全球智库信息集成服务系统

Social Media Analysis Could Play a Valuable Role in DoD Information Operations

• Social media analysis can provide important information about adversaries, supporting communities on either side of a conflict, or other key populations. It can also inform efforts to target messages to particular audiences or influence the perceptions, decisions, or behaviors of a group.
• Social media platforms allow users to share text, images, and videos quickly as events occur. Monitoring this traffic will help ensure that U.S. forces are prepared to respond to developing events or the spread of deceptive information.
• U.S. service members' social media use can compromise operational security. Social media analysis could support DoD's prevention efforts.
• Crowdsourcing and social media monitoring have played a critical role in humanitarian relief efforts and other civil-military operations by providing the real-time updates needed for a timely and effective response.

Current Legal Structures and Policies Were Not Designed for Information Operations

• U.S. law and policy have not kept up with changing adversaries and changes in the types of activities in which U.S. forces engage. Uncertainty about which types of activities are permitted under law is a disincentive for commanders to engage in information operations.
• Laws intended to protect privacy and restrict domestic surveillance do not account for key characteristics of social media, such as the intermingling of domestic and foreign communication and the risk that collecting data on another country's populace could involve accidental data collection on U.S. persons.