Keyword Hijacking: the Force has a great effect on the weak-minded...

And what's more weak minded than a search engine?

...move along, move along, these aren't the Droids you're looking for..

...this is not just a software search engine decoy tactic although the advent of the internet gives keyword hijacking (KH) a whole new efficacy in exploiting the aphorism, "Out of sight, out of mind."

KH has been used as a mnemonic counterpropaganda device for decades
The first example I've found that I strongly suspect is KH is from 1944 and is related to Pearl Harbor.
The first example I've found that I know is KH is from 1945 and is related to Project Paperclip.

Consider that stealing someone else's keywords for your own purposes is as old as lying or trying to make your viewpoint on a topic dominate others or copyright infringement or plagiarism or decoys....etc.
It is a very basic linguistic device, so basic that some don't realize this.

But the covert use of keyword hijacking by military-intelligence to-
inoculate a target audience against negative associations with a keyword that exists in a hostile narrative by deploying the same keyword in a benign narrative
-dates back to the founding of the OSS in WWII and then CIA afterwards.

Once 20th century war came to rely on the media management of civilians using the new sciences of psychology and propaganda, focus on the nuts and bolts of language and memory determined that tremendous value was ascribed to keywords which were the 'face cards' of the vocabulary deck. (See 'Zipf's Law' regarding the hierarchical structure of associations.)

The use of KH in movies and television increased significantly after 1961 when cognitive scientist, William J. McGuire, introduced the concept of Inoculation Theory.
McGuire suggested that the brain's memory could be inoculated against ideas the same way the body was inoculated against disease using vaccines.

The common inoculation dynamic is intentionally introducing just enough elements of a hostile entity to induce defenses against it.
Counterpropaganda is anything done to minimize the effect of hostile information.
Thus keyword hijacking to induce mnemonic inoculation is done as a counterpropaganda tactic.

So keyword hijacking is used to do
>postive framing of keywords that encourage supporting US government goals
>negative framing of keywords that discourage supporting US government goals.

The most important goal is to prevent negative associations with a keyword that impedes USG goals. It doesn't have to be positive instead although that is the best case scenario.

Pre-internet example of KH:
The USG would much rather that you associated the keyword "Garrison"
-with the 1967-1969 television show called "Garrison's Gorillas"
than associate it with
-the 1967-1969 prosecutor investigating the murder of JFK, "D.A. Jim Garrison."

Pre-internet example of KH:
The USG would much rather that you associated the the keyword "Fonzie"
-with the television show character on of that name on 'Happy Days'
than associate it with
-a JFK investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, "Gaeton Fonzi."

Here are two more pre-internet examples of keyword hijacking the word "purple" with an explanatory reasoning chain:

>Military recruiting is considered by the US government to be critical to national security.

>Anything that impedes military recruiting would be considered hostile information and warrant counterpropaganda.

>In 1941 US cryptographers had broken Japan's Purple Code with the plans for attacking Pearl Harbor but this pre-knowledge was suppressed to assure the attack would happen as the only way to get the American public to stop overseas fascism.

>If Americans knew this, they'd be very skeptical about anything their government told them about war.

>It would be advantageous to military recruting and national security if Americans did not associate the keyword "purple" with the hoax of Pearl Harbor covered up for decades with the Purple Code being central to the narrative.

>Any chance to provide a different mnemonic association with the keyword "purple" helps dilute that dangerous association in the minds of the general population.

>Associational memory follows a path-of-least-resistance that is reinforced by frequency, intensity, and social reinforcement.

>Memory is strongly biased towards first definitions about words, a first-come-first-served dynamic left over from surviving in a pre-abstract world of nature where things only needed one definition.

>Using the keyword "purple" in idealized fictional narratives can cause many people's memories to be strongly biased towards recalling those narratives when seeing that keyword even if the Pearl Harbor association is somehow known to them.

>The use of the keyword "purple" in a fictional context of pre-knowledge of a military attack has been used several times including:

-2/12/1960 Twilight Zone, 'The Purple Testament'
-12/5/1964 Outer Limits, 'The Keeper of the Purple Twilight'
(notice this was just two days before the anniversary of Pearl Harbor)

There are many other Pearl Harbor cover-up "purples" but there are two to go with the two "Fonzies" that are pre-internet to show that this isn't just an internet search engine tactic. It is a memory manipulation that is intended to prevent or minimize what the USG considers to be bad memories.

Giving the Guvmint entire credit for this kind of thing is blowing up your conspiracy theory way beyond it's proper bounds. The government as a whole is way too clumsy for this kind of manipulation. However, some individuals in sensitive positions sure aren't.