The Dark Side of the Internet — military astroturf bots

In part 2 of this ongoing series, I called out Clay Shirkey (and boy extension, Michael Shermer, Jeff Jarvis and other Internet utopians) for their failure to wrestle with the idea that Western democracies, especially now that we are in a "War on Terror" will have little compunction about Internet-spying and games-playing on their own people. Beyond the history of 19th-century Europe, the First Red Scare and the War on Drugs in the U.S. would have provided enough food and information on those lines for thought.

In current times, I mentioned the HBGary Federal e-mail promoting its ability to set up cyberbots, or astroturfing bots, to "game" liberal blogs and other sites on the Internet.

Well, now it's happening.

The U.S. Army is devising software to do just that. Now, the Pentagon says it will be used only overseas.

Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: "The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US."

He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Centcom said it was not targeting any US-based web sites, in English or any other language, and specifically said it was not targeting Facebook or Twitter.

Right. Remember the quaint idea that the CIA would only operate overseas? That one was shredded 40 years ago. And, we saw how the NSA shredded that overseas-local distinction with its warrantless domestic wiretapping.

Remember also this is the same Army that recently got busted for having brainwashed U.S. Senators about Afghanistan.

Notify Clay Shirky, Michael Shermer and other Internet utopians ASAP.

(Hat tip Discover magazine.)