TROLLQAIDA: The US's new way of fighting terror

TROLLQAIDA: The US's new way of fighting terror



    US’s new plan to fight terror involves online trolling
    Plan is to undermine, shame and humiliate terrorists
    If you see words like “LAME” – it’s probably the CIA

AFTER years of trying to win over hearts and minds in the field, the US State Department has a new tactic in the war on terror – trolling.

A Silicon Valley dot com veteran now working for the Government has launched a program called “Viral Peace” which aims to occupy online terror sites and shame, humiliate and annoy fundamentalists, Wired reports.

State Department senior technology adviser Shahed Amanullah told the magazine he wanted to use “logic, humour, satire, [and] religious arguments, not just to confront [extremists], but to undermine and demoralize them”.

Presumably this will involve infiltrating comment threads with lots of comments like “LAME” “You call yourselves a terrorist?”, flame wars and pedobears.

Mr Amanullah said rather than trying to censor or take down these extremist websites, a better strategy would be to undermine the macho element so heavily promoted across them.

“Online extremists have an energy,” he said. “They’ve got a vitality that frankly attracts some of these at-risk people.

“It appeals to macho, it appeals to people’s rebellious nature, it appeals to people who feel downtrodden.”

The aim of the program is to train trolls internationally and let them do the work in their own languages and cultures.(And attack any group the Governemt doesnt like as they have been doing for years as most here know)

“I want to prove you can do small, inexpensive, high-impact projects that don’t just talk about the problem but solve the problem,” Mr Amanullah said. “And solve it the right way: not with the government’s heavy hand but by empowering local people to do what they already know to do but don’t know how.”

Leading jihad researcher Jarret Brachman agreed with this tactic, calling the people who post on the forums “massive narcissists who need constant ego boosts”.

“If you can get rid of them, it’ll pay dividends,” Mr Brachman said.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/trollqaida-the-uss-new-way-of-fighting-terror/story-e6frfro0-1226430052754

 Wired:

Newest U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy: Trolling

In the decade since 9/11, the U.S. government has used a wide variety of tactics against terrorists. It’s invaded countries where they operated (and ones where they didn’t). It’s tried to win the backing of foreign populations in which the terrorists hide. And it’s sent commandos and deadly flying robots to kill them one by one.

One thing it hasn’t done, until now: troll them.

Within the State Department, a Silicon Valley veteran has quietly launched an improbable new initiative to annoy, frustrate and humiliate denizens of online extremist forums. It’s so new that it hasn’t fully taken shape: Even its architects concede it hasn’t fleshed out an actual strategy yet, and accordingly can’t point to any results it’s yielded. Its annual budget is a rounding error. The Pentagon will spend more in Afghanistan in the time it takes you to finish reading this sentence.

But it also represents, in the mind of its creator, a chance to discourage impressionable youth from becoming terrorists — all in an idiom they firmly understand. And if it actually works, it might stand a chance of cutting off al-Qaida’s ability to replenish its ranks at a time when it looks to be reeling.

The program, called Viral Peace, seeks to occupy the virtual space that extremists fill, one thread or Twitter exchange at a time. Shahed Amanullah, a senior technology adviser to the State Department and Viral Peace’s creator, tells Danger Room he wants to use “logic, humor, satire, [and] religious arguments, not just to confront [extremists], but to undermine and demoralize them.” Think of it as strategic trolling, in pursuit of geopolitical pwnage.

Entire Article : http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/counterterrorism-trolls/