We are being defeated in a digital war but there is still time to fight back
Last year, Russia and its allies engineered a rift between truth and lies, fact and fake news, humans and bots – and the bots are winning. They're winning because social-media firms profit from all traffic – whatever the source – and governments are simply too slow to counter this threat.
Add to this the evidence of Russian-backed attacks on key institutions of Western democracy: the European Union and Brexit, the Democratic National Committee and the Podesta e-mails. And top this off with a debilitating attack on the National Security Agency itself by an allegedly Russia-linked group called the Shadow Brokers. We are at "e-war": We've traded bullets for bots, soldiers for coders and the Berlin Wall for a firewall.
Russian disinformation – like its more overt Islamic State cousin – is designed to fuel animosities and exploit existing cleavages. The people behind it are not only hate-filled but also experts on audience segmentation. Although diametrically opposed to each other on social, ethnic, political and religious grounds, Russia and the Islamic State are ironically employing the very same techniques to further their respective agendas.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/opinion/we-are-being-defeated-in-a-digital-war-but-there-is-still-time-to-fight-back/article37513436/?__twitter_impression=true
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