Active measures
by Thomas Rid · first published 2020
11mentions
7recommended by
8HN commenters
2020–2026first – last mentioned
88% recommend13% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Well-researched history of disinformation and political warfare, tracing tactics from early propaganda forgeries to the 2016 election; recommended as a starting point for readers wanting background before social media.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"This revelatory and dramatic history of disinformation traces the rise of secret organized deception operations from the interwar period to contemporary internet troll farms"--
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"KGB psyops" Wish people would stop trying to play pretend RU experts. If you want details on actual cough "Psyops", one can read a book like Active Measures by Thomas Rid.
on “The Suspected Poisoning of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Prominent Adversary” ↗Some books I recently enjoyed, mostly focused on the infosec aspect but still somewhat on topic: The Kill Chain, by Christian Brose Active Measures, by Thomas Rid Sandworm, by Andy Greenberg Fatal System Error, by Joseph Mann
on “The French armed forces are planning for high-intensity war” ↗One interesting book is Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare by Thomas Rid. It's a history of disinformation, propaganda, and related shenanigans from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the 2016 election,…
on “Fake Books” ↗I have no idea why you are getting downvoted, as there is a lot of good evidence supporting your position. The book "Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare" by Thomas Rid spends a great deal of time talking about this. I think the evidence so far shows that the power station attacks are likely…
on “Power substations vandalized in Washington state” ↗…have been interfering in the internal workings of other countries for centuries, if not millennia. If you want to read up on more recent accounts of this, many of which predate social media, the book Active Measures by Thomas Rid is a good place to start. Or you can continue to think that this is all just made up "propaganda" and we're all fools, but you alone have seen the light.
on “EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs” ↗Exactly. Russia has been doing it for decades and it would be foolish to assume China didn't learn from them. Thomas Rid's "Active Measures" covers this in detail, and it's somewhat maddening to read, because it details how much of the civil strife we've experienced that was exacerbated by their actions. https://www.amazon.com/Active-Measures-History-Disinformatio...
on “Most Americans Say "Not in My Backyard" to AI Data Centers” ↗…Polarized World [podcast ] https://www.democracyworkspodcast.com/pew/ - darknetdiaries EP 65: PSYOP [podcast] https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/65/ (interview with psychological operations worker) - Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare -- Thomas Rid
on “Seeking Truth in a Time of Misinformation” ↗IRA was totally overblown in terms of its impact. See Thomas Rid's Active Measures. Andrew Bosworth, former head of FB ads, has been pretty critical of Cambridge's claims as well: "In practical terms, Cambridge Analytica is a total non-event. They were snake oil salespeople. The tools…
on “We can have democracy or we can have Facebook” ↗The russkies were doing the same. Read Thomas Rid's Active Measures. Choice quote from KGB colonel on publishing in western media: "If we didn't have the free press we would have had to invent it"
on “When the CIA turned writers into operatives” ↗…PDF printouts of several emails allegedly taken from the laptop, but for the “smoking-gun” email, it shows only a photo made the day before the story was posted, according to Thomas Rid, the author of “Active Measures,” a book on disinformation. “There is no header information, no metadata.” The Washington Post has not been able to independently verify or authenticate these emails, as requests to make the laptop hard…
on “Twitter and Facebook's action over Joe Biden article reignites bias claims” ↗Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare (2020), by Thomas Rid.
on “Facebook Is the AOL of 2021” ↗