DARPA wakes up to social media power

It should come as no surprise that the DOD’s technology wing has caught on that social media can and is being used as a weapon, not just of mass influence, but of aggression, as demonstrated by the increasingly dangerous flash mobs on our doorstep in Chicago’s Gold coast to inciting revolution in the Arab Spring in Egypt and across the Middle East. http://socialtimes.com/pentagon-set-to-track-social-media_b71162

The U.S. military has long monitored media where it’s been concerned about public unrest. When I was a young information officer in the Army, and there were protests of nuclear missile batteries along Chicago’s lakefront, to protect us from Russian bombers and missiles, we monitored local radio and TV stations and sent daily reports into the Pentagon.

The real question is what technology the military might develop and mount to compromise the power of today and tomorrow’s social media, if social instability were at stake.