Army eyes Internet replica for crisis drills

The U.S. Army is thinking about creating a replica of the Internet, replete with news sites, government websites and social media networks, to experiment with ways to manage the message during a crisis, government documents show.

The envisioned portal would allow the U.S. Northern Command -- a unit that organizes exercises and planning efforts to sharpen agencies’ reflexes during emergencies -- to test strategies for engaging journalists and the public through online networks. It reflects the growing importance government is placing on the Internet as a tool to influence the spread of ideas.

The password-protected platform, called the U.S. Army North Exercise Media Web Portal, will offer a microcosm of the online landscape, populated with “mass media and social media networking websites,” as well as interactive platforms similar to Twitter, YouTube and blogging sites. “The portal will serve as the primary distribution point for exercise media products and serve as a platform for scenario-based social media discourse,” the notice states.

The Army issued a request for information in April to suss out products available on the market to support the experiment. The RFI closed on April 23.

The platform is expected to host 1,000 concurrent users and allow uploads of video files as large as 200 megabytes, according to the RFI. The base period for the contract is slated to run from July 2012 to June 2013, with options for renewal through 2015.