKA Journal. The ARKA Journal.

[17] Facebook. "CounterSpeech."

[18] Moonshot. "From passive search to active conversation: An evaluation of the Facebook Redirect Programme."

[19] Institute for Economics and Peace. "Global Terrorism Index 2019 Measuring the Impact of Terrorism."