Social Media: the widest impact of (merged thread)

[Bill Moore]

O.K, O.K., in some cases SM can create a narrative.....

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...551#post142551


Questions are being raised surrounding the sudden and secret hanging of Kasab in India.

From International Business Times India:
Quote:
Ajmal Kasab a Victim of Dengue or Was He Hanged till Death? Soon after the news of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab's hanging was announced, several people started raising questions about the government's secrecy over his execution. While several people, including the victims' families supported the decision, many have raised doubts on the social networking sites asking whether the terrorist was actually hanged or he died of dengue.

The rumor of Kasab dying of dengue has become a hot topic of discussion on Twitter.

Excerpt From OneIndia News:
Quote:

Mumbai, Nov 21: The swiftness and secrecy in which the execution of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab took place have come as a surprise to many. People are wondering why so much secrecy was maintained before hanging Kasab? Kasab was hanged till death at Yerwada jail in Pune around 7.30 am on Wednesday, Nov 21. Kasab, who was held in Mumbai's Arthur Road jail, was then moved to Pune's Yerwada prison."We kept secrecy. It was important to maintain secrecy in this matter," Shinde said, adding that Pakistan had been informed of the execution.

[davidbfpo]

John McCubbin has responded:

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.

[SWJ Blog]

Social Media Intelligence

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[davidbfpo]

Ann Marie Slaughter, of R2P fame, pops in different places and thanks to a "lurker" she has written 'The Media Cold War', which appears on a Swiss think tank's website:http://isnblog.ethz.ch/international...dia-cold-war-2

She opens with:

An information war has erupted around the world. The battle lines are drawn between those governments that regard the free flow of information, and the ability to access it, as a matter of fundamental human rights, and those that regard official control of information as a fundamental sovereign prerogative. The contest is being waged institutionally in organizations like the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and daily in countries like Syria.

It ends with:

Americans say that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Citizens’ access to information is an essential tool to hold governments accountable. Government efforts to manipulate or block information should be presumed to be an abuse of power – one intended to mask many other abuses.

[davidbfpo]

An ICSR report 'Who Matters Online: Measuring influence, evaluating content and countering violent extremism in online social networks' by J.M. Berger & Bill Strathearn. Fifty-three pages and in the summary ends with:

Finally, we believe that these metrics are only a starting point for the study of extremist use of social media. We believe the metrics and approaches here can be further refined, and we believe that additional research may yield substantial new
techniques for monitoring and countering the promotion of violent ideologies online.

Link:http://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/...Strathearn.pdf

[davidbfpo]

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?

[davidbfpo]

A summary of a recent Demos (UK think tank) report:

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:

...45% of the 19,344 tweets they analysed were produced by a single bot network...

It concludes:

...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

[JohnBertetto]

New Geographic Information System (GIS) technology can now map geo-located text, photos and videos that have been uploaded by disaster eyewitnesses to social-media platforms like Twitter and YouTube.

First responders need access to rapid information to react quickly and appropriately during emergencies and there is no way to get information faster than from eyewitness accounts.

Members of the community already use social media to upload and exchange enormous amounts of information during disasters – such as a photo of a bridge that is damaged, or video footage of flood waters rising.

This is vital, near real-time information that can be used to bolster in-house disaster intelligence such as rescue infrastructure maps, weather patterns or video feeds from traffic cameras.

GIS technology could help verify this crowd-sourced data by accessing the time and location of the post.

If a large amount of tweets are clustered within a narrow timeframe and in a certain area, we can be a lot more confident about their veracity...

Once verified, information becomes official intelligence and emergency managers can use it to conduct rescue operations, assess damage to critical infrastructure, and prioritise medical assistance.

Applicability far beyond disaster management.

http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/....Jv7jkmAt.dpuf

[SWJ Blog]

What the Arab Spring Tells Us About the Future of Social Media in Revolutionary Movements

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[davidbfpo]

A fascinating FP reflective article on the power of social media; sub-titled:

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:

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

[Bill Moore]

A fascinating FP reflective article on the power of social media; sub-titled:

A taster:

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...kraine_twitter

One expects any tool or weapon in war can be used and misused to advantage or disadvantage. I think it is too early to assess the full impact, but it is clear social media had some impact. What isn't clear is whether the revolt would have actually started in these recent cases without it, maybe and maybe not. Real time interactive communications to a mass media is powerful, but of course a number of factors will influence just how powerful and to whose side it will advantage. The reports it provided links to were interesting.

http://www.usip.org/publications/blo...tious-politics

Despite the prominence of “Twitter revolutions,” “color revolutions,” and the like in public debate, policymakers and scholars know very little about whether and how new media affect contentious politics. Journalistic accounts are inevitably based on anecdotes rather than rigorously designed research.

The impact of new media can be better understood through a framework that considers five levels of analysis: individual transformation, intergroup relations, collective action, regime policies, and external attention. New media have the potential to change how citizens think or act, mitigate or exacerbate group conflict, facilitate collective action, spur a backlash among regimes, and garner international attention toward a given country.

http://www.usip.org/publications/adv...media-research

Lots more at the site, but the gist of this argument is that to actually study SM it would require the government to acquire intrusive technology and actually read the messages to understand its impact on any particular revolt, which of course is much more than metadata.

Studying new media raises a host of complex questions about privacy and accountability. Policy measures, such as encouraging actors to use new media in nondemocratic regimes, raise even more serious questions. Ethical guidelines for new media research and policy are badly needed.

http://www.usip.org/sites/default/fi...ivil%20War.pdf

No surprise, SM can be as bias as public media. The danger for those who don't realize that networks within networks shape the message could lead to outside actors getting played.

In particular, social media create a dangerous illusion of unmediated information
flows.

Key curation hubs within networks may now play a gatekeeping role as powerful as that of television producers and newspaper editors.

The pattern in social media toward clustering into insular likeminded
communities is unmistakable and has profound implications.

[Bill Moore]

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

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.

[Bill Moore]

This isn't about revolution and information war, simply how Facebook can assist friends and family notify their families on their status after a natural or manmade disaster.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2...heck/75826294/

Post-Paris, Facebook activates Safety Check

Here's how it works: Those Facebook members in the vicinity of a disaster get a notification that asks whether they are OK. Users can tap an "I'm OK" button. Those wondering about friends can call up the Safety Check tool and see friends' statuses.

[OUTLAW 09]

Social media has reached a new realm in the last 18 months and has become the leader in pushing back 24 X 7 against Russian, Iranian and IS info warfare--support to the effort comes from a vast range of groups and or individuals --not being paid by anyone.

In the identification of IS social media accounts---this group has come to the forefront----

Anonymous vows to "hunt down ISIS" following Paris attacks
http://bit.ly/1RYJGZU
pic.twitter.com/bS0Uon6L5i

[Bill Moore]

http://www.tbo.com/list/military-new...edia-20160228/

Battleground now includes social media

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?

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.tbo.com/list/military-new...edia-20160228/

Battleground now includes social media

We will see, at least Lumpkin has a vision and energy, but will it be enough to overcome a stubborn bureaucracy?

In my 50 or so odd years of working with and for various governmental agencies I have never seen and or heard of the simple concept...speed.

in the info war that I am sorry to say is the first true "grey war" of the 21st century it is fully aimed at the US and for two long long years this Obama WH and especially DoS Kerry has simply ignored the info war challenge...recently even DoD and DoS stated and yes even Obama stated we cannot respond to every rumor, fake, disinformation or lies put out in this info war.

BUT here is the problem.....Russian uses the "narrative" concept....meaning the "narrative" is set in motion from Moscow an then their info warriors carry it out......meaning social media picks it up and drum beats the heck out of it..mostly lies and pushbacks, then specific writers pick it up in articles which in turn get picked up by MSM in order to hit the 24 hour news cycles. the Russians have a social media trolling system in place that cannot be matched right now by even tons of money and a new DoS department...

Info warfare is a battle of the "perception" and the US has never been good at understanding the concept of "perception"...hate to say it Russia does understand that game well.

The SWJ carried banner quote of Eisenhower actually goes to the heart of "perception".

NO DoS department with even 5K employees will ever match the Russian concept with what is needed.....a constant speedy counter narrative and a social media component to carry the fight all built around the concept of finally saying the truth nothing more nothing less even if it hurts us at first.

Example of just how poorly DoS can function is their release yesterday of the Syrian Coordination Center.....explain to me an thousands of Syrians caught in the true middle of a war zone call drop everything in the middle of a Russian cluster munitions air strike and call DoS via 1-800 or email them from a war zone that has virtually limited anything?

That alone sets a "perception" in motion that at least in Syria is viewed as proving the US has done a "secret handshake" with the Russians and are simply just going through the motions of showing they did something.

Here is the kicker...the Russians know that ME "perception" of the US right now and play their info war to exactly that "perception" to reinforce their narrative that what they are doing is totally correct and even supported by the US.

And the US info warfare response.....ZERO.

A famous US writer that knows the power of words said the following:

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is lightening that does the work.

-- Mark Twain

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

-- Mark Twain

Then there is this comment:

I'd rather be approximately right than exactly wrong.

-- John Maynard Keynes

And another comment:

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right.

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1787


That is info warfare in a nut shell and no DoS department is ever going to come close to even meeting Twains words.

Social media is the battlefield and a hearty band of warriors across the internet do it daily and massively pushback on the Russian narratives...with an amazing success rate..meaning when you can take Russia off their narrative and force them into a response mode they utterly swim and that is then a declared victory and then you move on to the next word battle.

Problem is that here in SWJ there have been a number of US articles written by US professional types that smack closely to the Russian narrative...so is in effect Russian money flowing and paying for these types of articles that are then carried by reputable US MSM then picked up by SWJ....totally unchallenged....

That is the front line DoS should be pushing back against. But the core problem is money...the Russian info warfare budget is estimated in the 600-800M USDs a year..and DoS is never going to match that dollar for dollar

WHY...the Russian info war is inherently designed to change the attitudes of a specific targeted civil society to conform to the Russian narrative...IE see the campaign now against refugees in Europe and Europe is having an extremely hard time in pushing back against it..just look at Germany who just woke up about their being targeted by Russian info warfare.

BUT it was European social media that saw it coming and pushed back hard, but not a single European MSM outside of BILD picked up on it....until social media/BILD finally caught the attention of the German security services.

Why did BILD pick it up...they have hired over the last two years several social media savvy reported types who had a long track record covering Syria and Ukraine and know the info war game from their blogger days and coupled with the power of a major MSM in fact checking and a larger info pull have done some remarkable articles against Russian actions in both Ukraine an Syria...earning them the total dislike of the Russian FM that has accused them recently of being anti Russian......

So again back to Twain if the DoS thinks they can hold their own...after their dismal failure of the 1-800 call the US DoS in DC disaster...I simply believe it is wasting US taxpayer dollars.

BTW...for two years I have been saying here at SWJ social media is where you even win or lose against IS...or against any form of non linear warfare.

Non linear warfare has two key cornerstones;
1. "weaponization of information
2. cyber warfare

And we are not doing so well against both right now.