Mainstream Social Media: The Battleground America is Losing

Photo Credits: Penn Foundation

To challenge America in a conventional fight is suicide. Fully aware of this, hostile state actors and non-state actors are implementing other ways to win

The United States boasts history’s most significant and potent conventional fighting force. In the blink of an eye, it can deploy troops and forces anywhere across the globe. This massive force is a significant deterrent to prevent other nations from violating international agreements and disturbing world peace. However, fully aware of this, state and non-state actors hostile to the United States are finding ways to defeat the United States. One way is through social media. This article analyzes the importance of social media in the advanced battlefield and why America must adapt to realize that social media is just as effective as the most advanced weapons systems.

Social Media

Below is a succinct history of Social Media written by Maryville University:

A Brief History of Social Media

In less than a generation, social media has evolved from direct electronic information exchange, to virtual gathering place, to retail platform, to vital 21st-century marketing tool.

How did it begin? How has social media affected the lives of billions of people? How have businesses adapted to the digital consumer lifestyle? How do marketing professionals use social media? It’s all part of the story of social media’s ongoing evolution.

Pre-internet Roots

In a sense, social media began on May 24, 1844, with a series of electronic dots and dashes tapped out by hand on a telegraph machine.

The first electronic message from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., proved Samuel Morse understood the historic ramifications of his scientific achievement: “What hath God wrought?” he wrote.

A recent article in?The Washington Post, “Before Twitter and Facebook, There Was Morse Code: Remembering Social Media’s True InventorExternal link:open_in_new,” details the history and relevance of Morse code, complete with early versions of today’s “OMG” and “LOL.”

While the roots of digital communication run deep, most contemporary accounts of the modern origins of today’s internet and social media point to the emergence in 1969 of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network — the ARPANET.

This early digital network, created by the United States Department of Defense, allowed scientists at four interconnected universities to share software, hardware, and other data.

In 1987, the direct precursor to today’s internet came into being when the National Science Foundation launched a more robust, nationwide digital network known as the?NSFNETExternal link:open_in_new. A decade later, in 1997, the first true social media platform was launched.

The Launch of Social Sites

In the 1980s and ’90s, according to “The History of Social NetworkingExternal link:open_in_new” on the technology news site Digital Trends, the internet’s growth enabled the introduction of online communication services such as CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy. They introduced users to digital communication through email, bulletin board messaging, and real-time online chatting.

This gave rise to the earliest social media networks, beginning with the short-lived Six Degrees profile uploading service in 1997.

This service was followed in 2001 by Friendster. These rudimentary platforms attracted millions of users and enabled email address registration and basic online networking.

Weblogs, or blogs, another early form of digital social communication, began to gain popularity with the 1999 launch of the?LiveJournalExternal link:open_in_new?publishing site. This coincided with the launch of the Blogger publishing platform by the tech company Pyra Labs, which was?purchased by Google in 2003External link:open_in_new.

In 2002, LinkedIn was founded as a networking site for career-minded professionals. By 2020, it had grown to more than 675 million users worldwide. It remains the social media site of choice for job seekers as well as human resources managers searching for qualified candidates.

Two other major forays into social media collapsed after a burst of initial success. In 2003, Myspace launched. By 2006, it was the most visited website on the planet, spurred by users’ ability to share new music directly on their profile pages.

By 2008, it was eclipsed by Facebook. In 2011, Myspace was purchased by musician Justin Timberlake for $35 million, but it has since become a?social media afterthought. External link:open_in_new.

Google’s attempt to elbow its way into the social media landscape,?Google+External link:open_in_new, launched in 2012. A rocky existence ended in 2018 after a data security breach compromised the private information of nearly 500,000 Google+ users.

Image provided by The Daily Dot

Social media has created a profound impact on all aspects of society. The average person can now influence other individuals. Content creators on social media who have gained a significant following are considered “influencers.” Companies know this and consistently use these influencers to push their products to the market. The most recent example was the “Stanley Cup” craze that resulted in mobs of people running to Target to obtain a cup. While companies use social media to push products, state actors can use social media to influence individuals. One example was the 2016 election.

Donald Trump and 2016

Donald Trump’s campaign to become the President of the United States was riddled with controversy. Traditional media found his comments abhorrent and his conduct far beyond the expectations of a stereotypical politician. However, the amount of negative press coverage he received was the most significant benefit to his campaign. In comparison to his running opponent, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump received a significant amount of free press which helped his campaign.

One major factor of Donald Trumps campaign was his success on social media. Donald Trump’s witty remarks helped content creators push his speeches out and completely drowned out Hillary Clintons ability to project her own campaign message. As time went on, there was an accusation against Trump, that Russian Trolls were used to propel him into the presidency. An independent study as confirmed that Russian “trolls” utilized social media to influence the 2016 election. Below is an excerpt from Coumbia SIPA:

Study Confirms Influence of Russian Internet “Trolls” on 2016 Election

Posted Mar 29 2022

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A study by Columbia SIPA researchers that examined the impact of Russian internet “trolls” on online betting markets suggests that the trolls’ activity influenced the 2016 U.S. presidential election in the direction of Donald Trump.

By analyzing betting market data for the 2016 election, researchers determined that market odds favoring Republicans hit their low point on Russian holidays—when trolls were shown to be less active—while odds favoring Democrats peaked at the same time. This empirical measurement backs the inference that Russian election interference hurt Democrats’ chance of winning.

The Columbia SIPA study, entitled?“Reduced Trolling on Russian Holidays and Daily U.S. Presidential Election Odds,”?appears in the journal?PLOS ONE. It was conducted by?Douglas Almond, a professor of economics and international and public affairs;?Xinming Du, a fifth-year PhD student at SIPA; and Alana Vogel, a 2020 MIA graduate of SIPA.

Almond said that the purpose of the study was to evaluate whether Russia’s widely publicized election interference was actually effective.

“We used the natural experiment created by the substantial reduction in Russian trolling that occurred on Russian holidays to evaluate whether Republican election odds deteriorated on those days with reduced Russian trolling.” Almond said.

International political interference is not new, but many of its effects on electoral politics remain unclear. In recent years, Russian trolling has taken election interference via social media to an industrial scale. Previous research on Russian interference in the United States has looked at persons who had direct interactions with Russian trolls and automated bots. The Columbia SIPA study advances existing literature by looking at exogenous drivers of trolling. It also ?examines the causal effects of Russian trolling on outcomes of greater interest, such as election prospects.

The Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed troll farm, was believed to have engaged in operations to interfere with the U.S. political and electoral processes by creating fake American personas and disseminating false information during the 2016 election. In 2019 a Senate Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan report found that the Internet Research Agency sought to support candidate Donald Trump by hurting candidate Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning. The influence of Russian interference was believed by many to have continued through the 2020 election cycle.

In October 2018, Twitter?released?datasets that comprise the tweets and media that were potentially connected to state-backed operation on its service, which include 3,841 accounts affiliated with the Internet Research Agency. Using 2.9 million such tweets, researchers found that trolling activities dropped by 35 percent on Russian holidays and, to a lesser extent, when temperatures were cold in the Internet Research Agency’s home base of St. Petersburg. The decrease in overall holiday tweeting is largest for original tweets, which may have a bigger influence than retweets.

By also testing data from the?Hedonometer?(a research tool that measures happiness in large populations by assigning scores to English-language tweets), the study confirmed that Americans’ perceptions of public affairs is not ordinarily affected by the timing of Russian holidays. This finding suggests that Russian trolling has a more specific effect on election discourse and associated betting markets.

“The null effect on Hedonometer supports our inference,” said Du. “We tend to rule out the confounding channel, or alternate explanations for the effects we saw on betting markets. As expected, and in contrast to election odds, the Hedonometer increases on U.S. holidays and decreases with negative social events.”

The researchers noted that who in the United States viewed and distributed social media posts written by Russian trolls was not random. Focusing on Russian holidays and temperature helped them isolate the causal effect of Russian trolling on daily election odds. With more Twitter content made available, they believe that their approach might help analyze U.S.-targeted trolling behaviors originating from other countries, such as Turkey, China, and Iran.

Russia was able to use social media to influence US elections and this remarkable act became the catalyst for social media to be utilized in warfare. The average individual is practically glued to their phone, unable to look away. The constant dopamine dump of notifications and news is overwhelming. Russia’s ability to influence the US public served as a testing ground for a much larger special military operation.

Ukraine-Russian War

Warrior Insights has written extensively on the war; however this publication it adds to the contribution by analyzing how both Ukraine and Russia utilized social media to enhance operations and degrade each other. The war was truly” the first worldwide war” because individuals in all parts of the world tuned in to see the latest combat footage of Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine.

Ukrainians began to use social media, and its effects on the battlefield were remarkable. Molotov DIYs assisted Ukrainians in creating makeshift Moltovs that were essential in Ukranian resistance during the Battle of Kyiv. Ukranian citizens began recording Russian positions and using geotags to locate significant troop pocket movements, warning Ukranian forces ahead of time. Some Ukranian women used dating applications to lure Russian soldiers and obtain positions.

Provided by: rediff

Social Media helped Ukraine document horrific war crimes and present evidence to the ICJ and the international community that Russian soldiers were executing civilians. While presenting photo and video evidence is still a challenge, below is an excerpt listing the challenges faced, presented by france24:

‘Billions of images and videos’?

But they?are no magic bullet. One of the biggest challenges lies in preserving archived digital records?for the long term, as this involves?trying to?predict technological?advances that?could affect accessing the records in the future.??

For instance, if a platform decides to change its URL structure for webpages –?as Facebook did?in 2022 – millions of reference links to digital records on the platform can become unusable. “Then the tech team has to go back and redevelop according to the new changes,” says Brian Perlman, an open-source investigator?at Mnemonic.?“The technical challenges are huge, and we’re still coping with that.”?

Platforms also have total authority?over deleting or hiding?content, and much potential evidence of war crimes falls foul of moderation guidelines that ban graphic imagery. Meta apologised in May 2022 after the Facebook algorithm briefly?blocked hashtags?related to the Bucha massacre in Ukraine, temporarily?shutting down?information about the incident.?

Despite organisations such as Amnesty International?criticising social media platforms?for failing to preserve content for use in war crime investigations, none have official policies for preserving relevant digital records of war crimes or sharing them with investigators.?

On TikTok, Twitter,?Facebook and YouTube, “I can only speculate… that?little of this war will be accessible 20 years from now,” says Andrew Hoskins, professor of global?security at the?University of?Glasgow, founder?of the online Journal of Digital?War,?and co-author of?“Radical War: Data, Attention & Control in the 21st?Century”.?

“The most documented war in history could easily become the most forgotten.”?

The amount of potential digital evidence available also presents a mammoth challenge for investigators.??

Through?11 years?of conflict in Syria – during which?the?use of mobile phones and mobile video in conflict zones were a new phenomenon – the NGO collected around?5 million?digital records in?total. In?the first year?since the Russian invasion of Ukraine it has already collected more than 3 million.?

“And this is only a fraction of content that is actually in existence relating to recording of this war,” Hoskins says.?

Currently, Mnemonic is one of several organizations working through vast troves of potential evidence online. More support is vital, Hoskins says. “There is the need for the international political will and financial resources to prosecute war crimes at scale.?Who has the vast resources and political will to ultimately gather, mine and process billions of images and videos?”?

“The apparent transparency of this war does not mean the pursuit of justice and accountability is somehow easier than wars from which we do not have a record of billions of images and videos.”?

While Ukraine is not considered an “ally” of NATO, most NATO countries are sending logistical support and volunteers to help fight off against Russian forces. Public support for Ukraine resulted in marches across the West advocating for a ceasefire and end to war. Social media helped push these messages out to the public and many demanded the Kremlin to cease operations. However, other countries saw this and realized that social media influenced the general public so that it could be used against the West. Israel’s invasion of Gaza, in response to October 7th, resulted in social media widely condemning Israel, and anti-Western sentiments exploded all over.

Israel-Hamas War

Following October 7th, Israel began its invasion of the Gaza Strip in retaliation against Hamas. Social Media exploded with demands for a ceasefire and protests throughout the West. Social media platforms on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok drowned out any pro-Israel voices, and accusations were reported left and right to take down anyone who was remotely critical of Hamas. The problem escalated to the point where social media platforms mitigated any mention of Palestine or Israel. In return, influencers began to use the Watermelon emoji to represent Palestine. The reaction against Israel’s operations in Gaza was intense. Demands for a boycott of major companies, politicians harassed for their support of Israel, and foremost Democrat activists are now worried Joe Biden might not win the upcoming election because America supports Israel.

Kevin Drum provided a chart for Joe Bidens approval rate and lists the difficulties now faced:

From August through October Biden’s approval dropped about 1.5% per month. Since the Israel-Gaza war broke out a month ago, his approval has?improved?by about half a percent.

I’d like to generate a chart like this just for young Democrats, but I can’t find the data to do it. My suspicion is that Biden has been hemorrhaging approval from young voters for a long time and the Israel-Gaza war hasn’t really had a big effect. But I don’t know that.

In any case, even if it has had an effect, it’s apparently been counterbalanced by increased approval from older voters. Taken as a whole, the war has rather surprisingly had only a very small effect on Biden’s approval, and probably a positive one.

POSTSCRIPT:?The change is even more dramatic if you draw two separate trend lines for the before and after periods:

Analysis:

Social media is now used in conjunction with primary military operations. The US Army has adapted to the increasing challenges of the modern-day battlefield by implementing the Drone Warfare School. It is fully aware of how Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are now making moves to push Washington out of their own perspective spheres of influence. While the United States operates and responds accordingly, her enemies use social media to impact the American public directly.

This is a significant cause of concern to policymakers and military officials. The American public can be presented with misinformation and be horrifically misled. When the next war that will directly involve America using conventional tactics breaks out, the possibility of America’s enemies using social media to spread misinformation and halt any tactical gains is a significant one that can quickly destroy operations.

Unfortunately, the United States has a bad track record of being reactive instead of proactive when implementing new threats to the battlefield. While social media cannot influence the impact of a battle, it can dramatically impact operational and strategic goals by influencing the American public.