
The article,
provocatively titled “Facebook mind control experiments linked to DoD research
on civil unrest” tried to make the link by mentioning that one of the three
authors of the 2012 Facebook project had also been involved in a separate project that was funded
by the Department of Defense via the Minerva Initiative. The rest of the
article is composed of a series of ever more tangential associations that would
only seem relevant or meaningful in substantiating the supposed link if one
were idly skimming over the document rather than actually reading through it,
but it would seem that the authors were trying to give the impression that the
U.S. military might be behind civil unrest around the world and/or might
intentionally foster it within the U.S. to justify a military coup.
Ironically, there
actually is a great deal of U.S. military-funded research on social media (some
of it even with the direct involvement of Facebook Inc.), which the authors of
the article could have cited as background to flesh out their paranoia
manufacturing and make their smoke and mirrors less obvious, but it would seem
that they neglected to do background research in preference to playing six
degrees of separation.
I have to say that I am
disappointed.
One would think that
with the extensive financial
and political support of the Kremlin behind them that Russia Today’s
writers would be more effective at their jobs of fostering mistrust of Western
governments.
While
they mention the Minerva Initiative in passing, they completely fail to note
any of it publicly listed priority
research topics, such as “Belief Propagation and Movements for Change” or
“Models of Societal Resilience and Change.” Or they could have performed more cherry-picking
of the dozens of projects
that the Initiative has funded over the years
Then
there’s the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, aka DARPA (the long-term
research agency for the Department of Defense) which is funding social media research
through its Information Innovation Office. This July, the office’s public
research requests included “online correlation for
societal unrest”, “persuasion and cognitive hacking”, “social multimedia”,
“modeling of human activity and proclivities”, “online information validation
and evidence collection”, and “semantic analysis” (identifying words, their
meanings, and emotional connotations, typically from text,) though they have anticipated
privacy concerns, as another of their areas of research listed is “privacy
science and systems.”
In fact, after the
controversy erupted about the publication of the 2012 Facebook emotional
contagion study, DARPA’s Social Media in Strategic Communications Program was
quick to release a
statement specifically noting that their program was
uninvolved with it, that they do not support any research involving deceiving
unwitting participants, and that their findings are all transparently published
in scientific journals.
In addition to a great
deal of general foundational work on modeling and data mining social media,
these publications have included work analyzing
the evolution of Occupy Wall Street, modeling
protest movements like the 2013 Gezi Park demonstrations in Turkey, distinguishing
true grassroots movements from astro-turfed ones, investigating
social bots, and quantifying
the diffusion of innovations.
Another hub of U.S.
military research into social media is the Naval Postgraduate School’s CORE Lab, that explicitly describes its mission
as “Advanced Network Analysis, Data Visualization, Research, and Strategies for
Irregular Warfare.” The lab’s public newsletter (most
recently published here)
elaborates on their work in detail.
One project mentioned
in the CORE Lab April 2013 newsletter involved used advanced social media mining
(including their own creation the Dynamic Tweet Network Analyst software),
combined with geospatial/temporal mapping and network analysis software to verifiably
identify relations, objectives, and tangled affiliations of Syrian resistance
movements including distinguishing between those groups that actually aligned
with U.S. policy objectives (as opposed to those who merely claimed to) and
determining the validity of the victories that each group claimed. The report proudly
states that intelligence professionals “marveled at how quickly three
researchers could illuminate and map element of the Syrian political and armed
opposition…” and quotes one (unnamed) officer as saying that “‘this would have
taken an entire intelligence section numerous months to develop the analytical
products and potentially years for the intelligence community to develop the
sources and contacts with access to this type of information.’” One could
certainly imagine how, if these techniques had been used by the wider
intelligence community (instead of just the officials evaluating the program,)
it might have been helpful in bringing earlier attention to the rise of ISIS.
The CORE Lab’s social
network mapping software Lighthouse has also
been
applied by U.S. police to analyze and aid in the dismantling of gang
networks through their aptly named GANG program.
The U.S. intelligence
community is also performing in-depth research via social media. The
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, IARPA (like DARPA, but for the intelligence
community) has been making strides with the Open Source Indicators
program using social media data (and other data). Researchers supported by the
program have claimed success in forecasting mass protests,
disease
outbreaks, and the
diffusion of news on social media.
Several of the
publications imply that their findings could be used for more than just passive
monitoring and forecasting, but to actively direct events. One
of the papers about modeling news and rumors notes in its abstract that their
“approach can be fruitfully combined with other strategies that use content
modeling and graph theoretic features to detect (and possibly disrupt) rumors”,
while another
discusses designing “counter-contagion strategies” to set the agenda on social
media or disrupt the plans of others to do so.
See? There’s so much
fodder that Russia Today could have easily selectively used. If I were Putin, I
might be demanding a refund.
Perhaps I’m being too
hard on the writers though. Perhaps their workload has been growing as the
Kremlin’s tight editorial hand has recently caused the station hemorrhage
reporters like the on-air resignation
of anchor Liz Wahl in March, and the high-profile loss in July of London
correspondent Sara Firth who also claims
that RT has been quietly losing quality staff for some time.
An ISIS promotional image. Authentic, according to the Guardian. |
Seriously
though, the Russia Today article probably performed precisely as intended,
especially if its over 10 thousand shares on Facebook is any measure. I suspect
that it was engineered for a quick skimming over before being passed along on
social media, where its eye-catching title ensures that many people will pick
it up and in turn pass it along. Even without reading the article itself, every
time someone glances over the title it does just a little to foster distrust of
the United States, even if subconsciously.
In our world today
where social media is used by state-sponsored news agencies like Russia Today
to spread half-truths and influence foreign opinion, by terrorists to drive
recruitment and demoralize
military targets, and by revolutionaries in the Middle East and Eastern Europe to
overthrow governments, is it really any surprise that the United States
military is researching it?
(Full Disclosure: I was
previously a founding/lead participant in a business venture that was
considering the IARPA OSI program and the DARPA SMISC program as potential
sources of funding, however I currently have no outstanding commercial
interests with either organization.)
For more about the future of social
media and how it is being used by governments, companies, terrorist groups, and
organized criminals subscribe now.
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