A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."
oh what fun..
The report introduces the military audience to the "blogging phenomenon," and lays out a number of ways in which the armed forces -- specifically, the military's public affairs, information operations, and psychological operations units -- might use the sites to their advantage.
Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering.
Via Wired
So, it looks like the pentagon is looking into hiring a "mercenary troll army".
I think it is a great idea, and welcome our military-industrial-admins.
I wish I could give better analysis other than, saying how bad of an idea this is. I cant.
The reasons are plain for anyone who frequents this place.
In this way, the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital.
Lets say a prominent blog exists and builds a community, and is then co opted through payola, this would be an extremely cost effective way to "buy" trust, trust put into the site and community.
Bloggers as a rule, make no cash blogging. The temptation would be high for them to give their communities a "nudge" one way or another for a few bucks.
"The comments are not 'actionable', merely thought provoking," "The views expressed in the article publication are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, USSOCOM [Special Operations Command], or the Joint Special Operations University."
So, I guess we should keep an eye out in the future for this stuff. They say that this is only "thought provoking", but the lure of reaching people with a message cheaply through online communities will no doubt reel them in.
Fox news is expensive, Blogs are cheap :)