2024-01-10 14:50:41
Fox News has promoted a wild conspiracy theory regarding Taylor Swift working for the Pentagon as a psychological influence on public opinion.
Jesse Watters aired a clip in the final episode of his eponymous program, in which a woman purportedly from the Department of Defense appeared talking regarding recruiting the singer as a source of influence on public opinion.
The broadcaster wondered why Swift was so famous and suggested that it was because the US government had recruited her to be a psychoactive influencer, an agent used to transmit selected information, such as propaganda, to influence people’s thinking and behaviour.
“I love her music,” Waters said of Swift during his show on Tuesday. “It’s good, but have you ever wondered why or how it blew up the way it did?” Then Watters dropped the bombshell: “Well, regarding four years ago, the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit brought up turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A psychological operation to combat online disinformation.”
Fox then aired an edited clip of a woman speaking. “The idea is that a social influencer can help encourage or promote behavior change… I’m including Taylor Swift here because she’s – you know, she’s somewhat of an online influencer. I don’t know if you’ve heard of her,” she said.
After the clip ended, the camera cut to Watters, who then claimed that musicians Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson were also former government influencers.
“Yes, this is real. The Pentagon’s psychological operations unit urged NATO to turn Taylor Swift into an asset,” he said, adding that he was concerned that Swift would be an asset because Swift endorsed President Joe Biden and encouraged her fans to vote for him in the election.
But what Watters failed to tell his viewers, or didn’t realize, was that the footage was from the 2019 NATO cybersecurity conference. The woman in the video is Alicia Marie Bargar, who was speaking at the 11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict. Bargar, a data and research engineer, was presenting the results of the work from Johns Hopkins University, according to Newsweek.
Watters also interviewed former FBI agent Stuart Kaplan regarding the use of psychological operations. “Publishing a psychological program is still illegal,” Kaplan explained, but added that it would be in Biden’s best interest to have someone as popular as Swift endorse him.
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