The strategic surprise of Russian information operations on social media in 2016 in the United States: mapping a blind spot

Despite many years of preparation for cyber conflict against US critical infrastructure and military forces, the US government and cybersecurity industry were unprepared for Russian information operations targeting the 2016 US presidential election. While the Russian campaign had many components, this article focuses specifically on the covert use of social media accounts and online properties impersonating Americans for the purpose of manipulation. This article addresses the strategic blind spot around Russian information operations and the technocentric Western approach to cybersecurity that led to it. The authors explore three fields contributing essential insights to the understanding of information operations on social media: cyber conflict and cybersecurity studies, Internet and Society studies, and the Information Controls literature within human rights scholarship. Each conceptualizes cyberspace differently, but a theory of information operations on social media will bridge conceptual gaps. The article concludes that despite this initial blind spot, great tactical progress in addressing information operations on social media has been made by the US government and large US social media platforms since the 2017 ‘reckoning’. A more robust and foundational theory of information operations on social media remains to be built, integrating and synthesizing concepts from the three fields described in this article.1