Social media is helping Putin kill our democracy

There’s no denying Russia’s culpability here. As our Intelligence Community assessed, Moscow sabotaged our 2016 election with cyberespionage and online Active Measures to hurt Hillary Clinton, boost Donald Trump, and generally foment political turmoil in Russia’s “Main Adversary.” This 21^st century espionage operation relied heavily on social media, especially Kremlin-linked trolls and bots, to hurt the Democrats by spreading disinformation—in other words, “fake news”—with lightning speed.

Although the IC assessment that was released to the public last July was unclassified and therefore lacking much detail on Russian techniques, some of those were exposed last summer when the improbably named Reality Winner, an NSA contractor, leaked a Top Secret assessment by the agency that demonstrated direct Russian intelligence involvement in clandestine efforts to sway our presidential election. Although the Kremlin has officially denied it interfered in American politics in 2016, some of these denials have been with a smirk. Putin and his inner circle of Chekist honey badgers know we know and don’t care.

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[I]t must be kept in mind that social media made this all possible. The Russians have been spreading lies for decades. Moscow’s Cold War disinformation campaigns against the West were every bit as vicious and unpleasant as today. Active Measures, including fake reports, forged documents, and dastardly conspiracies invented out of thin air, were created by the KGB to smear Western governments—especially our intelligence agencies—and none more than America’s. In the 1980s, Washington got adept at pushing back against these Kremlin lies, as two administrations have signally failed to do since 2014, when Putin’s attack on Ukraine unleashed a simultaneous cyber-assault on Western institutions.

Social media made Moscow’s clandestine work much easier and more profitable. Although the lies currently emanating from the Kremlin resemble Cold War Active Measures in overall form and content, they are now disseminated so quickly, and through so many fronts, trolls, and bots, that Western governments are severely challenged to even keep up with these weaponized lies, much less push back. For this, we have the Internet to thank. While none can deny the countless benefits of the online age, this is one of its most pernicious side effects.

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It’s time the West seriously addressed the problem, and quickly, since this Kremlin spy game isn’t going away. Left unchecked, this is the “new normal” that will gradually erode Western democracy itself. Too few of our opinion-makers have spoken up about this painful reality. A happy exception is Chris Zappone, an Australian journalist who for years has castigated the malignant influence of social media, particularly when it’s linked to authoritarian regimes seeking to undermine the West.

Zappone’s critiques of the insidious “Silicon Valley ideology” and how it aids Russia and China deserve attention across the West, since this threat confronts all our societies. I am skeptical that social media giants can reform themselves. They are too rich plus too vain and contemptuous of opinions other than their own. Their self-righteous pontifications would make Gilded Age robber barons blush. As an ardent champion of free speech, I don’t want the government to step in, but there may be no choice. Robert Hannigan feels similarly. In his BBC interview, he observed that the window for social media to self-police is closing fast. “That’s a shame,” he stated, “it would be much better if the companies reform themselves, but I think they are missing the boat.”

Read the article: John R. Schindler, “Social media is helping Putin kill our democracy,” Observer (6 February 2018)