Slashdot Mirror
US Military Commissions Sock Puppet Program
chrb writes "The Guardian and The Telegraph are reporting that US based Ntrepid Corporation has been awarded a $2.76 million contract to develop software aimed at manipulating social media. The project aims to enable military personnel to control multiple 'sock puppets' located at a range of geographically diverse IP addresses, with the aim of spreading pro-US propaganda. The project will not target English speaking web sites (yet) but will be limited to foreign languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto. The project will be funded as part of the $200 million Operation Earnest Voice program run by US Central Command."
Really, calling propaganda "Operation Earnest Voice"? I think a few braincells just exploded.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Shouldn't something like this have been kept Secret? Letting everyone know about it kind of defeats the purpose.
Pro-USA propaganda is already planted in Iraqi news papers, this is a logical step. It's also despicable. Especially when the same government denounces these tactics when used by "the enemy".
Not with my taxes, please. Dishonourable shits.
Blar.
As distasteful as it is, this is hardly a new thing. Pretty much everyone in history has done this to some degree. The only real "news" is that a new mechanism is going into place, but the machinery has been there all along.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
If you can understand an intended meaning to a US operation or program name then it's public persuasion / propaganda.
MKUltra: WTF
Operation Overlord / Neptune: WTF
Operation Iraqi Freedom: propaganda
You can opt out of the newspaper market, I certainly have. Can't easily opt out of tax paying.
Well, people are always saying they want the government "run like a business". Well, friend, "business" has been doing this sockpuppet thing for years. Go look at the web site for "New Media Strategies", the company that provides sock puppets for the Koch Brothers, among others. That's their entire business model - providing sock puppets for businesses.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Pro-USA propaganda is already planted in Iraqi news papers, this is a logical step. It's also despicable. Especially when the same government denounces these tactics when used by "the enemy".
Not with my taxes, please. Dishonourable shits.
Ever heard of Voice of America ? Same thing, different media. These aren't subliminal messages, it's propaganda created to directly counter propaganda of those who would seek to continue doing harm in any form, not necessarily just against the United States but also against the interest of humanity - think Gadhaffi for a current example. Having a problem with this is just Naiveté on your part.
Why is it dishonorable if the stories are true? People do not understand that propaganda does not have to be lies and frankly the best propaganda is the truth.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
There's $200 million that should come directly out of the defense budget.
I know that this kind of shit can be done. I know that it could be useful to "win".
But jesus fraggin' christ... do we have to go there first? Do we have to piss on our own credibility at every turn?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
But Voice of America is a branded product. You tune into VoA and it tells you you're listening to VoA. It's propaganda, but it's a million miles away from sock-puppeting -- sock puppets don't tell you they're sock puppets.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
As distasteful as it is, this is hardly a new thing. Pretty much everyone in history has done this to some degree. The only real "news" is that a new mechanism is going into place, but the machinery has been there all along.
I agree. And yet, when I say that the US population is massively propagandized by its government, I get called a conspiracy theorist. I know the program in question is aimed at only foreigners, but we know how that can go don't we? I once heard that the difference between Soviet and American propaganda was that the Soviet people recognized it for what it was; the Americans, not so much.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Nah, the military is way too busy defending our freedoms and improving the world we live in to spend time posting on Slashdot!
(This message brought to you by the US military)
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Are you sure you have an idea what the term "propaganda" means? For a start, it doesn't imply any commitment to truth...
There is nothing to object to propaganda that is clearly marked as such (see above comments about "Voice of America"), but if it comes in disguise then it is, of course, dishonorable.
The technical term for the whole process run by the rich to sway decision-makers is "astroturfing," because they're creating an artificial grass-roots effort. Sock puppetry is only one tool in their toolbox.
Nicky Hager's book Secrets and Lies, has terrific detail on how such a campaign is run, documenting the New Zealand timber industry's bought-and-paid-for efforts to run roughshod over the environmentalists in order to log the islands.
John
Not with my taxes, please. Dishonourable shits.
Considering you spell dishonorable with a 'u', I assume it actually isn't with your taxes.
Now..wouldn't any pro-USA comments on any ME message board or whatever now be suspected of being a sockpuppet?
I guess we now have a new meme: On the internet...
All the men are men
All the women are men
All the kids are FBI agents
And...all the pro-USA guys in foreign forums are CIA agents.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........