READY FOR TODAY – EVOLVING FOR TOMORROW
Notes on the Character of the Environment 12
You are the vital ground
The current war is being fought over your mind. Dominion here will enable those seeking power to
influence cultures, activists and powerful individuals. It provides the opportunity to set the agenda or
foment discord. More importantly, it will shape your personal values system. This makes your mind an
enduring asset.
Your mind is also highly exposed. Terrorists would traditionally attack physical infrastructure to further
their agenda. Resultantly, vulnerable institutions such as power stations created physical defences. They
now create digital defences against the same perceived risk. This makes attacking them time consuming,
hazardous and expensive for the terrorist. But your mind has no such defences. Human cognitive
vulnerabilities are well documented, and rarely change. Cheap to access en masse, psychological
operations enable the terrorist to have real world effect in a cheap and low risk manner. Once again,
there is no penalty to failure.
Don’t fear the bots
Humans still make the best people. The golden age of troll created content being amplified through bot
networks is almost over. Informed audiences have become inoculated against serial likes and trending
algorithms. They recognise echo chambers and use fact checking sites. Even though the method still
garners partial success (through sympathetic audiences, key influencers and subsequently the media)
the new friction of legislation represents cost. Intelligent campaigns now focus funding on people, as the
bot networks represent diminishing returns.
Governments and companies alike – including Twitter and Facebook – have legislated against bots.
Algorithms hunt out their accounts and deny them suffrage. This has precipitated the rise of the
sockpuppet. As human backed persona’s, they enable operators to court favour with key influencers.
The puppets will then be interrogated and integrated over time. If successful, they will attain a respected
position amongst an ideologically backed network of activists. This subsequently enables the hijacking
of a formed network, to be triggered when most beneficial.
As it has always been, this war is about people. If the sockpuppets are successful, they have the
opportunity at illegitimate leadership. Ultimately, this will be harder to legislate against than bots, as
individuals come with associated rights.
The Neighbourhood Watch?
Digital communities tend towards polarisation in the information environment. Whereas moderate
narratives require compromise in the detail, extremist narratives appear singular and clear. The
constant stream of deepfakes, alternative truth and misinformation widen the divide, as individuals seek
reassurance in polar narratives. This moral alignment ensures centrist views receive less consideration.
Opposing voices either get muted, or reinforce the assumed belief structure.
These communities then withdraw from engaging with traditional democratic values and processes. As
a result, they are harder to engage with – especially if effects are required in their political sphere. As a
protectionist organisation, your very presence in their information ecosystem may provoke an attack on
the friendly core narrative.
12 Graeff, E. (2014). “What We Should Do Before the Social Bots Take Over: Online Privacy Protection and the Political Economy of Our Near Future.” Cambridge: The MIT Press.
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