According to the Guardian today, the US military is developing software that will allow them to create fake identities in order to spread US propoganda online via social media sites.

Or if you take the opposite viewpoint, it’s in order to counter propaganda as General David Petraeus has said US efforts to spy on social media are aimed at ‘countering extremist ideology and propaganda’.

According to the article, ‘once developed the software could allow US service personnel, working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging online conversations with a host of co-ordinated blogposts, tweets, retweets, chatroom posts and other interventions’

As with other past developments, it will surely only be a matter of time before software like this crosses over from the military world to the commerical world and we’ll see marketing agencies leverage similar software to promote products and services via social media.

Currently the use of Facebook and Twitter in a commerical fashion is at least quite transparent but fake online identities ‘bulk’ tweeting and retweeting and blogging followed by competitors trying to counter with their own message? Doesn’t bear thinking about!

Full Guardian story at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

Tags: us military using social media