Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media

by P.W. Singer

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”).