Nichols Martin
Charles River Analytics has been awarded by the U.S. Navy a potential $2 million contract to perform analysis and identify “bots” on social media networks under an Office for Naval Research program.
The Composable Hybrid Approach to Recognizing Bots and their Influence in Social Media Analysis or CHARISMA program aims to distinguish and assess risk, threats and vulnerabilities in social media and targeted networks, the company announced Tuesday.
“Social media has changed the way we communicate by providing cheap and efficient networks for spreading messages quickly and widely,” said Bruce Skarin, principal investigator for CHARISMA.
“Unfortunately, these networks also have vulnerabilities that can be exploited using new types of informational warfare, including automated accounts disguised as ordinary users called bots,” he added.
The contract has a base value of $750,000 and an option that may raise the value by $1.25 million if exercised.
CRA will partner with Arizona State University and Intelligent Automation in efforts to detect bots using social media analytics tools and study information warfare campaigns.
