:salam:
I came across this slightly old article but thought it was very relevant so thought i'd share here.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012...sm-trolls/all/
Operation Viral Peace is basically an attempt by the US government to 'troll' Muslim messaging boards.
Will McCants, a former State Department official now at the CNA think tank and another scholar of online jihadism, argues Amanullahs pupils cant focus on the hardcore extremist forums like Shumukh. The admins will immediately take down posts that challenge the jihadi narrative, McCants tells Danger Room. For something like that to work, it would have to be in more mainstream fora where extremists are trying to recruit, like the conservative muslm.net, where you can engage and the admins wouldnt necessarily take you offline.
But all that is several steps ahead of Viral Peace at the moment. Viral Peace doesnt have a strategy yet. And to hear Amanullah and his colleagues tell it, the State Department wont be the ones who come up with one. Its better, they argue, to let Muslims in various foreign countries figure out which message boards to troll and how to properly troll them. Americans wont know, say, the Tagalog-language Internet better than Filipinos; and as outsiders, they wont have the credibility necessary to actually make an impact. The best the State Department can do is train good trolls which Amanullah began to do this spring.
This is Muslim-led, Non-Muslim funded. What an 'interesting' combination.
I came across this slightly old article but thought it was very relevant so thought i'd share here.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012...sm-trolls/all/
Operation Viral Peace is basically an attempt by the US government to 'troll' Muslim messaging boards.
Quote:
Will McCants, a former State Department official now at the CNA think tank and another scholar of online jihadism, argues Amanullahs pupils cant focus on the hardcore extremist forums like Shumukh. The admins will immediately take down posts that challenge the jihadi narrative, McCants tells Danger Room. For something like that to work, it would have to be in more mainstream fora where extremists are trying to recruit, like the conservative muslm.net, where you can engage and the admins wouldnt necessarily take you offline.
But all that is several steps ahead of Viral Peace at the moment. Viral Peace doesnt have a strategy yet. And to hear Amanullah and his colleagues tell it, the State Department wont be the ones who come up with one. Its better, they argue, to let Muslims in various foreign countries figure out which message boards to troll and how to properly troll them. Americans wont know, say, the Tagalog-language Internet better than Filipinos; and as outsiders, they wont have the credibility necessary to actually make an impact. The best the State Department can do is train good trolls which Amanullah began to do this spring.