Security agencies routinely infiltrate social media to monitor and direct online discourse, engage in smear campaigns against targeted victims

"Federal government routinely hires internet trolls, shills to monitor chat rooms, disrupt article comment sections", 2013-09-17 by Jonathan Benson from "Natural News"

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140112094548/http://www.naturalnews.com/042093_internet_trolls_chat_rooms_federal_government.html].

An intelligence agency in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, known as the Government Communications Headquarters, through their Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), has been systematically attempting “to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse”.
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"How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations", 2014-03-24 by Glenn Greenwald [https://web.archive.org/web/20140225074732/https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/]: By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.
Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums. [end excerpt]
The following is a list of Internet infiltration techniques:
-Infiltration Operation
-Ruse Operation
-Set Piece Operation
-False Flag Operation
-False Rescue Operation
-Disruption Operation
-Sting Operation

The following articles are written as propaganda against the victims of social media monitering and harrassment, by protraying the conservative ideology of police and security agents as the target of a "leftist" Federal government. Neither article mentions the targeting of "leftist" organizers:
* "Yes, There Are Paid Government Trolls On Social Media, Blogs, Forums And Websites"
2014-02-26 by Michael Snyder [endoftheamericandream.com/archives/yes-there-are-paid-government-trolls-on-social-media-blogs-forums-and-websites]:
* “72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered ‘Potential Terrorists’ In Official Government Documents“ [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209191545/http://thetruthwins.com/archives/72-types-of-americans-that-are-considered-potential-terrorists-in-official-government-documents].