{"id":7683,"date":"2019-01-14T07:56:41","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T12:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7683"},"modified":"2019-01-14T08:40:17","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T13:40:17","slug":"likewar-the-weaponization-of-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7683","title":{"rendered":"*****LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In David Sanger\u2019s chilling book about the dangers of\ncyberweapons, reviewed here last\nweek<\/a>, he includes the impact of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media,\nbut P.W. Singer and Emerson T Brooking focus laserlike on them in LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media<\/em>.\nIf you want to know chapter and verse about the barrage of efforts to\nmanipulate American opinion in the election of 2016\u2014and risk of even more in\nfuture\u2014this is the book for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Singer and Brooking\u2019s book, like Sanger\u2019s, pulls together in one place the various threads of information about cyberthreats from the last few years, weaving them into a coherent, memorable, and understandable(!) whole. All these authors provide exhaustive lists of sources. It\u2019s incumbent on responsible people to understand the tactics of information warfare, because, \u201c[recent Senate hearings] showed that our leaders had little grasp on the greatest existential threat to American democracy,\u201d said Leigh Giangreco<\/a> in the Washington Post<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These ill-intentioned manipulators understand the human\nbrain is hard-wired for certain reactions: to believe in conspiracy theories\n(\u201cObama isn\u2019t an American\u201d); to be gratified when we receive approval (\u201clikes\u201d!);\nto be drawn to views we agree with (\u201cconfirmation bias\u201d). If we feel compelled\nto weigh in on some bit of propaganda or false information, social media algorithms\nsee this attention and elevate the issue\u2014\u201ctrending!\u201d\u2014so that our complaints\nonly add to the virality of disinformation and lies. \u201cJust as the internet has\nreshaped war, war is now radically reshaping the internet,\u201d the authors say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to the optimism of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs\nwho saw social media as a positive, democratizing force, this new technology is\nbeing used to destructive effect at many levels of society. At a local scale,\nfor example, it bolsters gang violence in Chicago; at a national scale, it\ncontributed to the election of fringe politicians; at a regional scale, it\nfacilitated the emergence of ISIS; and at an international scale, it undergirds\nthe reemergence of repressive political movements in many countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to be a responsible citizen in this chaos? Like it or\nnot, \u201cwe\u2019re all part of this war,\u201d the authors say, \u201cand which side succeeds\ndepends in large part on how much the rest of us learn to recognize this new\nwarfare for what it is\u201d and how ready we are for what comes next.\n\nStart by reading one\u2014or both\u2014of these important\nbooks.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases\u2014a\nfew pennies to put in a jar to pay my WordPress bills. When you purchase this\nbook by clicking on the photo above, you help me fill the jar. Thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In David Sanger\u2019s chilling book about the dangers of cyberweapons, reviewed here last week, he includes the impact of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, but P.W. Singer and Emerson T Brooking focus laserlike on them in LikeWar: The Weaponization … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"*****LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media - see the full picture of attempts to manipulate the American politisphere. It's worse than you think. Much.\n","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1288,193,267,268,126,186],"tags":[1473,181],"class_list":["post-7683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-espionage","category-non-fiction","category-politics","category-reading-2","category-technology","tag-p-w-singer","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Putin-1.jpg?fit=481%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1ZV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7683"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7688,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7683\/revisions\/7688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}