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DARPA Dissects Twitter, Facebook, Reddit to Extract Propaganda HOWTOs

posted by n1 on Friday July 11 2014, @11:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-all-an-experiment dept.

APK writes with an article via nakedsecurity.sophos.com:

On Tuesday, The Guardian posted an article about the US military pouring millions into researching how to become a Twitter-user-influencing, propaganda-spewing machine.

The program in question is known as Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC).

SMISC, which was announced in 2011, has been regarded as the means by which the US military can both detect and conduct propaganda campaigns via social media.

While DARPA's social media experiments well might have avoided breaking any law by using only publicly available data, some of its studies are sure to make people uncomfortable.

For example, some of the SMISC research has focused on the Occupy Wall Street protests and those in the Middle East, while other projects have analysed online memes and tweets from celebrities including Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga (described as "the most popular elite user on Twitter", according to The Guardian.

The manager of SMISC, Dr. Rand Waltzman, said in a post that understanding social media is just part of DARPA's "mission of preventing strategic surprise."

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Horse With Stripes on Friday July 11 2014, @11:38AM

    by Horse With Stripes (577) on Friday July 11 2014, @11:38AM (#67537)

    Just waiting for the day we see something like this in Twitter feeds:
    "6079 Smith W.! Yes, YOU! We're at war with Eurasia ..."

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  • (Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Friday July 11 2014, @01:48PM

    by BsAtHome (889) on Friday July 11 2014, @01:48PM (#67572)

    We have never been at war with Eurasia. Eurasians are our friends and allies. We are at war with Eastasia and have always been. You have been reported for re-education.