IDF to employ AI tool to clamp down on soldiers’ social media posts

In an attempt to crack down on soldiers sharing sensitive content on social media, the IDF is reportedly launching a new system that will monitor and track the public online accounts of standing army troops.

Army Radio reports that the system, dubbed Morpheus, uses artificial intelligence to track all text, photos, and videos posted by standing army soldiers on social media and flag content that may contain sensitive information — such as bases or classified weaponry — for review.

If a soldier posts something that violates the military’s information security rules, they will receive an automatic notification instructing them to delete the post, the report says, adding that if necessary, the soldier will also receive a phone call from an information security officer.

Army Radio says that the system, pending legal approvals, will begin to operate in December.

The system, however, has two main limitations: It can only track public accounts, not private ones, and it cannot be used to track reservists, who are civilians in the legal sense.

According to the report, there are some 170,000 public social media accounts of soldiers in the standing army.

In the past four months, a pilot program ran on the accounts of some 45,000 soldiers, the report says, adding that thousands of cases were flagged by the system, and officers from the Information Security Department contacted the troops and instructed them to delete the posts.

Until recently, the IDF has done little to stop soldiers, especially reservists, from sharing unauthorized content online, with the phenomenon remaining widespread amid the war.

It was recently reported that Hamas spent years collecting sensitive intelligence on IDF bases and equipment, especially tanks and their operations, from soldiers’ social media activity, ahead of the October 7 onslaught.