Polish General Staff warns protest may be part of hostile operation — RMF24

The General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces has warned in Poland that a protest or demonstration may be part of a hostile operation. As RMF24 reports, the military drew attention to the phenomenon of astroturfing — a method of social manipulation in which an initiative appears spontaneous and civic, although it may in fact be planned.

The mechanism of astroturfing

According to the General Staff's explanation, hostile services may first identify topics and problems in society that cause tension. Later, the emotions of both sides of a dispute may be inflamed using troll farms, bots and coordinated social media accounts.

Astroturfing may take the form of a protest or demonstration resembling a grassroots civic initiative. Such actions may also include disinformation posts online that appear to have been created by citizens but may be disseminated by bots, trolls or with the help of artificial intelligence.

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The next stage, according to the Polish military's description, may involve actions aimed at bringing people into the streets. If unrest begins, media and information operations online may quickly spread reports of chaos. Participants in such actions may not realize that they are being used for purposes other than those for which they joined the protest.

Signs of coordinated activity

Among the possible objectives of provoking unrest, the General Staff named overloading emergency services and weakening citizens' sense of security, creating a crisis in government decision-making and paralyzing its actions. Such operations may also be aimed at influencing public opinion and politics or forcing geopolitical concessions.

The military advises paying attention to whether the expression of views is accompanied by verbal or physical violence or calls for it. Among possible signs of coordinated activity online, it named a sudden mass flow of similar calls for demonstrations, similar or copied comments, repetition of the same slogans, as well as new profiles with no activity history.