US confirms it made 'Cuban Twitter' to push civil unrest agenda : Vol. Conspiracy Theorists Won This

[hybridsoldier23]

The White House confirms a US government aid agency was behind a text-message service that was allegedly designed to foment unrest in Cuba.

ZunZuneo, dubbed a "Cuban Twitter", had 40,000 subscribers at its height in a country with limited web access, reports the Associated Press.

The project is said to have lasted from 2009-12 when the grant money ran out.

The US reportedly hid its links to the network through shell firms and by routing messages via other countries.

There has been no official Cuban government reaction to the story.
'Bogus advertisements'

The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in the Cuban capital of Havana says there is a thirst for information on the island, which has no independent media.

The ZunZuneo project seems to have focused on phone messages because internet activity is so limited in Cuba. Cubans were only permitted to own mobile phones in 2008, but now they are very common.

Since last year, 137 public internet access points have been opened - for the whole island. But one hour online costs $4.50 (£2.70) - or almost a quarter of an average monthly state salary. Getting online in a hotel is now possible for Cubans, but prices there are even higher. Last month, the government began allowing email via telephone.

In this void - telephone messaging has emerged as a common form of organisation for Cuba's small dissident community - who send photos and post to Twitter via their mobile phones. But most Cubans who do go online are generally more interested in using sites such as Facebook or email to contact family and friends now living abroad.

The scheme, first reported by the Associated Press news agency, was operated by the US Agency for International Development (USAID)

It is a federal international development organisation run under the aegis of the Department of State.

At a daily news briefing on Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the project had been debated by Congress and passed oversight controls.

He said: "These are the kinds of environments where a programme like this and its association with the US government can create problems for practitioners and members of the public.

"So appropriate discretion is engaged in for that reason but not because it's covert, not because it's an intelligence programme, because it is neither covert nor an intelligence programme."

USAID spokesman Matt Herrick told the BBC the agency was proud of its efforts in Cuba and that it worked to help people everywhere to exercise their rights and connect them with the outside world.

However, the report could undermine USAID's longstanding claim that it does not take covert action in the countries where it operates aid programmes.

ZunZuneo, slang for a Cuban hummingbird's tweet, was reportedly designed to attract a subscriber base with discussion initially about everyday topics such as sport and weather.
Students gather behind a business looking for a Internet signal for their smart phones in Havana, Cuba, 1 April 2014 Cubans were only permitted to own mobile phones in 2008, but the devices are now very common

US officials then planned to introduce political messages to spur the network's users into dissent from their communist-run government, the Associated Press reports.

Executives set up firms in Spain and the Cayman Islands to pay the company's bills and funneled the text messages away from US servers.

A website and bogus web advertisements were reportedly created to give the impression of a real firm.

Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the foreign operations appropriations subcommittee, said the revelations were troubling.

One former subscriber, Javiel, told the BBC in Havana that ZunZuneo sent him free sports news by text.

He said he had no idea the service was funded by the US and never received anything remotely political.

Javiel said that at some point over a year ago the messages stopped.

Damn. Even though they actually never started up the political messaging this is still pretty ****** up.

::Waits for the NT conspiracy theorists to tell us what other media the government is controlling::

 

[am1x90xnike]

Damn. Even though they actually never started up the political messaging this is still pretty ****** up.

::Waits for the NT conspiracy theorists to tell us what other media the government is controlling::

MSNBC

FOX

CNN

 

[sundoobie]

Wasn't Social Media the reason for the Arab Spring? Wouldn't doubt it if the US/CIA planted those seeds. Wouldn't doubt it either if Snowden, or Wikileaks are just US Govt puppets/pawns too.

 

[drones]

Some people will tell you that the government purposely sets up bots and live agents called 'sock puppets' to direct online discussion.  Auto-commenting bots and actual humans who are paid to both listen to people and to guide/misdirect the discussion into non-sequitur issues and away from the truth. 

That's just what some people say.

 

[nawghtyhare]

Some people will tell you that the government purposely sets up bots and live agents called 'sock puppets' to direct online discussion.  Auto-commenting bots and actual humans who are paid to both listen to people and to guide/misdirect the discussion into non-sequitur issues and away from the truth. 

That's just what some people say.

that sn, post, and thread topic ratio is strong

 

[cubanref]

Not surprised but the internet is very limited to the general public. You can't Google anything...its basically just email access to communicate with family and that's it.

Not sure who is using twitter in Cuba

 

[RIP sleazyy]

Some people will tell you that the government purposely sets up bots and live agents called 'sock puppets' to direct online discussion.  Auto-commenting bots and actual humans who are paid to both listen to people and to guide/misdirect the discussion into non-sequitur issues and away from the truth. 

That's just what some people say.

that sn, post, and thread topic ratio is strong

this x10000000

 

[jdubb1914]

hmmmm looks like cointelpro is still around.

 

[bhergh]

Some people will tell you that the government purposely sets up bots and live agents called 'sock puppets' to direct online discussion.  Auto-commenting bots and actual humans who are paid to both listen to people and to guide/misdirect the discussion into non-sequitur issues and away from the truth. 

That's just what some people say.

that sn, post, and thread topic ratio is strong

this x10000000

Alonzogif

 

[wr]

Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media
Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

Gen David Petraeus has previously said US online psychological operations are aimed at 'countering extremist ideology and propaganda'. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP
View media item 898434

Spoiler

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

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.

Once developed, the software could allow US service personnel, working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging online conversations with any number of co-ordinated messages, blogposts, chatroom posts and other interventions. Details of the contract suggest this location would be MacDill air force base near Tampa, Florida, home of US Special Operations Command.

Centcom's contract requires for each controller the provision of one "virtual private server" located in the United States and others appearing to be outside the US to give the impression the fake personas are real people located in different parts of the world.

It also calls for "traffic mixing", blending the persona controllers' internet usage with the usage of people outside Centcom in a manner that must offer "excellent cover and powerful deniability".

The multiple persona contract is thought to have been awarded as part of a programme called Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), which was first developed in Iraq as a psychological warfare weapon against the online presence of al-Qaida supporters and others ranged against coalition forces. Since then, OEV is reported to have expanded into a $200m programme and is thought to have been used against jihadists across Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

OEV is seen by senior US commanders as a vital counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation programme. In evidence to the US Senate's armed services committee last year, General David Petraeus, then commander of Centcom, described the operation as an effort to "counter extremist ideology and propaganda and to ensure that credible voices in the region are heard". He said the US military's objective was to be "first with the truth".

This month Petraeus's successor, General James Mattis, told the same committee that OEV "supports all activities associated with degrading the enemy narrative, including web engagement and web-based product distribution capabilities".

Centcom confirmed that the $2.76m contract was awarded to Ntrepid, a newly formed corporation registered in Los Angeles. It would not disclose whether the multiple persona project is already in operation or discuss any related contracts.

Nobody was available for comment at Ntrepid.

In his evidence to the Senate committee, Gen Mattis said: "OEV seeks to disrupt recruitment and training of suicide bombers; deny safe havens for our adversaries; and counter extremist ideology and propaganda." He added that Centcom was working with "our coalition partners" to develop new techniques and tactics the US could use "to counter the adversary in the cyber domain".

According to a report by the inspector general of the US defence department in Iraq, OEV was managed by the multinational forces rather than Centcom.

Asked whether any UK military personnel had been involved in OEV, Britain's Ministry of Defence said it could find "no evidence". The MoD refused to say whether it had been involved in the development of persona management programmes, saying: "We don't comment on cyber capability."

OEV was discussed last year at a gathering of electronic warfare specialists in Washington DC, where a senior Centcom officer told delegates that its purpose was to "communicate critical messages and to counter the propaganda of our adversaries".

Persona management by the US military would face legal challenges if it were turned against citizens of the US, where a number of people engaged in sock puppetry have faced prosecution.

Last year a New York lawyer who impersonated a scholar was sentenced to jail after being convicted of "criminal impersonation" and identity theft.

It is unclear whether a persona management programme would contravene UK law. Legal experts say it could fall foul of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which states that "a person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person's prejudice". However, this would apply only if a website or social network could be shown to have suffered "prejudice" as a result.

• This article was amended on 18 March 2011 to remove references to Facebook and Twitter, introduced during the editing process, and to add a comment from Centcom, received after publication, that it is not targeting those sites.

 

[sundoobie]

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

and



View media item 898499

 

[redd spyder]

I was under the assumption that this a known tactic. Common sense evades alot of people during a 'heated' conversation.