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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @06:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @06:45PM (#67762)

    I suggest a new rule, that AC's may not reply to ACs.

    Actually, I have no problem with ACs responding to ACs. Even if, as you suggest, it were one AC simulating an argument as if they were a ventriloquist I don't have so much problem with that as long as the discussion is interesting and informative. Who cares who is responding to whom, if lively debate is happening? The one problem I see with ACs is the troll who posts something incendiary which derails a good discussion. I am just not sure how to fix that problem, except perhaps completely eliminating ACs and requiring everyone who submits a comment to include their real name, address, and a (recent) picture. Even then, I am sure that the system would be easily gamed, I'm afraid.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 12 2014, @05:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 12 2014, @05:45PM (#68177)

    Attempting to confuse the issue? Old troll trick. It's not working, idiot. Either that, or you have poor reading comprehension. Take your pick.