The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age

by David E. Sanger

It is still unclear if the idea behind the IRA came from Prigozhin, Putin, or someone in between. But its creation marked a moment of profound transition in how the Internet could be put to use. For a decade it was regarded as a great force for democracy: as people of different cultures communicated, the best ideas would rise to the top and autocrats would be undercut. The IRA was based on the opposite thought: social media could just as easily incite disagreements, fray social bonds, and drive people apart. While the first great blush of attention garnered by the IRA would come because of its work surrounding the 2016 election, its real impact went deeper—in pulling at the threads that bound together a society that lived more and more of its daily life in the digital space. Its ultimate effect was mostly psychological. There was an added benefit: The Internet Research Agency could actually degrade social media’s organizational power through weaponizing it. The ease with which its “news writers” impersonated real Americans—or real Europeans, or anyone else—meant that over time, people would lose trust in the entire platform. For Putin, who looked at social media’s role in fomenting rebellion in the Middle East and organizing opposition to Russia in Ukraine, the notion of calling into question just who was on the other end of a Tweet or Facebook post—of making revolutionaries think twice before reaching for their smartphones to organize—would be a delightful by-product. It ...