"Strategic Communication Laboratories [3], a small U.K. firm specializing in 'influence operations' made a very public debut this week with a glitzy exhibit occupying prime real estate at Defense Systems & Equipment International [4], or DSEI, the United Kingdom's largest showcase for military technology. The main attraction was a full-scale mock-up of its ops center, running simulations ranging from natural disasters to political coups," Sharon Weinberger writes for Slate. The elaborate booth included actors, flashing computer screens and a "a dark-suited man with a wireless microphone [pacing] like a carnival barker, narrating the scenarios." One of which features a "sophisticated campaign of mass deception" that uses a fictitious chemical plant accident as a ploy to minimize the spread of smallpox."If your definition of propaganda [5] is framing communications to do something that's going to save lives, that's fine," says Mark Broughton, SCL's public affairs director. "That's not a word I would use for that."