Pentagon Wants to Predict Anti-Trump Protests Using Social Media Surveillance

Discussion in 'Music, TV, Movies & other Media' started by Durandal, Oct 30, 2018.

  1. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    A series of research projects, patent filings, and policy changes indicate that the Pentagon wants to use social media surveillance to quell domestic insurrection and rebellion.

    The United States government is accelerating efforts to monitor social media to preempt major anti-government protests in the US, according to scientific research, official government documents, and patent filings reviewed by Motherboard. The social media posts of American citizens who don’t like President Donald Trump are the focus of the latest US military-funded research. The research, funded by the US Army and co-authored by a researcher based at the West Point Military Academy, is part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to consolidate the US military’s role and influence on domestic intelligence.

    The vast scale of this effort is reflected in a number of government social media surveillance patents granted this year, which relate to a spy program that the Trump administration outsourced to a private company last year. Experts interviewed by Motherboard say that the Pentagon’s new technology research may have played a role in amendments this April to the Joint Chiefs of Staff homeland defense doctrine, which widen the Pentagon’s role in providing intelligence for domestic “emergencies,” including an “insurrection.”

    US ARMY TURNS TO THE HOMELAND
    It’s no secret that the Pentagon has funded Big Data research into how social media surveillance can help predict large-scale population behaviours, specifically the outbreak of conflict, terrorism, and civil unrest.

    Much of this research focuses on foreign theatres like the Middle East and North Africa — where the 2011 Arab Spring kicked off an arc of protest that swept across the region and toppled governments.

    Since then, the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars finding patterns in posts across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and beyond to enable the prediction of major events.

    But the Pentagon isn’t just interested in anticipating surprises abroad. The research also appears to be intended for use in the US homeland.

    In August, a US Army-backed study on civil unrest within the US homeland was published in an obscure anthology of papers presented to a Big Data conference in Kiev, Ukraine, which took place in early June. The anthology was released as part of Springer-Nature’s Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing book series.

    The paper in question is a study of the link between social media and anti-Trump protests after the 2016 presidential elections, titled “Social Network Structure as a Predictor of Social Behavior: The Case of Protest in the 2016 US Presidential Election.” The study was funded by the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL), which is part of the US Army’s Research Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM).

    ...

    REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA TRACKING OF US CITIZENS
    Datasets for the research were collected using the Apollo Social Sensing Tool, a real-time event tracking software that collects and analyses millions of social media posts.

    The tool was originally developed under the Obama administration back in 2011 by the US Army Research Laboratory and US Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in partnership with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Illinois, IBM, and Caterva (a social marketing company that in 2013 was folded into a subsidiary of giant US government IT contractor, CSC). Past papers associated with the project show that the tool has been largely tested in foreign theatres like Haiti, Egypt, and Syria.

    But the use of the Apollo tool to focus on protests in the US homeland has occurred under the Trump administration. The ‘election’ dataset compiled using Apollo for the 2018 US Army-funded study is comprised of 2.5 million tweets sent between October 26, 2016, and December 20, 2016, using the words “Trump”, “Clinton,” and “election.”

    ... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...rump-protests-using-social-media-surveillance
    --------------------------

    Is everybody's favorite tyrant starting to feel a little nervous?
     
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  2. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    You can't stop progress, bank hackings, or election interference -- and have the internet, too.
     
  3. Antiduopolist

    Antiduopolist Well-Known Member

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    The ACLU is already challenging MA police surveillance of liberal/left websites; this is a very serious issue.
     
  4. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    My main concern is that it seems like an inappropriate use of military resources, like it somehow violates the Posse Comitatus Act, at least in spirit. It also reeks of warrantless surveillance.
     
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  5. Steve N

    Steve N Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Warrant search on social media that anyone can see?
     
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  6. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    It's like having the Pentagon installing microphones in every public place to spy on everything said. A surveillance state.
     
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  7. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This sounds a whole lot like China.

    I don't know how I feel about this.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2018
  8. Steve N

    Steve N Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Facebook and Google already do that. I was used to getting ads on the internet regarding things I clicked on or searched. One day my wife mentioned she was going to buy a new bridle for her horse, and without any internet searches at all, I started to get horse bridle ads. Our Android phones hear everything.
     
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  9. Warm Potato

    Warm Potato Active Member

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    The Pentagon is way too large...
     
  10. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    I disagree with how these big companies ride roughshod over our privacy also. I don't see why that should be tolerated as much as it is.
     
  11. Steve N

    Steve N Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You can’t activate anything without reading and accepting 30 pages of lawyer speak and buried in all that we give them permission to spy on us and sell our info. Of course those companies would say we don’t have to buy their products. I’m against regulating all that stuff, but we should be given a choice to opt out.

    BTW, a few weeks ago I had a problem with my son where we needed to get the cops to look for him. They asked for his cell phone number and told me they could triangulate him even if he turns his phone off. I never knew that and in my field of work I should have.
     
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  12. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Well, that's what regulation could do - provide an effective opt-out choice that these sneaks can't sneak around. They would still have plenty of willing victims to make their cash from.

    Regarding cell phones, I've seen that companies can track everyone, too. They use it to study movement on a massive scale. I remember an article citing that kind of data for some reason, just don't remember the details any more. That's a big reason I still don't have a cell. I don't really need one most of the time, anyway.
     
  13. ChoppedLiver

    ChoppedLiver Well-Known Member

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    They, the Pentagon, are keeping an eye on the filth and scum of this nation.

    That's more than enough for them to continue to do so.

    And they may just be able to warn us with enough time to kill the SOB's when they start shooting so we can kill them with reckless abandon.
     
  14. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    You sound like the sort of person they would want to monitor.
     
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  15. ChoppedLiver

    ChoppedLiver Well-Known Member

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    Filth and scum conspiring to kill good Americans like myself and you ignorantly want me, who will be defending myself and my neighbors, be the one that is monitored?

    What the hell is wrong with you?
     
  16. Wild Horses

    Wild Horses Well-Known Member

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    What makes you a good American?
     
  17. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Do good Americans dream of killing their fellow Americans "with reckless abandon"? Do you dream of killing your way to making America great again?
     
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  18. ChoppedLiver

    ChoppedLiver Well-Known Member

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    When they make a stupid decision to try to kill me and my neighbors, I would hope it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

    Not like the libs/progs/antifa have the firepower to compete anyway.
     
  19. ChoppedLiver

    ChoppedLiver Well-Known Member

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    I'm better than you and your brethren ilk.
     
  20. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Who, exactly, do you imagine has made or will make a decision to kill yourself and your neighbors?

    You sound a tad paranoid.
     
  21. mdrobster

    mdrobster Well-Known Member

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    This survielance level is beyond disturbing.
     
  22. Wild Horses

    Wild Horses Well-Known Member

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    What makes you better?
     
  23. dixon76710

    dixon76710 Well-Known Member

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    Reading public twitter and facebook posts isn't surveillance and its searches that require warants.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2018
  24. ChoppedLiver

    ChoppedLiver Well-Known Member

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    I'm me and you're you.
     
  25. Wild Horses

    Wild Horses Well-Known Member

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    Doubt it. You talk like a loser.
     
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