Two weeks ago, this newspaper warned its readers about fake news information operations run by the mainstream media and provided a six-step guide to identifying this corrupt practice. Earlier this week, Johann van Loggerenberg, who was perhaps the most prominent contemporary victim of such an operation, released his own seven-point guide.

Van Loggerenberg was a senior investigator at the South African Revenue Service (SARS). His team investigated organised tax crime, illicit trade, and politically connected networks. Corrupt politicians and their associates needed that unit disabled and in 2014 the Sunday Times launched the operation to do that, with News24 and other outlets working to amplify and widen it.

The operation that identified and cast aspersions on the so-called “rogue unit” in SARS was very successful and the damage suffered by Van Loggerenberg, his colleagues, SARS, and the country was immense. The allegations made against them led to the collapse of their investigative unit and the departure of many experienced SARS officials, opening the way for further massive looting of taxpayer funds. But the claims ultimately failed to withstand scrutiny. Criminal charges against Van Loggerenberg and his colleagues were withdrawn. Reports used to support the “rogue unit” narrative were withdrawn, discredited, or set aside. SARS later apologised to employees harmed by its actions. But by then, as Van Loggerenberg himself says, the damage had been done.

Earlier this week he published a note setting out the seven stages of an information operation similar to the one directed against him – and it is a very useful guide to identifying such an operation so that you will not be fooled.

The Common Sense’s own step-by-step guide to identifying an information operation can be read here – and the two make for an interesting comparison.

Van Loggerenberg says that the first step is to determine the target’s guilt before properly examining the evidence: “Step 1: Pre-determine someone’s ‘guilt’ using fake and made-up claims.”

The purpose is not to establish what really happened. It is to collect allegations, rumours, and fragments of information that support a conclusion that the client behind the operation wishes the media to trick the public to reach. Evidence is selected to confirm the accusation rather than used to test it.

The second step is to create an investigation that appears official while operating outside the proper limits of institutional authority. In Van Loggerenberg’s words: “Launch ultra vires ‘investigations’ behind closed doors, bending powers to fit a pre-conceived narrative.”

The idea here is that the existence of an “investigation” is itself used to damage the target. Members of the public will assume that an official-sounding institution would not investigate someone unless serious evidence already existed. The “investigation” thereby becomes central to the communications campaign, and its announcement is employed by the media to create the appearance of guilt before any finding has been made.

The third step, Van Loggerenberg says, is to “rely on a mishmash of secret ‘investigators’ and ‘witnesses’ who are never cross-examined. They operate in the shadows., often relying on statutory secrecy.”

Such secrecy allows those directing the process to suggest that serious evidence exists while refusing to disclose it. The media thereby puts the target in a position where he or she is expected to answer claims that cannot be seen and challenge witnesses who cannot be identified or questioned. It is a stacked deck.

The fourth step is to amplify the allegations across the media. “Step 4: Fuelled by internal politics, rumours, and faceless, untested ‘witnesses’, these secret ‘probes’ rely on manipulated, splashy headlines to inflict maximum damage.”

Internal disputes, anonymous accusations, and selective leaks are converted into headlines. This, in turn, lends legitimacy to the “investigations”, which then lend legitimacy to the allegations. This process is designed as a reinforcing cycle.

The fifth step is to isolate the target. “Colleagues stay silent out of fear; opportunists jump on the bandwagon to help the propaganda along.”

Colleagues or institutions that know the allegations are weak may remain silent because they fear becoming targets themselves. Others may support the campaign because it removes a rival, advances a career, or settles a personal dispute. The resulting silence is then interpreted as evidence that the accused person must be guilty.

The sixth step is to exhaust the target and prevent an effective response: “Step 6: At whatever cost, keep the targets at bay with expensive legal processes, overload on propaganda, ‘leaks’, more rumours, and isolation. Wear them down and shut them up. Their voices must never be heard.”

Legal proceedings, disciplinary processes, leaks, and repeated allegations impose significant financial and personal costs.

The objective is not a conviction or final adverse finding. The process is simply intended to occupy the target, remove the person from a position of influence, and make resistance increasingly difficult. Even if the target eventually succeeds in clearing their name in a court, for example, the operation has already achieved its purpose.

The seventh step is the formation of a coalition among groups united by hostility towards the same target. “The oddest of enemies of enemies join the fray, collectively spurring each other on in the process, like an unspoken pre-determined dance pattern. The common denominator is the hate for those being targeted,” says Van Loggerenberg.

These groups will be loosely or informally coordinated. One may provide allegations. Another may initiate an investigation. Another may publish selective information. Others may amplify the story through political or social media networks. Their common interest lies in damaging the same person or institution.

Van Loggerenberg’s framework is useful because it provides readers with a practical method for assessing major allegations. Operations of this nature are ultimately targeted against the best interests of the public, and in pursuit of the theft of public money, or to undermine reforms that would improve economic and social conditions and it is ordinary people who thereby pay the greatest price.

[An additional note, for context : None of this is a new phenomenon for South Africa or one that emerged during the state capture era or after 1994. During apartheid, corrupt actors in cahoots with the state drove similar operations. There was even a state policy to do so called Stratcom, a system of psychological warfare using propaganda, disinformation, intimidation, and dirty tricks. Formally adopted in 1984, it involved the Security Branch, Military Intelligence, and the National Intelligence Service. Former senior politicians subsequently acknowledged that Stratcom spread false information about individuals to discredit them and turn others against them. Significant parts of the apartheid-era media were ideologically aligned with the state, constrained by it, infiltrated by intelligence services, or directly used in propaganda operations. State agents worked within newsrooms as reporters and even editors. The clearest example was the Information Scandal of the late 1970s, when the apartheid government secretly diverted public money into projects that included the covert establishment and funding of The Citizen newspaper, which was created to support the government and counter the independent-minded Rand Daily Mail. The scandal demonstrated the lengths that state and corrupt actors would go to, to manipulate reporting and disguise information operations as independent news].