Air Force research: How to use social media to control people

[UglyGreed]

"Containment control" model looks at how groups of influencers can manipulate people.

Facebook isn’t the only organization conducting research into how attitudes are affected by social media. The Department of Defense has invested millions of dollars over the past few years investigating social media, social networks, and how information spreads across them. While Facebook and Cornell University researchers manipulated what individuals saw in their social media streams, military-funded research—including projects funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Social Media in Strategic Communications (SMISC) program—has looked primarily into how messages from influential members of social networks propagate.

One study, funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), has gone a step further. “A less investigated problem is once you’ve identified the network, how do you manipulate it toward an end,” said Warren Dixon, a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering and director of the University of Florida’s Nonlinear Controls and Robotics research group. Dixon was the principal investigator on an Air Force Research Laboratory-funded project, which published its findings in February in a paper entitled “Containment Control for a Social Network with State-Dependent Connectivity.”

The research demonstrates that the mathematical principles used to control groups of autonomous robots can be applied to social networks in order to control human behavior. If properly calibrated, the mathematical models developed by Dixon and his fellow researchers could be used to sway the opinion of social networks toward a desired set of behaviors—perhaps in concert with some of the social media “effects” cyber-weaponry developed by the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ.


http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/air-force-research-how-to-use-social-media-to-control-people-like-drones/?comments=1

Came across this in the comment section of a Raw Story article.....

[smirkymonkey]

1. Very interesting that this research was funded by the US military.

This is how they manipulate us into backing their war games, denying refugees asylum and all kinds of nefarious doings.

[UglyGreed]

2. MIC

?w=640

[Blue_Tires]

3. Arstechnica is only three years behind the times... So good for them!

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

I mean FFS corporate America has been doing this for years, and never raises an eyebrow:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-pr-manipulates-the-media-2014-9

[UglyGreed]

4. I just stumbled across

this article like I wrote in the OP, found it interesting so I posted it.

[KamaAina]

5. There must be a way to disrupt this

[UglyGreed]

9. Have any ideas?

but if you share them with us they will know

[Octafish]

6. Less investigated: once identified, how do you manipulate the network toward an end?

“A less investigated problem is once you’ve identified the network, how do you manipulate it toward an end,”

LOL. You don't need that many to run the herd.



Thank you for a most important post, UglyGreed. These are par'lous times, when Uncle Sam can work propaganda on We the People. I'm so old, I can remember when that was against the law and this was a democracy.

[UglyGreed]

7. No problem

your reply automatically put this image in my head.

[jwirr]

8. They would like us to think this is about stopping the ISIS

recruitment over the internet. But unfortunately it is about a lot more and most of it is to end things like our Bernie network and other such independent movements by the people.

I had also wondered if they were thinking in terms of climate change and getting people to make the right moves regarding the issue but then I realized that more than likely the only ones they would be protecting would be the 1%.

Wouldn't it be nice if just once they would do something that was good like bringing about changes in how we work to set up a plan to combat climate change?

Signing off - just one of the sheeple.

[mrdmk]

10. I believe the phrase used on DU was, "Agent Mike"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2831840


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[UglyGreed]

11. Wow

thanks for pointing that out

[mrdmk]

12. If you are worried about this site (and others) being monitored by government/corporate interest

for influence/termination of activities, the short answer is YES!

DU did survive...


December 8, 2010 | By Kurt Opsahl

Democratic Underground Responds to Righthaven Copyright Troll Lawsuit

Righthaven is attempting to make a business out of suing Internet websites for copyright infringement. It has filed 180 copyright actions so far —without ever first asking that a work be removed from the target website—in each case alleging “willful infringement” and attempting to extract settlements by threats of statutory damages (up to $150,000), attorneys’ fees and seizure of the domain name.

Democratic Underground -- represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fenwick & West LLP, and attorney Chad Bowers -- was sued by Righthaven on August 10 for a five-sentence excerpt of a Las Vegas Review-Journal news story that a user posted on the forum, with a link back to the Review-Journal website.

Democratic Underground, a political message forum, refused to be intimidated by Righthaven’s action. They retained counsel and responded with a counterclaim that joined Righthaven’ affiliate and funder, Stephens Media, LLC (publisher of the Review-Journal), and laid bare the numerous defects not only in Righthaven’s claims, but in its business model itself. Not surprisingly, Righthaven now wants out—so badly, in fact, that it has moved to voluntarily dismiss its claim with prejudice in order to avoid a decision on the merits. However, Righthaven pleads to be let off the hook for Democratic Underground's fees and costs defending the lawsuit.

Democratic Underground responded to Righthaven's motion yesterday. DU agrees that this case should be over—indeed, it should never have started. But it should not end until Righthaven is called to account for the cost of the defense it provoked. To allow Righthaven to avoid compensating innocent defendants who refused to be coerced would be unjust and unsupportable. Accordingly, Democratic Underground asked the Court to deny the conditions Righthaven wrongfully proposed for the motion for voluntary dismissal and instead grant summary judgment in its favor.

link: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/democratic-underground-responds-righthaven

Here is what happened with the case... (A big thank-you to Newsjock for the article)

Ninth Circuit Vacates Fair Use Finding in Righthaven Case
Source: Bloomberg

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sealed the fate of copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC today by ruling that the minima; "right to sue" copyright assignments that Righthaven acquired from newspaper publishers did not confer standing to sue third parties for copyright infringement.

So far, that's good news for bloggers and others who had been targetted by Righthaven. However, the Ninth Circuit's ruling contained a bit of bad news for them: along the way, the court vacated the lower court's ruling that the defendant's posting of the entirety of a copyighted article to an online discussion board was a protected fair use.

... With this part of the lower court's ruling in Hoehn swept aside, the high-water mark for fair use rights online is arguably another Righthaven case, Righthaven LLC v. Democratic Underground LLC, D. Nev., No. 2:10-cv-01356 (D. Nev., March 9, 2012), where the district court ruled that the posting a five-sentence excerpt of a fifty sentence news article on a political discussion forum was a fair use.

link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014479380






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