What’s Not to Like? Social Media as Information Operations Force Multi

Very good article!
"Jade Helm 15 was a U.S. Special Operations Command joint exercise conducted in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado from July 15 to September 15, 2015, to improve special operations forces’ unconventional warfare capabilities.16 However, conspiracies propagated on Russia-controlled Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube accounts and Russia-created Facebook pages, such as Heart of Texas, claimed Jade Helm 15 variously was a psychological operation to build complacency about the military’s presence in the affected states to enable an eventual invasion, an international or United Nations (UN) operation to seize citizens’ guns, a military operation to round up political dissidents, a military operation to remove state and local political leaders who would oppose the Federal Government’s imposition of martial law, an operation using recently closed Walmarts to supply invading Chinese troops, or a military plan to impose martial law and disarm citizens in the wake of an apocalyptic meteor strike predicted to occur the same day Jade Helm 15 concluded.17 As bizarre as they seem, the conspiracies surrounding Jade Helm 15 garnered reactions from U.S. politicians—reactions that gave credence to the Russian information operations. These included Texas governor Greg Abbott calling on the Texas State Guard (equivalent to the National Guard) to monitor the exercise, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) promising to “look into” the exercise, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) assuring constituents that he had inquired about the exercise from Pentagon officials “because the Federal Government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy,” and Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) demanding the military revamp the exercise “so the Federal Government is not intentionally practicing war against its own states.”The Jade Helm 15 information operation is an example of hosting, placement, propagation, and saturation."