Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media

by P.W. Singer

Social media had changed not just the message, but the dynamics of conflict. How information was being accessed, manipulated, and spread had taken on new power. Who was involved in the fight, where they were located, and even how they achieved victory had been twisted and transformed. Indeed, if what was online could swing the course of a battle—or eliminate the need for battle entirely—what, exactly, could be considered “war” at all?

Diplomacy has become less private and policy-oriented and more public and performative. Its impact is not just entertainment, however. As with the gangs, each jab and riposte is both personal and witnessed by the entire world, poisoning relations and making it harder for leaders to find common ground.

For the internet’s optimistic inventors and fiercest advocates, so sure of its capacity to bring peace and understanding, this is a bitter pill to swallow. “I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world [was] automatically going to be a better place,” confessed Twitter cofounder Evan Williams. “I was wrong about that.”

Narrative, emotion, authenticity, community, and inundation are the most effective tools of online battles, and their mastery guides the efforts of most successful information warriors.

First, the internet has left adolescence. Over decades of growth, the internet has become the preeminent medium of global communication, commerce, and politics.

Second, the internet has become a battlefield. As integral as the internet has become to business and social life, it is now equally indispensable to militaries and governments, authoritarians and activists, and spies and soldiers.

Third, this battlefield changes how conflicts are fought. Social media has rendered secrets of any consequence essentially impossible to keep. Yet because virality can overwhelm truth, what is known can be reshaped. “Power” on this battlefield is thus measured not by physical strength or high-tech hardware, but by the command of attention. The result is a contest of psychological and algorithmic manipulation, fought through an endless churn of competing viral events. Fourth, this battle changes what “war” means. Winning these online battles doesn’t just win the web, but wins the world. Each ephemeral victory drives events in the physical realm, from seemingly inconsequential celebrity feuds to history-changing elections.

Fifth, and finally, we’re all part of this war.

As Tim Berners-Lee has written, “The web that many connected to years ago is not what new users will find today. What was once a rich selection of blogs and websites has been compressed under the powerful weight of a few dominant platforms. This concentration of power creates a new set of gatekeepers, allowing a handful of platforms to control which ideas and opinions are seen and shared . . . What’s more, the fact that power is concentrated among so few companies has made it possible to [weaponize] the web at scale.”

There is a word for this: “crowdsourcing.” An idea that had danced excitedly on the lips of Silicon Valley evangelists for years, crowdsourcing had been originally conceived as a new way to outsource software programming jobs, the internet bringing people together to work collectively, more quickly and cheaply than ever before. As social media use had skyrocketed, the promise of crowdsourcing had extended into a space beyond business. Mumbai proved an early, powerful demonstration of the concept in action. The incidents would swiftly multiply from there. At its core, crowdsourcing is about redistributing power—vesting the many with a degree of influence once reserved for the few. Sometimes, crowdsourcing might be about raising awareness, other times about money (also known as “crowdfunding”).

The best way to describe the feeling that results is a term from the field of philosophy: “presentism.” In presentism, the past and future are pinched away, replaced by an incomprehensibly vast now.

In revealing these secrets, OSINT showed how its ability to unveil what was once hidden can be a powerful potential force for good. It can not only catch people cutting corners (quite literally, OSINT analysts found that one of every five racers in the 2017 Mexico City Marathon cheated, including several politicians hoping to tout their endurance), but also shine a light on the world’s worst crimes.

For all the immensity of today’s electronic communications network, the system remains under the control of only a few thousand internet service providers (ISPs), the firms that run the backbone, or “pipes,” of the internet. Just a few ISPs supply almost all of the world’s mobile data. Indeed, because two-thirds of all ISPs reside in the United States, the average number per country across the rest of the globe is relatively small. Many of these ISPs hardly qualify as “businesses” at all. They are state-sanctioned monopolies or crony sanctuaries directed by the whim of local officials.

Consequently, there is no longer one set of facts, nor two, nor even a dozen. Instead, there exists a set of “facts” for every conceivable point of view. All you see is what you want to see. And, as you’ll learn how it works, the farther you’re led into this reality of your own creation, the harder it is to find your way out again.

This phenomenon is called “homophily,” meaning “love of the same.” Homophily is what makes humans social creatures, able to congregate in such large and like-minded groups. It explains the growth of civilization and cultures. It is also the reason an internet falsehood, once it begins to spread, can rarely be stopped.

Put simply, people like to be right; they hate to be proven wrong. In the 1960s, an English psychologist isolated this phenomenon and put a name to it: “confirmation bias.” Other psychologists then discovered that trying to fight confirmation bias by demonstrating people’s errors often made the problem worse. The more you explain with facts that someone is mistaken, the more they dig in their heels.

In internet studies, this is known as “power law.” It tells us that, rather than a free-for-all among millions of people, the battle for attention is actually dominated by a handful of key nodes in the network. Whenever they click “share,” these “super-spreaders” (a term drawn from studies of biologic contagion) are essentially firing a Death Star laser that can redirect the attention of huge swaths of the internet.

Narratives are the building blocks that explain both how humans see the world and how they exist in large groups. They provide the lens through which we perceive ourselves, others, and the environment around us. They are the stories that bind the small to the large, connecting personal experience to some bigger notion of how the world works. The stronger a narrative is, the more likely it is to be retained and remembered.

Human minds are wired to seek and create narrative. Every moment of the day, our brains are analyzing new events—a kind word from our boss, a horrible tweet from a faraway war—and binding them into thousands of different narratives already stowed in our memories. This process is subconscious and unavoidable.

By simplifying complex realities, good narratives can slot into other people’s preexisting comprehension. If a dozen bad things happen to you on your way to work, you simply say you’re having a “bad day,” and most people will understand intuitively what you mean. The most effective narratives can thus be shared among entire communities, peoples, or nations, because they tap into our most elemental notions.

To put it another way: the more accessible the technology, the simpler a winning voice becomes. It may be Sad! But it is True! This explains why so many modern narratives exist at least partially in images. Pictures are not just worth the proverbial thousand words; they deliver the point quickly.

Anger remains the most potent emotion, in part because it is the most interactive. As social media users find ways to express (or exploit) anger, they generate new pieces of content that are propelled through the same system, setting off additional cascades of fury. When an issue has two sides—as it almost always does—it can resemble a perpetual-motion machine of outrage.

The term “community” connotes a group with shared interests and identities that, importantly, make them distinct from the wider world. In the past, a community resided in a specific location. Now it can be created online, including (and perhaps especially) among those who find a common sense of fellowship in the worst kinds of shared identities that exclude others.

“Poe’s Law.” This is an internet adage that emerged from troll-infested arguments on the website Christian Forums. The law states, “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a [fundamentalist] in such a way that someone won’t mistake it for the genuine article.”

Netwar entailed more than simply a propaganda campaign launched over the internet. It meant a new way of thinking and a new kind of conflict. It meant understanding that online information itself was a weapon, used to dismantle some realities and to build others in their place. It suggested a future where groups and nations alike might effect massive political change—the kind that at the time usually took years of bloody struggle—without firing a shot.

Since 2003, the Chinese military has followed an information policy built on the “three warfares”: psychological warfare (manipulation of perception and beliefs), legal warfare (manipulation of treaties and international law), and public opinion warfare (manipulation of both Chinese and foreign populations).