US Special Operations Forces Post Social Media Data Mining Job to Combat Terrorism

The US government’s job portal is welcoming applications from contractors who can provide, among other things, social media data mining and market audience analysis, in an effort to stop extremists in their tracks. The ‘classified secret’ job points to government’s closer examination of social media conversations to identify terrorist and extremist organizations trying to infiltrate the United States. On their radar is Europe, Israel, Iceland, Russia and Greenland.

The job is a direct response to the fear of impending attacks by Europe-based organizations on the American military bases. The contractor will work with Special Ops in mining millions of Facebook posts, tweets and messages across other social media. The objective is to identify risky groups and individuals who pose a threat to Americans; attitudes and patterns towards the country; and entities likely to help such organizations/individuals gain entry into the country.

Businesses are always exploring ways to get a 360 degree view of customers, and analytics has become integral to this purpose. They are increasingly using social media data to get deeper insights into customer behavior and attitudes. The demographic and historic data is invaluable in enhancing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and taking them to the level.

The U.S government’s clandestine services have been on alert ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is believed that the services had suspected Al-Qaeda’s motive and plans for a major attack, but the issue was not pursued due to a lack of funding for the CIA. Naturally, the government doesn’t want to take any chances, and believes social media to be an important piece in the security puzzle.

The name of the company that lands the job won’t be revealed of course. It will provide assistance to the Special Operations Command Europe and European Command.

photo by Lee traupel / CC

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