Operation Earnest Voice

Operation Earnest Voice is an astroturfing campaign by the US government. The aim of the initiative is to use sockpuppets to spread pro-American propaganda on social networking sites based outside of the US.[1][2][3][4] The campaign is operated by the United States Military Central Command (CENTCOM).

According to CENTCOM, the US-based Facebook and Twitter networks are not targeted by the program because US laws prohibit US state agencies from spreading propaganda among US citizens as according to the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012.[5]

Statements

USCC commander David Petraeus, in his congressional testimony, stated that Operation Earnest Voice would "reach [a country's] regional audiences through traditional media, as well as via Web sites and regional public-affairs blogging." However, his successor, James Mattis, altered the program to have "regional blogging" fall under general USCC public-affairs activity. On how they would operate on these blogs, Petraeus explained: "We bring out the moderate voices. We amplify those. And in more detail, we detect and we flag if there is adversary, hostile, corrosive content in some open-source Web forum, [and] we engage with the Web administrators to show that this violates Web site provider policies."[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Fielding, Nick; Cobain, Ian (17 March 2011). "Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  2. ↑ Lee, Amy (17 March 2011). "U.S. Military Launches Spy Operation Using Fake Online Identities". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  3. ↑ Spillius, Alex (17 March 2013). "Pentagon buys social networking 'spy software'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  4. ↑ Smithson, S. (1 March 2011). "U.S. Central Command 'friending' the enemy in psychological war". The Washington Times. p. 2. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  5. ↑ "House Resolution 5736" (PDF). Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  6. ↑ New and old information operations in Afghanistan: What works?, Washington Post
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