War, peace and tweets

Panel examines the impact of social media

"War or Peace in 140 Characters" sounds like an extreme CliffsNotes version of Leo Tolstoy's epic. In fact, it was a compelling conversation about the impact of social media on global events.

The well-attended event, organized by Norway House and the Minnesota Peace Initiative, was held Nov. 20 at the University of Minnesota. While there was some focus on the role of social media in Mideast social uprisings, much of the discussion was on how U.S.-based international institutions are reacting to the new age.

The intelligence community, for instance, is combing social media for actionable information. But what kind of intelligence? And from whom? asked Bryan Cunningham, a former CIA officer and deputy legal adviser to then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Cunningham said that an intelligence officer's job is like a journalist's. Is the tweeter telling the truth? Does that person know the truth? Have ulterior motives? And "which part of the elephant are they really touching?"

Even if answers can be verified, integrating intelligence gathered via social media is yet another challenge, Cunningham said.

Source veracity "predates the social media age," said Dave Kansas, the chief operating officer of American Public Media. "It's not a new problem. What is new is the velocity of information."

Overseas, social media continues to have an asymmetric effect on diplomacy and defense. For instance, Cunningham said, the first word the world had about the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound was from a Pakistani man who unwittingly tweeted news of the covert operation. "What if the Pakistani government had monitored that Twitter feed?" wondered Cunningham.

In some instances, the impact was positive, said Sam Kaplan, U.S. ambassador to Morocco from 2009 to 2013. "The singular most important thing that Twitter and Facebook and other social media did in Morocco is that it gave the right to women to communicate with each other," he said.

And yet the digital age — especially the WikiLeaks release of classified cables — made the job challenging. The effect was "profound," he said, adding that it took time to rebuild relationships and trust. "But coming out of the chute it was a very dicey situation."

The world is just basically out of the chute with social media, so its role in diplomacy and defense will continue to evolve. But far from supplanting diplomats, intelligence officers and journalists, it's likely that the original form of social media — talking — will be more important than ever.

JOHN RASH