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  • Jensen Frye posted an update 4 years, 4 months ago

    Since the 2015 US election and 2016 Brexit referendum upsets, foreign impact on democratic elections has turned into a hot topic. On John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, a segment explained the simplicity of tampering with voting machines which inspired me to create this informative article. Before I purchase into how simple and easy , inexpensive it’s to propagate disinformation online, I’d like provide some background on why and the way more nations will likely be entering a digital warfare space from the future years.

    Foundations of Geopolitics, a novel drafted from the International Department with the Russian Secretary of state for Defence back in 1997, led the way being a philosophical instructions manual for dismantling and dethroning enemies and super-powers alike, with all the ultimate purpose of “Finlandization” it really is Europe. As outlined by Wikipedia’s summary on the strategy:

    “Military operations play relatively little role. The textbook advocates a classy program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded through the Russia special services.”

    Throughout the 2015 US election with a meagre monthly budget of only $1.25M (estimated $15M per year), Russia’s Research Agency could give you the US election to the Republican Party. With regards to return-on-investment (ROI), Russia spends $36M per Mi-35 helicopter. It’s no surprise then, that as Russia gains more territory and influence, its actual military expenses are decreasing.

    Military power is clearly a really costly ongoing expense where destabilization is pretty cheap and plentiful. But exactly how is this done?

    Tactic 1: Find The Fractures Then Divide & Conquer

    Using the instance of the usa, this fracturing tactic was exquisitely executed by fuelling instability and actively supporting all dissident groups simultaneously to inflame tensions and divide communities. Enemies of the USA have already been fanning the flames of white nationalism, gun rights groups, stoking anti-immigration sentiment along with the vilification of refugees and Muslims have been most visible. Yet this only scratches the surface.

    But more subtle and vicious domestic attacks come in support of fringe and also other right-wing religious groups attacking women’s reproductive rights, gay marriage equality, homelessness and mental health.

    We are seeing generational divisiveness growing between Seniors and Millennials. There exists a growing demonization of environmental stewardship (see baseless attacks along with other trolling of Greta Thunberg) and attacks on democratically-held values generally.

    Long-term, inter-generational damage through the exploitation of those existing divides sometimes appears from the gutting of america education system, diminishing use of healthcare for all those, ballooning deficits that our children and grandchildren will be saddled down by some of the long-term consequences to be gone through this surprisingly inexpensive destabilization warfare technique.

    What were once cracks in a overarching national unity are getting to be red line fractures in an artificially created, cold civil war. The majority are now asking the thing that was done to exploit these existing social divides?

    Tactic 2: Leverage digital age intersection between behavioural economics, social websites loopholes and the relative easy google search exploitation

    As being a digital strategist and internet based marketer We’ve observed that many of the tactics accessible to civilians were modified to become weaponized against competing nations. Boosting social media reach on divisive posts and influencers gave fringe groups an incorrect sense that they can held popular yet controversial views.

    Social media marketing has a lot of loopholes that i often share to my online marketer followings to allow them to get more bang for his or her buck with clients. It’s important to remember social networking platforms’ #1 goal would be to help keep you for the platform providing possible to allow them to make ad revenue. They do this by demonstrating content they are will keep yourself on a bit longer. They are all literally designed at some level to become addictive to all of us.

    I discuss inside my marketing content the many exploitation opportunties that trick these social platforms into thinking your posts is viral by fooling the algorithm they depend upon to distribute to users.

    By way of example, with less than $100 I could buy 10,000 twitter followers, automatically getting 1,000 retweets and favourites on 10 posts. For $100 of paid ads on twitter, you barely get any results. That’s because Twitter under-reports bot activity so that you can convince its shareholders this web page engagement is growing. It’s not only Twitter – Facebook, Instagram, Youtube (Google), Snapchat and in many cases Linkedin have the ability to exactly the same fundamental vulnerability. It may be quite simple to provide false social proof to almost anything.

    Humans are hardwired with cognitive biases that are easily and often exploited by social networking platforms and search engines to make us think that everything is more (or less) popular compared to what they really are. Increasingly we appear to be getting stuck inside our own social echo chambers and believe a lot of people see things exactly like us.

    There are legitimate grievances around the US economy like job losses from globalization and artificial intelligence resulting in increased economic inequality. But People in the usa were manipulated and sentiment hijacked by populist narratives for being the victim of the government, elites, experts, Democrats, Mexicans, Muslims, and foreign allies.

    Tactic 3: Erode Trust & Global Alliances

    What’s worse, not just was the goal achieved to destabilize the usa by facilitating the turning of your nation on itself, but also have its internal damage bleed Anti-Americanism into US-global relations. The surprise betrayal in the American-Kurd alliance may have lasting consequences on American credibility, leaving American soldiers and civilians weaker than in the past.

    France, creation the oldest international ally of the United States, is now questioning simply how much it might depend upon america as soon as the abrupt pulling of US forces from Northern Syria without the consultations from NATO partners. As reported by the BBC,

    “Russia, which sees Nato as a threat towards the security, welcomes in france they president’s comments as “truthful words.””

    It’s difficult to say when exactly this second Cold War started, only one thing is certain: we’re woefully prepared to defend ourselves from disinformation and still have learned to stop difficult political conversations.

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