launched the minerva research initiative multimillion dollar program to quote improve d.o.d.'s basic understanding of the social cultural behavioral global forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the u.s. but according to a recent article written by guardian journalist offering some men the pentagon is working in conjunction with major u.s. universities to militarize social science and prepare for global civil break down there enough is join me to discuss the minerva initiative and i started by asking him about one particular study that set out to discover why protesters don't become terrorists this is a really interesting study because this is where they really did blur the boundaries a lot so recently the study was supposed to be focused on looking at what ought what are the things that kind of stop surveillance who support so-called radical causes to quote the project what was stops them from getting involved in kind of crossing that line and becoming involved in some part of terrorists activity or some kind of political violence so the idea was th

department of defense that's right the new research and altering news feed to see how masses of react was actually connected to a military project called the minerva initiative the division is said to be studying nonviolent activist groups to better understand and prepare for a massive societal breakdown well i just spoke to guardian journalist malfeasant mad about why this program should trouble us all. when they actually categorized these activists that they were studying they specifically categorized peaceful activists as supporters of political violence so even if you are not engaged in what might be described as political violence if you're a member of a group that is somehow questioning the status. well calling into question government policy you'll get to being active on the environment or calling into question corporate policies then you could be seen as a supporter of political violence so now that we know that this facebook test was actually a part of minerva it's obvious that the government is extremely invested in learning how it can influence opinion online those tactics nothing new considering what we recently learned about what the u.s. idea w