2014: Air Force Research: How to Use Social Media to Control People Like Drones
February 16th, 2024I was considering the success of the Covid operation and what the upcoming AI generated video capabilities will enable, in terms of social control. Think about applying advanced AI tools to this decade old research.
It could make Covid look like tiddlywinks.
Via: Ars Technica:
Military social network research has been ongoing over the past decade as part of the DOD’s efforts to leverage “open source intelligence” and use social network analysis (using mobile phone records, other electronic relationships, and physical-world relationships) to target manufacturers of improvised explosive devices and leaders of insurgent cells. Along the way, the research has shifted more toward “hearts and minds” goals than “search and destroy” ones.
DARPA launched its SMISC program in 2011 to examine ways social networks could be used for propaganda and what broadly falls under the euphemistic title of Military Information Support Operations (MISO), formerly known as psychological operations. Early in July, DARPA published a list of research projects funded by the SMISC program. They included studies that analyzed the Twitter followings of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber among others; investigations into the spread of Internet memes; a study by the Georgia Tech Research Institute into automatically identifying deceptive content in social media with linguistic cues; and “Modeling User Attitude toward Controversial Topics in Online Social Media”—an IBM Research study that tapped into Twitter feeds to track responses to topics like “fracking” for natural gas.
The AFRL-sponsored research by Dixon, Zhen Kan, and Justin Klotz of University of Florida NCR group and Eduardo L. Pasiliao of AFRL’s Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base was prompted by a meeting Dixon attended while preparing a “think piece” for the Defense Science Study Group. “I heard a presentation by a computer scientist about examining behaviors of people based on social data. The language that was being used to mathematically describe the interactions [between people and products] was the same language we use in controlling groups of autonomous vehicles.”
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While DARPA’s research funding comes with specific ethical and legal constraints [sic.], it’s clear that there is other research being conducted in social media manipulation not happening with such oversight. As Ars reported earlier this week, documents provided to The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden show that the British intelligence agency GCHQ has developed tools specifically aimed at leveraging social media for “effects” operations. The organization has shared its methods with the NSA, and these capabilities have been used in Afghanistan and elsewhere to “shape” information available to members of targeted organizations online and via mobile phones.
Related:
2014: GCHQ’s “Chinese Menu” of Tools Spreads Disinformation Across Internet
2012: Using Mobile Phone User Location Data for ‘Crowd (Soft) Control’
we have to be aware of the modus to save ourselves. There was a lot of “hype” during the Cambridge analytica scandal about Personality Types! The KEY personality type to train their “Nudge” social media decision support model upon is “Agreeableness” and “Openness”.
Those who are agreeable can be nudged with proxy Peer pressure (proxy b/c online is electronic not flesh peers). SO with AI avatars AI video becoming friends to various humans….you can only imagine!
Those who are not “open”, not “agreeable” can be “nudged” with pied-piper attacks. The one who is most strident in your same beliefs will actually be doing you in against your interests! (Think Zelensky, Milei, any madcap….)
Scary future.