Social Media and Unconventional Warfare

[davidbfpo]

I've been looking at the impact of social media and warfare of late, so thought it might help SWC readers to add a couple of pointers. Especially after a non-SWC member added:

... there are few who have grasped the full implications of social networking for public order, security etc

Hat tip to Tim Stevens, Kings War Studies to the work of Daniel Bennett, from the BBC and a Ph.D student:

My thesis considered the impact of blogging and 'new' media on the BBC's coverage of war and terrorism.

Daniel has a blog:http://mediatingconflict.blogspot.co.uk/

More an information-gathering point maybe; I was intrigued by the possibilities in his piece 'Links on Twitter and Mapping', notably a map of newspapers:http://mediatingconflict.blogspot.co...d-mapping.html

The non-SWC member pointed to another blogsite, with an article from September 2011 'How government could use social media to improve its response to public crises', which opens with:

Over the last couple of months I have been watching with interest how social media has been used during a number of crisis events and how governments have reacted to and made use of these technologies. It has been an instructive period as we have had the opportunity to observe both man-made and natural crises. What is clear is that governments still do not fully understand social media and how to use it in a disaster or crisis.

Link:http://i-logue.com/chaos-is-a-social-issue/

No, I'm not a cartographer, amongst the embedded links is this one:http://crisismappers.net/

[davidbfpo]

A suggestion from a SWC reader: '10 ways the military and intel should be using social media, if they aren’t already' which was written in August 2011, so before Tahrir Square, that opens with:

..if I were in charge of finding and eliminating bad guys, and protecting civilians on the ground in wartime situations, if I were in charge of understanding the formation of events such as Arab Spring..this is what I’d do.

And concludes:

We’re not completely sure where we are all headed, but we’ll get there by learning from each other.

Link:http://productfour.wordpress.com/201...-soical-media/

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to Bruce Schneier for the pointer to a lengthy article on Wired 'Jamming Tripoli: Inside Moammar Gadhafi’s Secret Surveillance Network':http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/ff_libya/all/1

I was struck by this sentence:

By now, it’s well known that the Arab Spring showed the promise of the Internet as a crucible for democratic activism. But, in the shadows, a second narrative unfolded, one that demonstrated the Internet’s equal potential for government surveillance and repression on a scale unimaginable with the old analog techniques of phone taps and informants.

(Much later) Today you can run an approximation of 1984 out of a couple of rooms filled with server racks. And that’s precisely what Libya’s spies did—and what dictatorships all around the world continue to do.

Bruce's article draws attention to Chinese, French, South African and USA technology suppliers:http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...sting_art.html

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to Londonistani for this wide ranging review of social media in the Arab Spring, actual title 'The Arab Spring: Revolution without Revolutionaries?' by Guy Harris, who has "sand in his boots":http://www.defenceiq.com/defence-tec...lution-withou/

[Bill Moore]

David,

These are largely opinion pieces, like most of the articles we post on SWJ, but there is little science behind these opinions, and IMO little logic to support their views.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/behavioural-conflict

They wrote at length about the importance of focusing on group versus individual beliefs to effectively shape behavior. I think this phrase effectively captures one of their arguments, “Just like research which disproves any strong connection between attitudes and behaviors, this (discussion on poverty and violence)is contrary to prevailing wisdom and, if true, has serious implications.”

The authors didn't address social media, but assuming that behavior is "mostly" driven by identity group and group expectations, is it is possible that online communities can form identity groups? Then is it also possible that these online communities can provide a social structure that motivates or constrains specific behaviors? I don't think we're too concerned about thousands of people getting online complaining, but this obviously went a step further.

I have read several studies on radicalization, and one of the salient points about online radicalization that at least one study pointed to was the ability of the radicalizer to bypass the normal social structure that motivates and constrains the targeted individuals behaviors. Parents, friends, etc. are at a loss to explain why he or she became a terrorist, not realizing that person had another virtual identity group that compelled him to change his behavior.

I'm only proposing these as ideas for consideration and do not pretend to know the answer, but I am hesitant to dismiss the potential power of social media at this point.

[Bill Moore]

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...anonymous/all/

In fact, the success of Anonymous without leaders is pretty easy to understand—if you forget everything you think you know about how organizations work. Anonymous is a classic “do-ocracy,” to use a phrase that’s popular in the open source movement. As the term implies, that means rule by sheer doing: Individuals propose actions, others join in (or not), and then the Anonymous flag is flown over the result. There’s no one to grant permission, no promise of praise or credit, so every action must be its own reward.

What’s harder to comprehend—but just as important, if you want to grasp the future of Anonymous after the arrests—is the radical political consciousness that seized this innumerable throng of Internet misfits. Anonymous became dangerous to governments and corporations not just because of its skills (lots of hackers have those) or its scale but because of the fury of its convictions. In the beginning, Anonymous was just about self-amusement, the “lulz,” but somehow, over the course of the past few years, it grew up to become a sort of self-appointed immune system for the Internet, striking back at anyone the hive mind perceived as an enemy of freedom, online or offline. It started as a gang of nihilists but somehow evolved into a fervent group of believers. To understand that unlikely transformation, and Anonymous’ peculiar method of (non)organization, it is necessary to start at the very beginning.

[bourbon]

How Anonymous Picks Targets, Launches Attacks

I am currently reading We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency by Parmy Olson. Based on extensive research, Olson monitored anon over two years and interviews with key anon personalities; so far I highly recommend it.