Operation Earnest Voice (OEV) is a
psychological operation by the
United States Central Command
The United States Central Command (USCENTCOM or CENTCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense. It was established in 1983, taking over the previous responsibilit ...
(CENTCOM)
that uses
sockpuppets to spread pro-American propaganda on targeted
social networking service
A social networking service (SNS), or social networking site, is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interest ...
s based outside of the United States.
Details
OEV was first used in Iraq against forums used by al-Qaeda members and insurgents.
It was thought to have been later directed at
jihadists
Jihadism is a neologism for modern, armed militant Islamic movements that seek to establish states based on Islamic principles. In a narrower sense, it refers to the belief that armed confrontation is an efficient and theologically legit ...
in
Pakistan
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
as well as countries in the
Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
.
In 2011, the US government signed a $2.8 million contract with the
Ntrepid
Ntrepid is an American software, hardware, and cyber security company, registered in Florida and based in Herndon, Virginia.Alex Spillius"Pentagon buys social networking 'spy software'" ''The Telegraph'', March 17, 2011. Retrieved March 24, 201 ...
web-security company to develop specialized software, allowing agents of the US government to post propaganda on "foreign-language websites" with the use of sockpuppets.
Main characteristics of the software, as stated in the
software development
Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...
request, are:
* Fifty user "operator" licenses, 10 sockpuppets controllable by each user.
* Sockpuppets are to be "replete with background, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographically consistent." Sockpuppets are to "be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world."
* A special secure
VPN
Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not c ...
, allowing sockpuppets to appear to be posting from "randomly selected IP addresses," in order to "hide the existence of the operation."
* Fifty static
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...
es to enable government agencies to "manage their persistent online personas," with identities of government and enterprise organizations protected which will allow for different state agents to use the same sockpuppet, and easily switch between different sockpuppets to "look like ordinary users as opposed to one organization."
* Nine
private servers, "based on the geographic area of operations the customer is operating within and which allow a customer's online persona(s) to appear to originate from." These servers should use commercial hosting centers around the world.
*
Virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...
environments, deleted after each session termination, to avoid interaction with "any virus, worm, or malicious software."
Statements
CENTCOM commander
David Petraeus
David Howell Petraeus (; born 7 November 1952) is a retired United States Army General (United States), general who served as the fourth director of the Central Intelligence Agency from September 2011 until his resignation in November 2012. Pri ...
, in his
congressional testimony, stated that Operation Earnest Voice would "reach
country'sregional audiences through traditional media, as well as via Web sites and regional public-affairs blogging," as an effort to "counter extremist ideology and propaganda".
However, his successor,
Jim Mattis
James Norman Mattis (born September 8, 1950) is an American military officer who served as the 26th United States secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019. A retired United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps four-star General (United States), gene ...
, altered the program to have "regional blogging" fall under general CENTCOM public-affairs activity. On how they would operate on these blogs, Petraeus said: "We bring out the moderate voices. We amplify those. And in more detail, we detect and we flag if there is adversary, hostile, corrosive content in some open-source Web forum,
ndwe engage with the Web administrators to show that this violates Web site provider policies."
See also
*
State-sponsored Internet propaganda
*
Propaganda in the United States
In the United States, propaganda is spread by both government and non-government entities. Throughout its history, to the present day, the United States government has issued various forms of propaganda to both domestic and international audienc ...
*
Internet Research Agency
The Internet Research Agency (IRA; ; 2013-2023), also known as ''Glavset'' (, ), and known in Russian Internet slang as the Trolls from Olgino () or Kremlinbots (), was a Russian company which was engaged in online propaganda and influence ...
*
CIA influence on public opinion
*
Congress for Cultural Freedom
The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist cultural organization founded on 26 June 1950 in West Berlin. At its height, the CCF was active in thirty-five countries. In 1966 it was revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency w ...
*
Operation Wandering Soul
*
United States Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Earnest Voice, Operation
Internet manipulation and propaganda
Propaganda in the United States
United States intelligence operations