Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media

by P.W. Singer

In a democracy, you have a right to your opinion, but no right to be celebrated for an ugly, hateful opinion, especially if you’ve spread lie after lie.

Although figures like Mark Zuckerberg have protested at various times that they should not be considered “arbiters of the truth,” this is exactly what they are. The information that spreads via their services—governed by their legal and software codes—shapes our shared reality. If they aren’t the arbiters of truth, who is? Accordingly, these companies must abandon the pretense that they are

merely “neutral” platform providers. It is a weak defense that they outgrew many years ago. Bigots, racists, violent extremists, and professional trolls do not have to be accorded the same respect as marginalized peoples and democratic states. In turn, the authoritarian governments that exploit their networks and target their users must be treated as adversaries—not potential new markets.

Just as all companies have a role in public health, so does Silicon Valley have a responsibility to help build public information literacy.

By acting less like angry customers and more like concerned constituents, we stand the best chance of guiding these digital empires in the right direction.

Like any viral infection, information offensives work by targeting the most vulnerable members of a population—in this case, the least informed. The cascading nature of “likes” and “shares” across social networks, however, means that the gullible and ignorant are only the entry point. Ignorance isn’t bliss; it just makes you a mark.

Instead, if we want to stop being manipulated, we must change how we navigate the new media environment. In our daily lives, all of us must recognize that the intent of most online content is to subtly influence and manipulate. In response, we should practice a technique called

“lateral thinking.” In a study of information consumption patterns, Stanford University researchers gauged three groups—college undergraduates, history PhDs, and professional fact-checkers—on how they evaluated the accuracy of online information. Surprisingly, both the undergraduates and the PhDs scored low. While certainly intelligent, they approached the information “vertically.” They stayed within a single worldview, parsing the content of only one source. As a result, they were “easily manipulated.” By contrast, the fact-checkers didn’t just recognize online manipulation more often, they also detected it far more rapidly. The reason was that they approached the task “laterally,” leaping across multiple other websites as they made a determination of accuracy. As the Stanford team wrote, the fact-checkers “understood the Web as a maze filled with trap doors and blind alleys, where things are not always what they seem.” So they constantly linked to other locales and sources, “seeking context and perspective.” In

short, they networked out to find the truth. The best way to navigate the internet is one that reflects the very ...