The US Naval Ministry intends to create a “large-scale global historical data archive from a social network,” which will include at least 350 billion Internet user records. It is planned to spend $ 38.5 million for these purposes.

“The main requirement for this study is the creation of a large-scale global historical archive of data from a social network containing the full text of all public records made in all countries and in all languages ​​covered by the platform,” the US Naval Ministry said in a research application.

According to the document, with the text of which RT has read, the contractor must collect records from the same social network, but it does not indicate which one. In addition, the archive should consist of comments that are publicly available and written by at least 200 million unique Internet users from 100 or more countries of the world.

At the same time, the time frames are indicated: records should relate to the period from July 1, 2014 to December 31, 2016. It is also possible to expand the reporting period with an increase in the volume of archived messages.

“Each entry in the archive should contain the full text of the publication in the social network with preservation of the original content and formatting, as well as all public metadata, including country, language, hashtags, location, user name, time stamp and links related to the original publication”, - indicated in the document.

The military department emphasizes that all records must contain the time and date of sending the message, as well as the user name associated with this message. In addition, the archive will mark not only the location where the information was posted, but also the city of residence of the author of the post, which was specified by the users themselves. Records should also include messages written in at least 60 languages, and at least 50% of messages should not be written in English.

According to the document, such an archive is needed by the States for a deeper understanding of the foundations of social dynamics and modeling the evolution of linguistic communities, as well as the emergence of new types of collective expression of opinion in various countries.

The US Naval Ministry has repeatedly published various applications for work in the Internet space. So, in 2017 it became known that the US Navy plans to create a global monitoring service for social networks and news agencies. Then the agency was looking for a contractor to analyze materials in the media and social networks in Russian, English, German, French, as well as in dialects common in China.

  • Pentagon building in Washington
  • Reuters
  • © Jason Reed

Collect dossier

Creating such archives of Internet user records is necessary for the United States to collect information that may be closed in the future. Such an opinion in a conversation with RT was expressed by Colonel of the Federal Agency for Governmental Communication and Information (FAPSI), retired, an expert on Internet intelligence Andrei Masalovich.

“This is necessary in order to collect dossiers for people who at some point may wipe out extra data. In addition, the United States is afraid to be late: after a while the Internet will change a lot, national Internet networks will arise. That is, there will be analogs of boundaries on the Internet. Many countries understand that it is impossible to allow foreign propaganda, hostile resources on their territory and it is necessary to monitor the content much more clearly. And while the environment is one, as long as there are no borders, and information comes from different participants from different countries, it would be good to fix it, ”he noted.

According to him, such a study can also help the United States in identifying factors that determine the behavior of large social groups.

“Such a large amount of research allows us to analyze not only individual behavior, but, more importantly, group behavior. That is, where and how someone’s supporters accumulate, the activity on one resonance or another topic from where informational attacks are coming is increasing. The study of social behavior of groups is the topic of the next decade not only for business, but also for politics, ”said the expert.

May require more funding.

In fact, such work may require more funding because of the large volume of tasks set by the US Naval Ministry, said political analyst Dmitry Evstafiev.

“Such work costs not $ 40 million, but much more money and implies a very large amount of technical mathematized and algorithmized information processing methods. This amount of work costs more than $ 100 million, ”the expert noted.

He also added that the United States had compiled similar archives before, but the main problem in this process is the limited ability to process this amount of information promptly.

Meanwhile, last year the US Army placed a tender for the development of software for working in social networks. According to the request of the Pentagon, private companies had to create a computer program for analyzing messages on the Internet. Based on the information gathered, the system being created will have to generate posts in social networks in seven languages, including Russian.