Many of us post stuff online, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, you name it. Most of us have some form of online presence. That trend is starting to become very popular in other nations as well. Notably this past Arab Spring was a showing of just how powerful social media can be when it aided in the organizing of thousands to topple governments. Additionally, back here in the United States, the Occupy Movement used social media as a way to connect its followers to local rallies and to spread its ideology. All said, social media is a powerful tool.
This powerful tool is not going un-noticed either. The Central Intelligence Agency actually has developed an inner agency task force to monitor social media around the world, using it to determine possible threat levels and the overbidding feel of a culture at any given moment. Here's how it works. C.I.A. analysts capture almost infinite amounts of data off social networking sites, and run it through advanced algorithms that determine what it means going along with the general trend of that culture. For example, during a time when many people are posting information about sports, daily life, other seemingly normal things, it is considered that there is general stability in the region. Now lets say that the mood of these messages gets more intense, or that more and more people post about the same things, a certain trend is extracted. It's a pretty novel idea, and requires extremely high amounts of data processing, but nevertheless, it has been known to be a generally accurate means to paint a picture of a region.
So as more and more of us post information around the world, know that its probably not just being read by your directly intended people, but possibly is crunched as some level to determine stability. It's a brave new world for the balance of security and freedom.
For more on this story visit this link to
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment