New Delhi: A Twitter executive with editorial responsibilities for the Middle East is also, allegedly, an officer of the British Army’s psychological warfare unit.
According to a report in the Middle East Eye,Gordon MacMillan has been associated with the British military’s 77th brigade for the past several years and began working for Twitter six years ago.
MacMillan’s dual role
MacMillan’s precise role in the British military is unclear but he is a part-time employee of the 77th Brigade.
“MacMillan, whose editorial responsibilities at Twitter also cover Europe and Africa, was a captain in the unit at the end of 2016, according to one British army publication,” states the report in the Middle East Eye.
MacMillan’s involvement with the British military became public when he revealed the information on his LinkedIn page.
The British Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Twitter refrained from commenting on the development.
“Twitter would say only that “we actively encourage all our employees to pursue external interests”, while the MoD said that the 77th Brigade had no relationship with Twitter, other than using it for communication,” the report notes.
What is the 77th Brigade of the British military?
The 77th Brigade was set up by the British military in 2015 to use social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. to wage ”information warfare”.
This brigade was formed by bringing together existing military units such as the “Media Operations Group and the 15 Psychological Operations Group”.
British Military Chief Nick Carter outlined the role of the 77th Brigade, at the UK think tank RUSI in 2018.
“In our 77 Brigade … we have got some remarkable talent when it comes to social media, production design, and indeed Arabic poetry,” said Carter.
“Those sorts of skills we can’t afford to retain in the Regular component [of the army] but they are the means of us delivering capability in a much more imaginative way than we might have been able to do in the past,” he added.