Social media as information weapon

Like maps, social media is an easy tool for maintaining state power through surveillance and control of a population, and is the latest forum for propaganda. This chapter details how nation states harness social media as a ‘soft power’ weapon to manipulate foreign audiences. The Russian IRA deployed this weapon in 2016 to polarize Americans around social issues (such as race and police violence) that ultimately influenced the US Presidential election. This included two primary methods of influence through disinformation: inflammatory content by paid trolls and by advertisements that appear as native content but push divisive misinformation. The strategic vulnerability of social media was also exploited by private actors including Cambridge Analytica that sold social media users’ information to political campaigns with the intent of influencing democratic outcomes. We mapped out 30 nations that used social media as a weapon to falsify, disinform, mislead, and agitate their adversaries.