DHS Is Searching Your Facebook/Twitter For Words Like “Home”, “Cloud”, “Excercise” & “Social Media”

Oldspeak:“The Department of Homeland Security monitors your updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover “Items Of Interest”. That’s catchy, in a Orwellian kinna way. “Items Of Interest” really? “Cloud” is an “item of interest? Consider the irony. In an era of unprecedented safety in the U.S., under the guise of ‘national security’, the U.S. is prosecuting a perpetual and nebulous “War On Terror”, Numerous civil liberties have been shredded via the “USA Patriot Act” and secretly negotiated treaties like ACTA, while Americans are being surveiled and spied on more than ever. We’re being encouraged to “Go Digital” and transition most of our lives from the physical world to a ‘more convenient’ virtual world, that is easier to monitor and control.  We’ve created a culture of fear unmatched since the days of the “Red Scare”. While words like “freedom” and “democracy” and “liberty” and flung about like so much red white and blue confetti. It is the insidious brilliance of inverted totalitarianism. You’re taught to love your farm, while you’re kept, spiritually, mentally and nutritionally deprived. Perpetually generating revenue for the corporocratic elite. Entertained in a world of screens, constantly bombarded with messages from a formidable propaganda system, telling you what to buy, think, eat, feel and know. We can only be kept in the cages we do not see. And we’re taught to love our cages. “To See The Farm Is To Leave It.”

Related Video:

The Story Of Your Enslavement

By Joel Johnson @ Animal New York:

The Department of Homeland Security monitors your updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover “Items Of Interest” (IOI), according to an internal DHS document released by the EPIC. That document happens to include a list of the baseline terms for which the DHS–or more specifically, a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks–use to generate real-time IOI reports. (Although the released PDF is generally all reader-selectable text, the list of names was curiously embedded as an image of text, preventing simple indexing. We’ve fixed that below.)

To be fair, the DHS does have an internal privacy policy that attempts to strip your “PII”–Personally Identifiable Information–from the aggregated tweets and status updates, with some broad exceptions:

1) U.S. and foreign individuals in extremis situations involving potential life or death circumstances; (this is no change)
2) Senior U.S. and foreign government officials who make public statements or provide public updates;
3) U.S. and foreign government spokespersons who make public statements or provide public updates;
4) U.S. and foreign private sector officials and spokespersons who make public statements or provide public updates;
5) Names of anchors, newscasters, or on-scene reporters who are known or identified as reporters in their post or article or who use traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed;
6) Current and former public officials who are victims of incidents or activities related to Homeland Security; and
7) Terrorists, drug cartel leaders or other persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest, (e.g., mass shooters such as those at Virginia Tech or Ft. Hood) who are killed or found dead.

In addition, the Media Monitoring Capability team can transmit personal information to the DHS National Operations Center over the phone as deemed necessary.

The MMC watch may provide the name, position, or other information considered to be PII to the NOC over the telephone when approved by the appropriate DHS OPS authority. But that information must not be stored in a database that could be searched by an individual’s PII.

In addition to the following list of terms, the DHS can also add additional search terms circumstantially as deemed necessary.

DHS Media Monitoring Terms



2.13 Key Words & Search TermsThis is a current list of terms that will be used by the NOC when monitoring social media sites to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture. As natural or manmade disasters occur, new search terms may be added.

The new search terms will not use PII in searching for relevant
mission-related information.

DHS & Other Agencies

• Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• Coast Guard (USCG)
• Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
• Border Patrol
• Secret Service (USSS)
• National Operations Center (NOC)
• Homeland Defense
• Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• Agent
• Task Force
• Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
• Fusion Center
• Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
• Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
• Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
• Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
• Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
• Air Marshal
• Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
• National Guard
• Red Cross
• United Nations (UN)

Domestic Security

• Assassination
• Attack
• Domestic security
• Drill
• Exercise
• Cops
• Law enforcement
• Authorities
• Disaster assistance
• Disaster management
• DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)
• National preparedness
• Mitigation
• Prevention
• Response
• Recovery
• Dirty Bomb
• Domestic nuclear detection
• Emergency management
• Emergency response
• First responder
• Homeland security
• Maritime domain awareness (MDA)
• National preparedness initiative
• Militia
• Shooting
• Shots fired
• Evacuation
• Deaths
• Hostage
• Explosion (explosive)
• Police
• Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT)
• Organized crime
• Gangs
• National security
• State of emergency
• Security
• Breach
• Threat
• Standoff
• SWAT
• Screening
• Lockdown
• Bomb (squad or threat)
• Crash
• Looting
• Riot
• Emergency Landing
• Pipe bomb
• Incident
• Facility

HAZMAT & Nuclear

• Hazmat
• Nuclear
• Chemical Spill
• Suspicious package/device
• Toxic
• National laboratory
• Nuclear facility
• Nuclear threat
• Cloud
• Plume
• Radiation
• Radioactive
• Leak
• Biological infection (or event)
• Chemical
• Chemical burn
• Biological
• Epidemic
• Hazardous
• Hazardous material incident
• Industrial spill
• Infection
• Powder (white)
• Gas
• Spillover
• Anthrax
• Blister agent
• Exposure
• Burn
• Nerve agent
• Ricin
• Sarin
• North Korea

Health Concern + H1N1

• Outbreak
• Contamination
• Exposure
• Virus
• Evacuation
• Bacteria
• Recall
• Ebola
• Food Poisoning
• Foot and Mouth (FMD)
• H5N1
• Avian
• Flu
• Salmonella
• Small Pox
• Plague
• Human to human
• Human to ANIMAL
• Influenza
• Center for Disease Control (CDC)
• Drug Administration (FDA)
• Public Health
• Toxic
• Agro Terror
• Tuberculosis (TB)
• Agriculture
• Listeria
• Symptoms
• Mutation
• Resistant
• Antiviral
• Wave
• Pandemic
• Infection
• Water/air borne
• Sick
• Swine
• Pork
• Strain
• Quarantine
• H1N1
• Vaccine
• Tamiflu
• Norvo Virus
• Epidemic
• World Health Organization (WHO and components)
• Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
• E. Coli

Infrastructure Security

• Infrastructure security
• Airport
• CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)
• AMTRAK
• Collapse
• Computer infrastructure
• Communications infrastructure
• Telecommunications
• Critical infrastructure
• National infrastructure
• Metro
• WMATA
• Airplane (and derivatives)
• Chemical fire
• Subway
• BART
• MARTA
• Port Authority
• NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center)
• Transportation security
• Grid
• Power
• Smart
• Body scanner
• Electric
• Failure or outage
• Black out
• Brown out
• Port
• Dock
• Bridge
• Canceled
• Delays
• Service disruption
• Power lines

Southwest Border Violence

• Drug cartel
• Violence
• Gang
• Drug
• Narcotics
• Cocaine
• Marijuana
• Heroin
• Border
• Mexico
• Cartel
• Southwest
• Juarez
• Sinaloa
• Tijuana
• Torreon
• Yuma
• Tucson
• Decapitated
• U.S. Consulate
• Consular
• El Paso
• Fort Hancock
• San Diego
• Ciudad Juarez
• Nogales
• Sonora
• Colombia
• Mara salvatrucha
• MS13 or MS-13
• Drug war
• Mexican army
• Methamphetamine
• Cartel de Golfo
• Gulf Cartel
• La Familia
• Reynose
• Nuevo Leon
• Narcos
• Narco banners (Spanish equivalents)
• Los Zetas
• Shootout
• Execution
• Gunfight
• Trafficking
• Kidnap
• Calderon
• Reyosa
• Bust
• Tamaulipas
• Meth Lab
• Drug trade
• Illegal immigrants
• Smuggling (smugglers)
• Matamoros
• Michoacana
• Guzman
• Arellano-Felix
• Beltran-Leyva
• Barrio Azteca
• Artistics Assassins
• Mexicles
• New Federation

Terrorism

• Terrorism
• Al Queda (all spellings)
• Terror
• Attack
• Iraq
• Afghanistan
• Iran
• Pakistan
• Agro
• Environmental terrorist
• Eco terrorism
• Conventional weapon
• Target
• Weapons grade
• Dirty bomb
• Enriched
• Nuclear
• Chemical weapon
• Biological weapon
• Ammonium nitrate
• Improvised explosive device
• IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
• Abu Sayyaf
• Hamas
• FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia)
• IRA (Irish Republican Army)
• ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)
• Basque Separatists
• Hezbollah
• Tamil Tiger
• PLF (Palestine Liberation Front)
• PLO (Palestine Libration Organization)
• Car bomb
• Jihad
• Taliban
• Weapons cache
• Suicide bomber
• Suicide attack
• Suspicious substance
• AQAP (Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula)
• AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)
• TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)
• Yemen
• Pirates
• Extremism
• Somalia
• Nigeria
• Radicals
• Al-Shabaab
• Home grown
• Plot
• Nationalist
• Recruitment
• Fundamentalism
• Islamist

Weather/Disaster/Emergency

• Emergency
• Hurricane
• Tornado
• Twister
• Tsunami
• Earthquake
• Tremor
• Flood
• Storm
• Crest
• Temblor
• Extreme weather
• Forest fire
• Brush fire
• Ice
• Stranded/Stuck
• Help
• Hail
• Wildfire
• Tsunami Warning Center
• Magnitude
• Avalanche
• Typhoon
• Shelter-in-place
• Disaster
• Snow
• Blizzard
• Sleet
• Mud slide or Mudslide
• Erosion
• Power outage
• Brown out
• Warning
• Watch
• Lightening
• Aid
• Relief
• Closure
• Interstate
• Burst
• Emergency Broadcast System

Cyber Security

• Cyber security
• Botnet
• DDOS (dedicated denial of service)
• Denial of service
• Malware
• Virus
• Trojan
• Keylogger
• Cyber Command
• 2600
• Spammer
• Phishing
• Rootkit
• Phreaking
• Cain and abel
• Brute forcing
• Mysql injection
• Cyber attack
• Cyber terror
• Hacker
• China
• Conficker
• Worm
• Scammers
• Social media

Yes, the Department of Homeland Security is searching social media for…”social media”.

Federal Reserve Bank Plans “Social Listening Platform” To Identify “Key Bloggers”, Monitor Billions Of Conversations Online Via Social Media

Oldspeak:”A few short months after the Pentagon requested proposals to help it “get better at both detecting and conducting propaganda campaigns on social media” monitoring the internet via its  Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program, The Federal Reserve is following suit, requesting proposals to allow it to develop a ”Social Listening Platform” whose function is to “gather data from various social media outlets and news sources.” It will “monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria.”The Fed’s desired product should be able to “determine the sentiment [ED:LOL] of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document”… “The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc.” Most importantly, the “Listening Platform” should be able to “Handle crisis situations, Continuously monitor conversations, and Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers.”  Why does this a bank need monitor conversations on the internet? I can sorta understand why the Pentagon would need to, but a bank needs to know the “sentiment” of speakers and writers?”

By Washington’s Blog:

The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, … in a Request for Proposals filed to companies that are Fed vendors, is requesting the creation of a “Social Listening Platform” whose function is to “gather data from various social media outlets and news sources.” It will “monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria.”The Fed’s desired product should be able to “determine the sentiment [ED:LOL] of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document”… “The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc.” Most importantly, the “Listening Platform” should be able to “Handle crisis situations, Continuously monitor conversations, and Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers.” Said otherwise, the Fed has just entered the counterespionage era and will be monitoring everything written about it anywhere in the world.

***

From the key section of the RFP, presented in its entirety below:

I. Introduction

Social media platforms are changing the way organizations are communicating to the public Conversations are happening all the time and everywhere.
There is need for the Communications Group to be timely and proactively aware of the reactions and opinions expressed by the general public as it relates to the Federal Reserve and its actions on a variety of subjects.

II. Social Listening Platforms

Social media listening platforms are solutions that gather data from various social media outlets and news sources. They monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria. They can also determine the sentiment of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document.
The information gathered can guide the organizations public relations group in assessing the effectiveness of communication strategies.

Here are some of the services it can offer:

o Track reach and spread of your messages and press releases 
o Handle crisis situations 
o Continuously monitor conversations 
o Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers 
o Spot emerging trends, discussions themes and topics

A. Geographic scope of social media sites

The solution must support content coming from different countries and geographical regions. It should also support multiple languages.

B. Content and Data Types

The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms –Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc.

C. Reports and Metrics

The solution must provide real-time monitoring of relevant conversations. It should provide sentiment analysis (positive, negative or neutral) around key conversational topics.

It must be able to provide summaries or high level overviews of a specific set of topics. It should have a configurable dashboard that can easily be accessed by internal analysts or management. The dashboard must support customization by user or group access.

The solution should provide an alerting mechanism that automatically sends out reports or notifications based a predefined trigger.

D. FRBNY Technology Integration

The solution must be able to integrate with existing FRBNY technologies such as: Google Search appliance, Lotus notes suite and web trends.It must have support for single sign on or windows integrated authentication.

E. Cost Structure

The solution should offer a flexible pricing structure that can support multiple user licensing. It should also have the option to base pricing on content volume and usage. Supplier acknowledges an understanding of and agrees to comply with the above minimum solutions requirements.

Full RFP:

Frbny Social Media Rfp 

The Federal Reserve Plans To Identify “Key Bloggers” And Monitor Billions Of Conversations About The Fed On Facebook, Twitter, Forums And Blogs

By The Economic Collapse:

The Federal Reserve wants to know what you are saying about it.  In fact, the Federal Reserve has announced plans to identify “key bloggers” and to monitor “billions of conversations” about the Fed on Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs.  This is yet another sign that the alternative media is having a dramatic impact.  As first reported on Zero Hedge, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has issued a “Request for Proposal” to suppliers who may be interested in participating in the development of a “Sentiment Analysis And Social Media Monitoring Solution”.  In other words, the Federal Reserve wants to develop a highly sophisticated system that will gather everything that you and I say about the Federal Reserve on the Internet and that will analyze what our feelings about the Fed are.  Obviously, any “positive” feelings about the Fed would not be a problem.  What they really want to do is to gather information on everyone that views the Federal Reserve negatively.  It is unclear how they plan to use this information once they have it, but considering how many alternative media sources have been shut down lately, this is obviously a very troubling sign.

You can read this “Request for Proposal” right here.  Posted below are some of the key quotes from the document (in bold) with some of my own commentary in between the quotes….

“The intent is to establish a fair and equitable partnership with a market leader who will who gather data from various social media outlets and news sources and provide applicable reporting to FRBNY. This Request for Proposal (“RFP”) was created in an effort to support FRBNY’s Social Media Listening Platforms initiative.”

A system like this is not cheap.  Apparently the Federal Reserve Bank of New York believes that gathering all of this information is very important.  In recent years, criticism of the Federal Reserve has become very intense, and most of this criticism has been coming from the Internet.  It has gotten to the point where the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has decided that it had better listen to what is being said and find out who is saying it.

“Social media listening platforms are solutions that gather data from various social media outlets and news sources.  They monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria.  They can also determine the sentiment of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York intends to listen in on “billions of conversations” and to actually determine the “sentiment” of those that are participating in those conversations.

Of course it will be those conversations that are “negative” about the Federal Reserve that will be setting off the alarm bells.

“Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers”

Uh oh.  So they plan to “identify” key bloggers and influencers?

What exactly do they plan to do once they “identify” them?

“The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms –Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube.”

Hopefully you understand this already, but nothing posted on the Internet is ever anonymous.  Everything on the Internet is gathered by a vast host of organizations and is used for a wide variety of purposes.  Data mining has become a billion dollar industry, and it is only going to keep growing.

You may think that you are “anonymous” when you criticize organizations like the Fed, but the truth is that if you are loud enough they will see it and they will make a record of it.

“The solution must provide real-time monitoring of relevant conversations.  It should provide sentiment analysis (positive, negative or neutral) around key conversational topics.”

Why do they need to perform “sentiment analysis”?

If someone is identified as being overly “negative” about the Fed, what will they do about it?

“The solution should provide an alerting mechanism that automatically sends out reports or notifications based a predefined trigger.”

This sounds very much like the kind of “keyword” intelligence gathering systems that are currently in use by major governments around the globe.

Very, very creepy stuff.

Are you disturbed yet?

For those of us that write about the Federal Reserve a lot, this is very sobering news.

I wonder what the Fed will think about the following articles that I have posted on this site….

*Unelected, Unaccountable, Unrepentant: The Federal Reserve Is Using Your Money To Bail Out European Commercial Banks Once Again

*Celebrating Independence Yet Enslaved To Debt

*19 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is At The Heart Of Our Economic Problems

*Is Ben Bernanke A Liar, A Lunatic Or Is He Just Completely And Totally Incompetent?

*10 Things That Would Be Different If The Federal Reserve Had Never Been Created

What is their “Social Media Monitoring Solution” going to think about those articles?

Unfortunately, this is all part of a very disturbing trend.

Recently, a very creepy website known as “Attack Watch” was launched to gather information on those saying “negative” things about Barack Obama.

Suddenly, everyone seems obsessed with what you and I are saying.

This just shows how the power of the alternative media is growing.

Not only that, but it seems as though the government also wants to gather as much information on all of us as possible.

For example, a new rule is being proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services that would force health insurance companies to submit detailed health care information about all of their customers to the federal government.

Every single day our privacy is being stripped away a little bit more.

But now it is often not just enough for them to know what we are doing and saying.  Instead, the “authorities” are increasingly stepping in to silence important voices.

One of the most recent examples of this was when Activistpost was taken downby Google.  We are still awaiting word on why this was done.

Sadly, the silencing of Activistpost is far from an isolated incident.

Hordes of YouTube accounts have been shut down for their political viewpoints.

Quite a few very prominent alternative media websites have been censored or attacked because of what they stand for.

So why is this happening?  Well, it turns out that the power of the alternative media is growing.  According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, 43 percent of Americans say that they get their news on national and international issues from the Internet.  Back in 1999, that figure was sitting at just 6 percent.

The American people are sick and tired of getting “canned news”, and they are increasingly turning to the Internet in a search for the truth.

As I have written about previously, the mainstream media in this country is overwhelmingly dominated by just 6 very powerful corporations….

Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations.  These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day.  They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don’t even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest.  Most Americans don’t really seem to care about who owns the media.  But they should.  The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media.  The average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something.  Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.

The “news” that we get from various mainstream sources seems to always be so similar.  It is as if nearly all mainstream news organizations are reading from the same script.  The American people know that they are not getting the whole truth and they have been increasingly looking to alternative sources.

The monopoly over the news that the mainstream media once possessed has been broken.  The alternative media is now creating some huge problems for organizations that were once very closely protected by the mainstream media.

The American people are starting to wake up and they are starting to get very upset about a lot of the corruption that has been going on in our society.

But it turns out that the “authorities” don’t like it too much when Americans try to actually exercise free speech in America today.  For example, you can see recent video of female protesters in New York City being penned in by police and then brutally maced right here.

Are you sickened by that?

You should be.

What the “authorities” want is for us to shut up, sit in our homes and act as if nothing wrong is happening.

Meanwhile, they seem determined to watch us more closely than ever.

So are you going to be afraid to talk negatively about the Federal Reserve now that you know that they are going to be watching what you say on the Internet?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pentagon Looks To Social Media As New Battlefield

Oldspeak:” ‘Events of strategic as well as tactical importance to our Armed Forces are increasingly taking place in social media space…‘ -DARPA (The US military’s high-tech research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) The hyper-militarization of the U.S. continues into Cyberspace. Your ability to organize dissent, protest, uprising and exposure of government lies and true objectives (i.e. Wikileaks) using the internet against a government working against you is being viewed as a military threat that needs to be countered and neutralized. The  The powers that be don’t want what happened in Wisconsin metastasizing and your tax dollars are being used to that end. More definitive evidence of clandestine surveillance of online social media with the expressed purpose controlling and shaping outcomes in the real world. Next to no mention of this in domestic corporate media. Social control, surveillance and propaganda, as American as apple pie. ‘Big Brother is watching you‘

Related Story

Pentagon Wants a Social Media Propaganda Machine

By The American Foreign Press:

The Pentagon is asking scientists to figure out how to detect and counter propaganda on social media networks in the aftermath of Arab uprisings driven by Twitter and Facebook.

The US military’s high-tech research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has put out a request for experts to look at “a new science of social networks” that would attempt to get ahead of the curve of events unfolding on new media.

The program’s goal was to track “purposeful or deceptive messaging and misinformation” in social networks and to pursue “counter messaging of detected adversary influence operations,” according to DARPA’s request for proposals issued on July 14.

The project echoes concerns among top military officers about the lightning pace of change in the Middle East, where social networks have served as an engine for protest against some longtime US allies.

Some senior officers have spoken privately of the need to better track unrest revealed in social networks and to look for ways to shape outcomes in the Arab world through Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.

“Events of strategic as well as tactical importance to our Armed Forces are increasingly taking place in social media space,” the DARPA announcement said.

“We must, therefore, be aware of these events as they are happening and be in a position to defend ourselves within that space against adverse outcomes,” it said.

DARPA predicted that social networks would have a groundbreaking effect on warfare.

“Changes to the nature of conflict resulting from the use of social media are likely to be as profound as those resulting from previous communications revolutions,” it said.

Under the proposal, researchers would be expected to unearth and classify the “formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes)” in social media.

The document cited a case in which authorities employed social media to head off a potential crisis, but did not specify details of the incident.

“For example, in one case rumors about the location of a certain individual began to spread in social media space and calls for storming the rumored location reached a fever pitch,” it said.

“By chance, responsible authorities were monitoring the social media, detected the crisis building, sent out effective messaging to dispel the rumors and averted a physical attack on the rumored location.”

DARPA planned to spend $42 million on the Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program, with prospective contractors asked to test algorithms through “experiments” with social media, it said.

One possible experiment could involve a “closed social media network” of two to five thousand volunteers or an online role playing game with tens of thousands of players.