DARPA Soliciting Proposals for Social Media

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting proposals for strategic communication in social media.

From the posting:

The general goal of the Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program is to develop a new science of social networks built on an emerging technology base. In particular, SMISC will develop automated and semi‐automated operator support tools and techniques for the systematic and methodical use of social media at data scale and in a timely fashion to accomplish four specific program goals:

1. Detect, classify, measure and track the (a) formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes), and (b) purposeful or deceptive messaging and misinformation.
2. Recognize persuasion campaign structures and influence operations across social media sites and communities.
3. Identify participants and intent, and measure effects of persuasion campaigns. Counter messaging of detected adversary influence operations.

There is an initial closing for proposals on August 30 with the final closing on October 11. There will be an industry day on August 2.

DARPA: Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC)