Flickr photo by Steve Rhodes

The Pentagon is gearing up for a looming social media war–battles the military envisions will be won by being one step ahead of Twitter- and Facebook-powered insurgencies.

For the Pentagon that means developing social media tools that combine the code-breaking know-how of its intelligence services with the propaganda skills and manipulation techniques of its Pys-Ops group. On top of all that, the Pentagon hopes it can revolutionize the analysis of social media trends and conversations.

It’s all part of the Defense Department’s new Social Media in Strategic Communication program, which the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) first announced a few weeks ago.

DARPA, the Pentagon’s secretive research agency, is offering a $42 million contract to the company that can go where no social media tracker has gone before. DARPA posted a request for proposals in July that basically says don’t bother applying if your idea is nothing more than the next step in social media analytics. In other words, it means creating social media analytics light-years ahead of anything on the market or even on the drawing board. Following the trending topics on Twitter ain’t going to cut it. Read more

Back in April, when I was asked to talk about social media and government transparency at this week’s Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference, one of the first things I did was make a list of Members of Congress who “get” social media.

It was a very short list. For one, most Members of Congress leave the tweeting to their staff. The other thing is that their Twitter feeds are often one-way conversations. They’re social only in the sense that they want you to hear what they have to say–but who knows if they’re listening to you. When Twitter is used effectively, it’s as a tool to not only inform and entertain but to engage.

Anthony Weiner was one of the exceptions. Before his awful implosion, his Twitter feed was humorous, insightful, engaging. It represented an unprecedented milestone–our democracy entering an age where the American public for the first time could have instant, unfiltered access to a Member of Congress. Unfortunately, it also answered the question of whether there’s such a thing as too much transparency.

What will be the fallout of Weinergate? Will it be a setback for government transparency via social media? Read more