Operation Earnest Voice (OEV) is a psychological operation by the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) [1] that uses sockpuppets to spread pro-American propaganda on targeted social networking services based outside of the United States. [2] [3]
OEV was first used in Iraq against forums used by al-Qaeda members and insurgents. [3] It was thought to have been later directed at jihadists in Pakistan, Afghanistan as well as countries in the Middle East. [2] In 2011, the US government signed a $2.8 million contract with the Ntrepid 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. [2]
Main characteristics of the software, as stated in the software development request, are:
CENTCOM commander David Petraeus, in his congressional testimony, stated that Operation Earnest Voice would "reach [a country's] regional audiences through traditional media, as well as via Web sites and regional public-affairs blogging," as an effort to "counter extremist ideology and propaganda". [2] However, his successor, Jim Mattis, 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, [and] we engage with the Web administrators to show that this violates Web site provider policies." [1]