There's something a bit unsettling about this post of Juan Cole's. In the post, Cole passes along another blogger's suspicion, based, I think, on the slenderest of evidence, that there is something sinister about the Iraqi blog Iraq the Model. Here is Cole (I was too lazy to put in all his links):
Manipulation of the Blogging World on Iraq?Now, when I first read this, my brows furrowed because I took Cole to be saying that the brothers blogging at Iraq the Model were irrelevant because they had a minority view. But that's obviously an uncharitable reading of what Cole is saying. More likely, he's saying that the attention given to Iraq the Model by boosters of the President is a bit pathetic, since it aims to depict the views of Iraq the Model as representative, when they are not, and it aims to depict Iraq as doing better than it is in fact doing.Joseph Mailander of the Martini Republic weblog has an extremely important posting on Sunday about the dangers of "blog trolling." To "troll" in the world of the internet is to lurk on a discussion board and make deliberately false and inflammatory comments, to which all the other posters feel they must reply, so that it roils the list. There is also a connotation of dishonesty about the troll's real identity.
A related practice has been called by Josh Marshall "astroturfing," where a "grass roots" campaign turns out actually to be sponsored by a think tank or corporation. Astroturf is fake grass used in US football arenas. What Mailander is talking about is not really astroturfing, but rather the granting of some individuals a big megaphone.
The MR posting brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the IraqTheModel site. It points out that the views of the brothers are celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi opinion. It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene, Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra support from certain quarters.
Contrast all this to the young woman computer systems analyst in Baghdad, Riverbend, who is in her views closer to the Iraqi opinion polls, especially with regard to Sunni Arabs, but who is not being feted in Washington, DC.
The phenomenon of blog trolling, and frankly of blog agents provocateurs secretly working for a particular group or goal and deliberately attempting to spread disinformation, is likely to grow in importance. It is a technique made for the well-funded Neoconservatives, for instance, and I have my suspicions about one or two sites out there already.
Well, the more charitable reading has a meaning which is, I think, broadly defensible. But there are two things worth feeling uncomfortable about here. The first is the level of hostility directed at the blog, both in Cole's post and in the blog he links to. I confess that I don't read this particular blog, but my understanding is that these are probably just fairly naive (and very optimistic) Iraqis who are hoping that things will get better in the wake of the American invasion. I join them in hoping this, even though I think I'm less naive about American intentions, and much less optimistic about the probable outcomes. Please correct me in the comments section if you know something damning. I'm not sure I see any basis for contempt.
Second, Cole is insinuating something fairly serious, and without much evidence. He doesn't come right out and say that they're a front. But he juxtaposes speculation about the blog with other stories of nefarious dealings . . . and, well, you get the idea. With stories like this one about, I wouldn't exactly fall off my chair if I learned that some Iraqi blogs had been either created or co-opted by the CIA. But that doesn't mean that it's appropriate to crap on some Iraqi bloggers and impugn their integrity simply because you don't like their point of view. We ought to do better than that.
Posted by Chris at December 13, 2004 09:39 AM I think Cole is right to point to the very real danger of astro-turfing and its internet equivalents. There can be absolutely no doubt that some blogs out there are funded and run by the CIA or NED or the Office of Public Information. It is pretty well-documented how astro-turfing developed in the 80s and how far various executive branches will go to misinform people. I don't want to go on about Nicaragua in the 80s cause I do that every second time I am posting somewhere but the practice of US domestic propaganda has a long and dishonourable history.
Of course, it is hard to tell which blogs exactly are the culprits but some certainly are fronts. Stil, if Cole thinks he sees the ideological and cyber-space signs pointing in a certain direction that I think its right that he send up a warning.
And as to the bloggers intergrity being impugned and all that...well, if they are living in a warzone and are still that naive and idiotic then they deserve whatever they get. Idiots or propagandists, either way they deserve contempt.
Cole is saying that they express views which are non-representative of most Iraqis, but which are very representative of what various hawks would wish to see. So you can make a reasonable inference and suppose that there is a high probability that this is a hoax, there's nothing "sinister" or "dark insinuations" about this. Blogging is much more likely to be a propaganda tool than something that an Iraqi will spend time doing given the situation there...
Personally I also have my doubts about Riverbend, which follows a bit too closely the perspective of an anti-war westerner...
Well, let me give you a parallel: During the Cold War, there were some on the left who were secretly working for the Soviets (and some prominent people on the right, secretly funded by the CIA). And I think it was reasonable to think that that was the case at the time. What was not reasonable to do was to throw around particular accusations at particular people on the basis of very little evidence, simply because the opinions expressed by the people happened to fit conveniently with the general goals of the KGB and the USSR.
When the point is general, it's perfectly sensible. When it's aimed at particular people without good evidence it's a smear. Perhaps Cole is right. But if he is, it's more a lucky hit than a well-grounded suspicion. And that's what it ought to be before we start insinuating things and impugning people's integrity.
Posted by: Chris at December 13, 2004 12:32 PMi have read "iraq the model", the author seems to parrot a lot of right-wing nonsense (e.g. that french people are given a free pass by insurgents. he claims to have seen them let french cars pass when others were not allowed even though french people have, quite publicly been taken hostage in iraq) and i would love to have him unmasked as a fraud. but until there is evidence of that, i think we basically have to give him the benefit of the doubt, even as we look skeptically at what he posts
as for riverbend, she's been vouched for by salam pax, who is confirmed to be a real iraqi. that pretty much satisfies me, but even if it didn't, it puts her a bit ahead of the iraq-the-model guy in terms of credibility. she may seem very western to matthew, but when i read her site i hear the voice of a certain westernized iraqi i know in my head. riverbend herself admits that she lived in the west for a few years. i don't see the high quality of her writing to be all that suspicious.
all this brings up a larger issue of how we know any of these bloggers i never met in real life really exist and/or are who they say they are. i'm inclined to give everyone the benefit of the doubt unless there's some evidence to the contrary. (though this chris guy seems kinda suspicious to me)
Posted by: upyernoz at December 13, 2004 01:31 PM