[penprog]

The first thing this article reminded me of was ghost in the shell season 2. In the show the Intelligence Agency of the government used this sort of info manipulation to increase animosity towards refugees to the point where the public was in support of basically slaughtering them.

In the show this agency also analyzed public opinion using info obtained from discussion forums to gauge the public's acceptance of government policy and they would use the information manipulation with sock puppets to change public opinion in their favor.

[mrottenkolber]

One of the best shows ever. The whole Stand Alone Complex concept is kind of unique to GitS, is it?

Edit: Oh and btw, ghost in the lisp: http://medias.ircam.fr/x03b42f

RPG talking about his work on the mass media manipulation machine of DARPA.

[cjslep]

Yes and no[0]. For reference, the definition of a Stand Alone Complex from wikipedia [1]:

Stand Alone Complex (スタンド・アローン・コンプレックス Sutando Arōn Konpurekkusu) eventually came to represent a phenomenon where unrelated, yet very similar actions of individuals create a seemingly concerted effort.

The ideology of radical Islam from the viewpoint of neoconservatives in the USA in the 00 decade was of "shadowy underground terrorist cells all linked together and we should all be afraid of it", when in reality it was much more akin to the Stand Alone Complex: disparate radical groups all over the world used a common idea to act on their own but without communicating to one another. When viewed by the intelligence community, of course they weren't independent isolated events influenced by the same root idea; they were a centralized enemy. They projected thwir own centralized nature to the fragmented radical Islamic movement of the early 00's. Eventually, that radical Islamic movement grew into the identity provided them by the intelligence community as a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

[0]So yes in name, no in practice if you buy into the viewpoint above.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_Shel...