Changes and countermeasures
John McCubbin has responded:
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You raised a couple of interesting issues in your post.
I noted your comments on remote areas. The impact on remote areas is certainly an issue as today. However, I have just spent some time with the NGO sector and the rate of change in these regions is staggering. On Internet access the greatest growth regions between 2000-2012 were Africa (3,606%), the Middle East (2,639%) and Latin America (1,310%). Penetration rates are skill low but these are dramatic changes. It is a similar story on mobile phone access with Africa and the Middle East growing by 104% last year. By the end of this year 65% of the population in Africa will have a mobile phone account. The NGOs are only just waking up to the impact of this and the military should also be thinking hard about what it means for special or expeditionary force ops.
The more worrying aspect is your second point on state interference and manipulation. Certainly in Iraq and today in Syria there is clear evidence of state intercept and psyops. I also suspect the number of times I have seen the IDF and Al Qassam Bde blogs going off-line over the past couple of days has been due to individual or state sponsored cyber dabbling. Identifying reliable in-country sources and getting them an encrypted satphone should be a key consideration, although even that has its risks.
Social Media Intelligence
Social Media Intelligence
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Demos: Policing in an Information_Age
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In this short paper, we summarise the key opportunities and difficulties social media presents for engagement, intelligence and enforcement. It is far from comprehensive and offers only an overview of each. Nevertheless, it seems to us that the police will now certainly need to use social media to engage with the public, collect intelligence, and investigate crime, both on- and offline. This needs new settlements – in doctrine, resource allocation, operation, capability, regulation and strategy – that allow it to be done in accordance with the principles at the heart of the British model of policing: legitimacy, accountability, visibility, compliance with the rule of law, proportionality, the minimal use of force and engagement with the public.
Link:http://www.demos.co.uk/files/DEMOS_P...pdf?1364295365
Generally I like the work by Demos, but remain unconvinced that there is much intelligence gain in social media. How much sense can be made amidst so much?
Police, Twitter and (Woolwich) major incidents
A summary of a recent Demos (UK think tank) report:
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the Twitter conversations between the Metropolitan Police and the public following the vicious murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich.
Capacity is an issue when, astonishingly:
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...45% of the 19,344 tweets they analysed were produced by a single bot network...
It concludes:
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...this surge in social media interaction with police is obviously a mixed blessing; there is a small amount of potentially useful information included within a torrent of hearsay and rumour plus the inevitable general noise of people just participating in the #Twitcident without any particular motive.
It seems to me that there are two key social media challenges to police in the aftermath of major incidents:
To ensure that there is extra capacity to monitor social media accounts and ensure that accurate, timely and rumour busting information is sent out at regular intervals.
To have in place a sophisticated system to analyse tweets to provide intelligence and insight.
Link:http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=...&id=b60a7d789b
To actual Demos report:http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/metpoliceuk
What the Arab Spring Tells Us About the Future of Social Media in Revolutionary Movem
Media That (might not) Moves Millions
A fascinating FP reflective article on the power of social media; sub-titled:
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Social media may be protesters' favorite weapon, but new research on Syria's revolution shows it can do as much harm as good.
A taster:
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So what is the role and power of digital media in movements for peace and democracy? In contrast to three years ago, we have a lot more data and evidence now that we can use in trying to answer this question. And according to our research, the importance and uniformity of social media in these uprisings has been both overstated and vastly oversimplified.
Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...kraine_twitter
Humor and Social Movements
Request members publish studies on the use of humor in social movements if any exist. Interesting article below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/wo...html?ref=world
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Founded by two Thai-Americans, “Shallow News in Depth” is a low-budget weekly program posted to YouTube that employs a type of Western humor not common in Thailand — acid-laced sarcasm — and draws on the deep well of paradoxes, absurdities and mangled logic of Thailand’s otherwise deadly serious political crisis.
The Social Media Battleground
http://www.tbo.com/list/military-new...edia-20160228/
Battleground now includes social media
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The system, he said, is what’s broken.
“In the face of a nimble, adaptive opponent, unconstrained by truth, or ethics, our people are left swimming in bureaucracy, using outdated technology,” Lumpkin said, “The bottom line is that we are not putting the required resources against the problem set. As a result, the U.S. and our are allies are conceding the information battle space to a far less capable enemy.” Blunt in his assessment of the challenges, Lumpkin is also confident in the State Department’s new approach, creating a Global Engagement Center, which is “taking a fundamentally different approach.”
We will see, at least Lumpkin has a vision and energy, but will it be enough to overcome a stubborn bureaucracy?