Reply to post: Information is not the same as power...

Facebook notifications to reveal who saw dodgy Russian election ads

Palpy

Information is not the same as power...

...just ask the guy reading about the history of social justice whilst serving a life term behind bars.

But information and disinformation can be a powerful weapon in the service of those who can wield it. What the West is seeing is a Russian (mostly) campaign of social disruption using targeted disinformation. The "Heart of Texas" Facebook account encouraged Texans to secede from the US; the corresponding Twitter account was "ItsTimeToSecede". Both were run by the Russian "Internet Research Agency". Similar Russian efforts promoted secession of California, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and secessionist factions in various racial groups. (See blog link, but there are many other credible accounts of this.)

How can one not regard fanning secessionist movements as attacking the integrity of the United States?

One of the goals in a shooting war is to disrupt the enemy's society so that supply lines fail, recruitment of new troops becomes difficult, and chains of command start to break. Targeted disinformation is being used in similar ways in the non-shooting conflict between Russia and the West

How is the Russian effort different from other information, propaganda, and disinformation? All US political entities use targeted information, and most throw in a bit of disinformation -- fake facts -- at least until they're caught at it. The US has a number of sweaty peanuts like Alex Jones and Michael Savage spreading rank bulls**t over various media. We also have a number of news sources supplying reasonably fact-based journalism, and many supplying information-with-a-spin to various politically partisan populations.

We also allow citizens to carry guns. And sometimes they shoot at things, living or dead. Legally. That does NOT mean we want Russian spooks scurrying around the US carrying guns and shooting at things they want to shoot at. Just because we have our own weapons -- information-weapons -- inside our borders does NOT mean we want cold-conflict enemies sending stealthy, targeted information-weapons across our internet-borders.

Therein lies the rub, really: If disinformation is weaponized (it has been for a long time, darling Tokyo Rose), and the Internet allows worldwide access to disinformation (that's more recent, and accelerating), then how do we even think about national security and borders with respect to weaponized disinformation?

Personally, I think we need to think about it pretty quick. We in the West are behind the curve on this one. Putin has already put up his own first layer of defenses by banning VPNs and anonymizing services, and "managing" the Internet inside Russia. He can do that; in a free-speech democracy we have to find other ways. But the West is lagging the Russians on both offensive and defensive technology with regard to weaponized disinformation.

If you read this far, you must have eyeballs of beryllium-steel alloy. I salute you. We need a TL;DR icon.

One last note -- personally, I think Zuckerberg is an immature cluck. Eat only meat from animals he has killed himself? Childish posturing, a real "Oooh, look at my cool life" pose. But if Facebook hadn't been a success we would be having this conversation about MySpace, or some other social network. Zuck is just a distraction.

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