Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and other technology companies are already concerned about the NSA spying on their users. Now the social networking companies have one more thing to worry about. The American Special Forces is recruiting social media experts to spy on millions of Facebook and Twitter users, especially those living in Europe, reports The Mirror.
Analyzing Facebook and Twitter data important for security
The U.S. Army has ordered a top secret program to find a team that sifts through the social media activities in Europe. The recruitment drive comes amid concerns that terrorists operating from Europe may strike U.S. military bases. The U.S. Army is hiring individuals that can help America infiltrate extremist establishments by mining tweets and posts. A senior security officer told The Mirror that monitoring and analyzing Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and other social media data have become extremely important to maintain security.
Users add plenty of information to Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) database every minute. Analyzing and cross-referencing this data would require sophisticated software. The program will help U.S. security experts identify growing attitudes and patterns towards the United States. Ever since 9/11, U.S. secret services have emphasized that they must be ahead of the game to identify any future threats. The CIA suspected in the late 1990s that Al-Qaeda was planning a big attack. But the agency didn’t have enough backing and funding to track it down. Now the clandestine services do not want to take any chances.
U.S. Army to identify threats from Europe, Russia, Israel
The advertisement for the classified job was posted on the federal jobs portal FedBizOps. The applicants will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and the interview process will reportedly be conducted in secret. Apart from Europe, the social media spies will also be required to work on identifying any threats coming from Russia, Israel, Greenland and Iceland.
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) shares went up 0.27% to $67.27, while Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) stock jumped 1.65% to $58.39 at 2:43 PM EST.
