Revealed: U.S. Spy Operation That Manipulates Social Media

[Paul Ferguson <fergdawgster () gmail com>]

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Via The Guardian.

[snip]

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate
social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online
personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American
propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States
Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle
East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona
management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control
up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control
and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain
that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online
conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or
reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities
– known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also
encourage other governments, private companies and non-government
organisations to do the same.

[snip]

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-ne
tworks

FYI,

- - ferg

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-- 
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawgster(at)gmail.com
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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