ALSO READ: Part 1: Psyche Behind the Internet, Information Superhighways

MaaS (Misinformation as a Service) Model

The era of SaaS (Software as a Service) has gone, no one needs software developers and service providers anymore. Those routine old jobs could soon be performed by OpenAI’s GPT-3. Common people’s potential in a democracy needs to leverage for something more interesting, passionate and creative, such as Misinformation or Disinformation campaigns and propaganda wars! Perhaps, that was the idea behind the rise of this new service model called MaaS (Misinformation as a Service), which is often called with better-sounding names like creators economy, curators economy, influencers economy/ marketing, social media activism/ journalism, creative entrepreneurship, etc.

Out of 5 billion Internet users in the world (63.5 percent of the global population), 4.65 billion are social media users, and China, India, and the U.S. top the list of the countries in the world in terms of Internet use. In March 2022, YouTube India flooded Indian/ international newspapers with some interesting advertising stats about its ‘contribution’ to India’s economy and GDP via ‘creator economy.’ A report by consulting firm Oxford Economics, which assessed YouTube’s economic, societal, and cultural impact in India, says that “YouTube’s creator ecosystem has contributed an estimated Rs 6,800 crore to the Indian economy and created some 6,83,900 full-time equivalent jobs in India” in 2020. The statistics say that there are 40,000 plus YouTube channels in India with over 1 lakh subscribers, marking a growth of over 45 percent, year-on-year. Remember, these are the claims of only one social media platform; others like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. have their own numbers, patterns, and claims about contribution to the Indian economy, society, and culture!

If such claims are real then we must be interested to know who delivers MaaS (Misinformation as a Service) to our people on these platforms or, in other words, who performs the stunts on public participation/opinion on Information Superhighways?

Influencers, Creative Entrepreneurs, and Skillful Artists – A brief psychoanalysis of the situation

“The power of false narratives can be very debilitating for the destiny of a nation,” said NSA Ajit Doval in the ‘Sardar Patel Memorial Speech 2018.’ Highlighting the role of technologies in serving contaminated content to our people, he further said that “Democracy requires people to be enlightened, educated and informed, but rightly informed and rightly educated! What happens if what is driving you and what is influencing your decision-making itself is contaminated?”

India, one of the most online countries in the world and home to over 750 million smartphone users, must know who is driving the public participation on these platforms, and what the overall process looks like, from a mountaintop view!

Technically there are different categories of influencers on the Internet, from mainstream celebrities (A-B-C listers) to reality TV stars to vloggers/ bloggers to micro and nano influencers to journalists/ activists/ photographers/ thought leaders, etc. But those who reach the potential to influence the ‘will’ of the nation, and channel public opinion as a weapon, generally fall under the two broad categories:

(a)  Creative Entrepreneurs

(b)  Skillful Artists.

Creative Entrepreneur is relatively a new term introduced by these very platforms, which is their definition for those creators who have a good number of subscribers/ viewership/ followers. They earn income directly from these platforms, and hire paid employees to work on their channel.

In the Skillful Artists category, we can put those people who got some form of skill or talent than average people and who like to pursue that skill as a profession too.

There is a common notion that just anyone can become an ‘Influencer’ or celebrity on these platforms but a careful observation of their selected individuals and their patterns reveals that this is nothing but an illusion. There is a systematic pattern of hunting for influencers on these platforms, designed by using psychology, sociology, anthropology (holism), and human behavior-related experiments.

The selected creative people usually go through a rigorous and psychological method of selection/ recruitment and development.

Process of Selection/ Recruitment and Development

There is an underlying three-stage process, designed to control and mobilize the creative and artistic people, for the purpose. It is not that this process is the invention of these platforms, it was there for ages in human societies and it applies to other industries/ domains of power and fame, too. The social media platforms are only using it more skillfully!

In the First Stage, which is a preliminary stage, everyone is allowed to enter and showcase their talent on these platforms, like an open and live audition. Here, the selected few start earning some money too, as the goal at this stage is to make people addicted to this extra and convenient source of income and to use them for word-of-mouth marketing.

After spending some time in this stage, these creators become addicted to this extra income, and easy publicity, and then they try hard to figure out what will promote them to the next stage – the stage of real fame and more income, unaware of the fact that they all are being monitored very delicately by Big Brothers of these platforms.

In the Second Stage, these platforms hunt for those people, who are fully dedicated and addicted to their skills, talent and platforms and ready to perform any kind of stunt/ adventure on just an order! They are very much like the biker gangs or outlaw motorcycle clubs of the 1990s and 2000s, which used to perform motorcycle stunts on the roads and were known for carrying the ideas of freedom, nonconformity to mainstream culture, and loyalty to the biker group, etc.

This stage is a bit tough. Those who reach here are a bit more famous than those in the first stage but at the same time, since they have talent and free spirit, they are tough to command too!

So here they go through a psychological experiment, where, first their morale is crushed, then their confidence is broken and finally, they are made to believe that their skill/ talent is of no worth! Whatever they have earned in life is due to the mercy of these platforms/ providers and gradually they start seeing these platforms in the image of a ‘God.’ This is a stage of absolute ‘devotion,’ but devotion to whom? Not to the talent or karma, but to the platforms and the forces behind them!

Those who belong to this stage usually have a typical story: ‘I was doing something like a normal person, and one day changed my life entirely!’ They are famous but not ultra-famous (sometimes they are called ‘in-betweeners’ of the Internet, too). They are making good money but they know that a step ahead, the sky is the limit! Those who sustained such a mental status for sometime are carefully monitored for the next stage.

The Third Stage is the final stage, and only a selected few can reach here, after crossing the rigorous psychological experiments in the first and second stages successfully. This is a stage, where we see influencers performing weird stuff, something unusual and alien to the society, culture, and norms/ structure of their targeted region. These people are in the process of becoming ‘cult’ celebrities and have started enjoying the hypnotic addiction of their status.

In one form or the other, the ‘cult’ celebrities were always there, even before the Internet, social media, and smartphones, and we have seen them in different professions/ domains, too, i.e., show business, politics, sports, journalism, activism, and socio-religious domains. But what has changed now is that AI-enabled social media platforms have expanded their impact multifold, and performing cognitive manoeuvres/ psychological warfare for political/ economic/ strategic goals through these mercenaries, at the click of a mouse!

One more thing that is common in these Influencers is that they are artists by character, and an artist is generally a rebel from the inside, and standing against the established norms of the society/system gives them artistic satisfaction!

Now imagine if a battalion of such influencers, Creative Entrepreneurs, Skillful Artists, and cult celebrities, is tasked to march with full force, to wage a battle of false narratives/ misinformation/ disinformation against a country’s interests, decisions, culture, ethos, and structure!

What can be the approach to deal with such a situation?

Sever the Roots – Counter Cognitive Warfare Strategy

It is said that a grand strategy to deal with a problem must include a way to think hard, dig deep, reach out to roots, and severing them, to end the problem with finality. And there should always exist the 10th man in the room too!

To visualize a solution in this scenario we will need to go back to the origin, the roots of internet again!

The idea of “Information Superhighways” was proposed with an analogy to physical highways, and its propagator former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said: “The Global Information Infrastructure will help educate our children and allow us to exchange ideas within a community and among nations. It will be a means by which families and friends will transcend the barriers of time and distance. It will make possible a global information marketplace, where consumers can buy or sell products.”

We build physical highways for the similar kind of purpose, that is ‘smooth travel’ for everyone – from people on foot to horses to bicycles to motor cars to commercial and heavy transport vehicles. Sometimes these highways are exploited by bad elements too, i.e., biker gangs, rioters, protesters, terrorists, anti-national elements, etc., but at the same time ensuring a smooth and safe journey for all is the responsibility of the government.

We have a time-tested road safety framework to deal with the challenges of traffic collisions, deaths, injuries, property damage, and other harms on the highway system. Some inputs/ experiences to managing physical highways can be applied to frame a roadmap for the safety and security of Information Superhighways, too.

Time for ‘Traffic Rules’

“Don’t mistake the democracy for the ballot box! The ballot box is a mechanism to find out who will make the laws for you, and what will be the laws of this country. It is not democracy by itself. The democracy is that the laws which are made by the representatives of the people, will be adhered by all the people, and will be enforced with the total strength of the might of the state,” said NSA Ajit Doval.

If the Internet is the global ‘Information Superhighway,’ then Misinformation/ Disinformation can be called the adventure/ misadventure and stunts on these highways. To control such chaos on physical highways we have the concept of Traffic Rules, Traffic Inspectors, and a well-crafted Traffic Management System, too. If anyone violates the traffic rules, then there are different provisions to deal with that like issuing the ‘challan’ to traffic rule violators, and suspension/ cancellation of their driving licence.

Some traffic rules for I-ways can be prepared by deriving inputs from this conventional approach!

A broader outline for ‘Traffic Rules’

Apart from the categories of influencers mentioned above and sponsored accounts, some common people like urban/ semi-urban and rural youth, housewives, professionals, and teenagers, also indulge in contributing to Misinformation/ Disinformation, for different reasons, i.e., entertainment/ fun, source of easy and extra income, ideological alignment, unemployment/ poverty and human behavior related aspects. And our response to deal with such cases generally falls under three broad categories: Suspension/ ban of social media accounts, enforcement of criminal charges and arrest (if a case is registered), or temporary Internet shutdown (in case of riots, mass level violence or terrorist act). But in each of these possible responses, there is always a scope for escape and special privilege, under the banner of ‘Freedom of Speech.’

Every social media post/ short/ tweet that spreads misinformation/ disinformation is paid! So, there is the need is to keep the freedom of expression intact but restrain the freedoms of earning from that expression.

How? Today every social media account is connected to a mobile, every mobile is connected to Aadhaar card, and Aadhaar card is connected to the bank account. With the help of technology and connected structure, a system can be developed, where on reporting a misinformation/ disinformation case, the bank account/ financial transactions of the originator of misinformation can be ‘frozen,’ on the click of a mouse, with immediate effect!

Now, this ‘freezing’ process can be very much similar to the process of revoking the driving licence and issuing ‘challan’ on highways, where once caught the violators are forced to go through an exhaustive legal or bureaucratic process. And that lesson becomes the lesson for a lifetime! Those whose bank accounts are frozen/ suspended will be needed to prove their cause and justify the act. If they are able to do so, their bank accounts/ financial transactions can be resumed, if not, then the long, legal and official process follows.

Only by testing such a framework in a handful of sample cases, we can minimize the violations of traffic rules on Information Superhighway to a great extent!

Conclusion

“There is always a possibility of false narratives derailing the democracy. Today it has expanded manifold because of the technology. And it becomes the responsibility of everyone, every citizen, everyone in the media, everyone who speaks, every institution, every gathering that you go to, that erode the strength of the false narrative” – National Security Advisor Shri Ajit Doval (Sardar Patel Memorial Speech, 2018).

Everything that we count as a strength of our society, culture and civilization, is our key vulnerability, too! In the coming days, attacks on the trust and will of the common people through false narratives, are only going to accelerate. So, accelerating the creative improvisations to fight them is our collective responsibility, too!

A technology that was born in the middle of a war, by the people involved in the war, to shape the outcomes of the war, and to attack the mind of enemies in the war, discussing its weaponization, is a bit naïve, and late. What best we can do now is to prepare the mind to deal with its challenges, with the same war-like spirit!

ALSO READ: Part 1: Psyche Behind the Internet, Information Superhighways

The post Counter Cognitive Warfare Strategy for India appeared first on IMR.

Maj Gen (Dr) GD Bakshi, SM, VSM

Winning wars is all about gaining information about the enemy and denying him the same information about one self. Thus, information warfare is as old as war itself. However, in recent times, it has been waged most successfully over the mass media. During World War I, it was primarily waged over the print medium using newspapers, magazines and books to promote one’s own narrative and counter that of the enemy. It was used to wage unrelenting propaganda wars to sustain the morale of one’s own population and erode that of the enemies. In World War II, radio became the prime mass media that could reach across continents. Radio and print media were widely used to conduct some very successful psychological operations and information war for narratives dominance. After the war, TV became the prime mass media and its all out telematic assault was first used in the Gulf Wars. Now the Internet and social media have become the most influential mass media. These have overridden all the previous tools of mass media – whether print, radio or TV. Social media is a paradox – highly personalized yet open to mass outreach as far as manipulating the mind on a massive scale is concerned.

Social Media and Telematic Assault

The present Russia-Ukraine War has seen the massive impact of social media and television in waging information war at a global level. Social media has now become the greatest tool of reaching out to individual minds and, thereby, influencing the mass mind in a manner that supersedes the impact of all legacy mass media tools like print, radio and even TV. Donald Trump in USA and the BJP in India had also realised the overwhelming impact of the social media to challenge the customary dominance of mass media. Its message is so personalized and yet has such massive outreach that it is instrumental in shaping the mass mind. Today, its impact supersedes the impact of traditional mass media. Today, some 2.7 billion viewers use Facebook every day, some 206 million use Twitter and some 122 million use YouTube daily. These social media platforms, therefore, have major role in shaping public perceptions and opinion. Big Tech giants of the US-based social media were blatantly partisan in this war. They permitted calls to assassinate Putin, demonise the Russians as a race and went out of the way to push the Ukrainian narrative in this war. The truth is that hundreds of former US Government officials from the Departments of Defense, FBI, Homeland Security, etc. work in these companies to peddle the US Government narratives. There is a revolving door policy between Big Tech and US Government agencies (eg, Jerarad Cohen of US State Dept and Joseph Rozek of the US Dept of Defense and many others are now with the social media platforms) playing a blatantly partisan role. In fact, these platforms had received some $44.4 bn worth of contracts from the Pentagon and Dept of Homeland Security to spread stories of violent extremism during the Global War on Terror.

Network Battalion 65

Another CIA sponsored cyber army called Network Battalion 65, hacked into Russian Nuclear Institute files and published them openly on the net to spill Russian nuclear secrets. All these cyber warriors have every day been posting hundreds of video clips (some taken from video war games, previous conflicts and military exercises) showing destruction of Russian military equipment by Javelin missiles and Stinger SAMs. Even as they advertise American military equipment, they create a hype that Ukraine is winning the war against all Russian odds. The impression they generate is of an impending Russian military collapse of will and morale and a coup that could overthrow Putin in Moscow. In actual fact, Putin’s popularity rating has shot up to 80 per cent in Russia post this conflict.

This hype about a Ukrainian victory is plastered all over the social media. It is then picked up by the echo chamber of US electronic media – CNN and BBC – and relayed all over the world. The Third World media also dutifully picks up this western narrative and parrots it to create a climate of global opinion against Russia. The Russian view point has been totally blanked out in this war.

As it is, RTV and Sputnik have been banned by USA and Western Governments to block out the Russian viewpoint entirely. The wartime tactic of spreading disinformation to undermine morale of the rival camp has received a technical boost as seen in hundreds of false videos being circulated during this war on social media and then on to the TV screens. Fake narratives and lies are being promoted shamelessly.

Western Propaganda Playbook

Alwyn and Heidi Tofler, in their famous book – War and Anti War – had listed six basic propaganda ploys or tools. These are:-

Atrocity Accusations. These have most skilfully been employed in Ukraine with civilian deaths in Bucha being touted as not just atrocities but as genocide. The Russians have reacted angrily to these accusations – calling them fake and deliberately staged. With such fierce air attacks, tank battles and artillery barrages – civilian casualties are bound to occur on a large scale. The surprise is that despite huge amounts of ammunition expenditure the civilian causalities are comparatively much lower than what we have seen in Iraq and Syria. Ukraine prohibited all males from16 to 60 to leave the city battlefields. They armed some 18,000 civilians – thus making them legitimate targets. Now they are coming up with strident atrocity accusations that are used to justify more economic sanctions against Russia and additional weapons shipments to Ukraine.

Hyperbolic Inflation of Stakes. It gives the national audience a feel that everything that they hold dear is at risk. Thus, the Ukraine War has been made into a hyperbolic contest between Democractic and Autocratic regimes. India is being pressurised to take the side of democracies. Ukraine is hardly an ideal democracy and no better than Russia in democratic freedoms and practises. Corruption is, perhaps, more rife in Ukraine than it is in Russia. Yet the entire struggle is being elevated to that moral plane of democracies vs dictatorships.

Demonisation or Dehumanisation of Opponent. Putin has been called a war criminal and killer by no less than President Joe Biden himself. The Russian military in general and, especially Putin in particular, are being demonised. This is destroying any chances of resolving this crisis peacefully. How can you negotiate with killers?

Polarisation. Those who are not with us are against us. India is being pressurised to condemn Russia and not buy cheap oil and weapons from them. This, even as Europe continues to buy massive quantities of oil and gas from Russia every day.

Claims of Devine Sanction. Islamists freely invoke Allah’s support and blessings for their wars. Even western democracies stridently invoke God’s support in what they claim to be a just war. Justice is simply defined. Whatever they do is just – whatever the enemy does is unjust. The invasions of Afghanistan, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, etc, were all just and humane (regardless of the destruction caused and the number of civilians killed)! The Russian invasion of Ukraine alone is evil! Killing 1,30,000 civilians in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki was just and moral – Bucha alone is evil.

Meta Propaganda. Propaganda that discredits the other sides propaganda is termed as meta propaganda. It calls into question everything that comes from the enemy. All statements made by Russian military are said to be lies and fabrications. Ukraine alone is telling the truth. Its aim is to produce “whole sale” disbelief in whatever the enemy says.

Out Sourcing Propaganda

Dan Cohen, writing in the Mintpress.news.com, has blown the lid off a massively funded, specialized PR campaign that is being run by several entities associated with the governments of US, UK and NATO to portray the war in Ukraine to suit western agendas. The Strategic Communication Narrative is to depict the Ukrainian military as a tiny but righteous David standing up to a brutal Russian military Goliath and winning outright. Not widely known is the fact that behind this massively successful propaganda campaign are a group of international PR firms working directly with the Ukraine foreign ministry.

Just hours after the beginning of the Russian military campaign, an anonymous figure who runs a PR firm in Ukraine, started collaborating with Ukraine’s foreign ministry. A slew of some 150 international PR firms collaborated to commence a massive propaganda Blitz. This PR juggernaut was led by PR Network co-founder Nicky Regazzoni and Francis Ingham. Francis Ingham, incidentally, is a top consultant loosely connected with the UK government. Reportedly, he sits on the UK Government’s Communication Services Strategy & Evaluation Council.

Dan Cohen also mentions Yuroslav Turbil – a communication Specialist –  who has worked with several US Government organizations. He is credited with creating a dossier containing key messages, approved language and other data to run the Ukraine PR campaign. Dan says the story of the Snake Island heroes (taken from famous incident in the German Ardennes offensive) and the Ghost pilot of Kiev (who in his lone SU-27 supposedly shot down half the Russian Air Force, are all credited to him). These were hugely popular and catchy stories. Unfortunately, in the end stories remain just that – stories. Art work and posters for these PR campaigns to promote the heroism of the Ukraine armed forces was done by Stephen Bandera. Dan Cohen says he was a one-time Nazi collaborator, who had earlier led an organization that had murdered thousands of Jews and ethnic Poles in World War II. These posters celebrated Molotov Cocktails – as Bandera smoothies. These posters listed Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Syria, etc., as incurable diseases and also created racist and violent depictions of Russians in general and Putin in particular.

There is an Army of lobbyists working to send more weapons to prolong the conflict in Ukraine . A tremendous media hype has been created of a heroic Ukraine that has thrashed an incompetent and lumbering Russian military. The problem is that this narrative most deliberately underplays the huge military differential between the two sides. Despite sweeping Western propaganda, Ukraine’s forces have taken very heavy losses. Over a 1000 Iskander tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs), Kalibr and Yakhont cruise missiles have been fired which have reduced over 40 Ukrainian cities to rubble. More to the point, most oil refineries, petrol and lubricants storage facilities and ammunition dumps of Ukraine, have been destroyed. This will severely erode the Ukrainian capacity to continue the fight. Each day that the war lasts, those losses will mount and increase the pressure on the Ukraine military and population. Some 5.5 million have had to flee to neighboring countries and over 7 million have been displaced internally. Over time, this will take a cumulative toll. The longer the war lasts, the more vulnerable the Ukraine military will be to a sudden collapse of logistical stamina and the will to go on. The ability to continue fighting is premised upon a continual supply of arms, fuel oil and lubricants and huge stock piles of ammunition. While greatly playing up Russian losses, the Western media has completely blanked out the very heavy punishment taken by the Ukraine armed forces and logistical infrastructure. Over time, this will widen the gulf between propaganda and reality to unbridgeable levels.

Use of Intelligence Speculation & Analysis as Propaganda

NBC News reported that the US has been using intelligence leaks and even half-baked intelligence analysis as part of their information war. Most of the time, the intelligence cited is not rock solid. It is not based on hard evidence. Low confidence inputs based on mere analysis or even plain false and fake inputs are passed on as hard facts. Over time, this is eroding the reliability of information put out by the US. US officials conceded they were using intelligence releases not to tell the truth but to influence decisions of Putin. A former MI 6 chief said these were more designed to manipulate than inform. Some examples of this genre are the initial reports leaked about Russian plans to attack Ukraine. These were designed to delay the Russian attack. Then there was the claim that Russia had asked China for supply of weapons and spares. Then, Intelligence was put out that Russia was planning to use chemical and biological warfare agents (this was to cover up the US funding of some 32 bio-warfare labs in Ukraine). Critics in the US decried this imperial narrative control by a democratic government openly manufacturing the consent of its public to be lied to for their own good and get limited strategic gains. This could badly erode credibility in the long run. Thus, all the hype about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had later proved to be outrageous lies. The disenchantment with the American narrative building exercise is setting in rather early in this war. Most of this is see-thru and blatant propaganda that is eroding US credibility.

Like in the Gulf war, the danger now is the West getting carried away by its own propaganda and failing to analyse objectively the military outcomes in the field. There is a frenzied chorus from retired American Generals who feel that Ukraine has actually won the war and, with a little more of heavy weapons support, it can inflict a humiliating defeat on the Russian Army and push them back across the border. This has led to many futile Ukrainian counter-attacks that have been decimated by the Russian artillery and air. As the relentless attrition grinds down the Ukrainian armed forces, there could be a sudden collapse a few weeks down the line as the interdiction of Ukraine’s petrol oil and ammunition begins to take its toll.

Conflict Termination: Unconditional Surrender?

Then there is the aspect of conflict termination. President Biden calling Putin a killer and war criminal virtually closes the window for any dialogue for conflict termination. It takes us back to the two World Wars, when such maximalist stances were adopted and the call was for unconditional surrender. Is the US expecting Russia (armed with some 6,300 nuclear warheads) to surrender unconditionally? Russia will get disintegrated and economically destroyed but will never use weapons of mass destruction against the beloved US? The logic is very weird and could result in a nuclear catastrophe at the global level. Such levels of subjective thinking are very dangerous and could lead us to dead ends where crossing the nuclear threshold becomes entirely possible. Driving a nuclear armed adversary across a dead end drop is risky business at the best of time.

Russian Information War

Maskarovika and Disinformation have been an integral part of Russian strategic thought since World War II. In 2013, Gen Valery Gerasimov had propounded the Russian Whole-of-government Approach or Hybrid war doctrine. This entailed a judicious mix of conventional and sub-conventional warfare as also a coherent mix of hard and soft power options in terms of information war, cyber war, propaganda, disinformation and deception coupled with use of political, diplomatic and economic tools to prevail in any conflict.

Maskarovika in Ukraine. The massive Russian military deployment against Ukraine could be seen by the whole world via all-weather satellites – accompanied by UAVs and American AWACS and JSTARS flying over Poland and other East European countries bordering Russia. Yet the Russians were able to keep their intentions secret till the very end. Indian students in Ukraine were told it was all bluff and bluster and there was no need for them to go back. Most of them stayed back on the assurances of the Ukrainian authorities and had to face major problems in evacuation during the hot war. The head of German Intelligence was equally caught off guard and had to be flown out from Kiev at the very last minute when the war started. The French chief of intelligence reportedly had to resign as he failed to anticipate the Russian invasion. Even though President Biden was warning the world of an impending Russian invasion, perhaps, he actually did not believe it himself. He and most Western leaders felt Putin was just bluffing and was using the coercive military deployment merely as a show of force to get US and NATO to revamp the European Security Architecture. The Americans had spelt out 16 February as the date of attack. Putin had meanwhile given a very fair chance for extended negotiations to resolve the crisis. However, this only served to delay the launch of the operation and caused it to get bogged down in the mud of the spring thaw – especially around Kiev.

Winning the Information War

With the deployment of over 300,000 experts by the CIA in support of the Ukraine war effort, USA has succeeded entirely in winning the information war. The social media and electronic and print media are flooded by the Ukrainian narrative. One major advantage that the Americans have is the English language, which is a global link language. Information wars are waged at three levels – global, regional and local. Russia and China are able to hive off their social media domains from Western social media and, thereby, protect their local domains. However, the information domain at the global and regional level is all dominated by the Western narratives. The Russian and Chinese both tightly control their own domestic social media and, to a great extent, are able to insulate their domestic populations from the adverse impact of the enemy’s information war. India has major lessons to learn here because Indians use all Western social media systems and there are no firewalls to protect the local information domain.

However, one problem of this overwhelming global Information dominance is the trap of believing your own propaganda and treating this as the ground reality and not the fictive reality. This can lead to highly flawed estimates of the situation and a loss of objectivity in military planning. Perhaps, key organizations and individuals may know the truth but the general perception that is fashioned by the relentless info-war assault on the social, electronic and print medium, is so overwhelming that, overtime, it overrides and perhaps shapes the actions of the elite leadership itself.

Information Overkill

Buoyed up by the Western narratives of Ukraine’s military success, a lot of retired US Generals are pressing for a Ukrainian counter-offensive to throw out all Russian forces from Ukraine’s soil. This narratives is overly optimistic and dangerously flawed. It does not take into account the very heavy and severe punishment inflicted on Ukraine’s militaries logistics and infrastructure. In specific, Russian interdiction by tactical and cruise missiles, air and artillery has destroyed a great deal of Ukraine’s oil refining and FOL storage capacity as also underground ammunition depots. Over time, these cumulative losses are bound it have a significant impact on the ability to conduct prolonged and concerted operations. Each day that the war continues will tilt scales is favour of Russia. The next few weeks will be critical.

Nuclear Threshold

Also, the US generals are clearly losing all sight of the dangerous nuclear threshold. Russia has the largest number of nuclear warheads in the world. American Generals feel Putin is bluffing with his nuclear sabre rattling. Before Russia invaded Ukraine they had felt his force deployment was also a bluff and he would not invade – just use posturing to get the West to renegotiate the security architecture in Europe. They were wrong then. If they prove wrong a second time about nuclear thresholds, the consequences could be catastrophic for the whole world.

Demographic Weakness

What this war has highlighted, however, are the severe manpower shortages in Russia. Russia traditionally used to rely on heavy fire power and sheer mass. The mass is now clearly missing. Russia has no second or third echelons or even the Operational Maneuver Group (OMG) to exploit the success gained by the leading troops of the first echelon. This was standard Russian doctrine in the Cold War. Russia now is simply recycling and reusing the same troops after giving them time for rest and refit. The same had been seen in Afghanistan. Five Motor Rifle Divisions were sent in initially and this force level was maintained throughout the war. Despite great escalation of support to the Mujahideen by the CIA and Saudi Arabia, this force level was not increased. The use of heavy and unrestrained fire power in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria, however, saved the day. It was uninhibited by any presence of the media or mobile phones on the ground to record images. The large scale presence of the media in Ukraine is becoming a major hindrance for Russian forces to use excessive fire power. Frankly, for the time being, they have lost the information war. They may as well have to focus on winning the ground battle – however, brutal and bloody it becomes. Russia has now articulated pragmatic and achievable aims and should be able to achieve them in phase two.

The post Information War in the Ukraine Conflict appeared first on IMR.

“Any threats in cyberspace directly impact our social, economic, and national security and therefore we need to safeguard our cyberspace,” said Doval at the inauguration of a cybersecurity training workshop on Monday. He said a digital revolution was taking place in the country and referred to the government’s digital services.

National Security Council Secretariat is organising the seminar to equip over 140 officials to combat internal and external threats in association with the Data Security Council of India and the Defence Research and Development Organisation

Lt Gen Rajesh Pant, the national cyber security coordinator, referred to the importance of cyberspace and the necessity of keeping it secure and safe for the citizens, businesses, and governments. He spoke about the ransomware attack on Oil India Limited and the cyber warfare in the global scenario. “The government of India is taking various steps to build capacities and enhance skills in cyber security.”

A cybersecurity policy, which has been in the works for over two years, proposes a multi-stakeholder framework to check propaganda, deception, disinformation, and “adversarial narratives” on social media. The policy has been pending with the government for over a year now.

The post Cyberspace linked to India’s socio-economic, national security – NSA appeared first on IMR.

Information Weaponsied in the Ukraine War

Russia-Ukraine war is not the first war of the Information age but it certainly marks the beginning of a new and dangerous trend in Information Warfare. The ease with which more than half of the world’s population is being denied to their basic right – the right to freedom of ‘opinion’ and ‘expression,’ the way 4.9 billion internet users have been made hostage to tech platforms’ filtered worldview (on the click of a mouse), must be a matter of concern for all responsible countries of the world!

The plight of Ukrainians is heart-wrenching and cannot be justified but that is one side of the War, and knowing the other side, no matter whether it’s black or white, comes under the most celebrated definition of individual freedom as well!

From the beginning, it appears that for the Big Tech club, this war offers a perfect moral terrain to test their enormous digital might (accumulated over the years) – to see how much their improvisation can influence social, political, and geopolitical events to shape the destiny of a War, in real-time! But what if this pilot completed successfully? Will it be called the loss of Russia alone!

Recent Developments

On 16th March, while introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to U.S. Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (in an emotional gesture) led the members of the house in chanting “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine). The virtual address of Ukraine’s social media star President aired live, received millions of views, likes, comments, re-tweets, impressions, and shares across the world. Within a few minutes of the live stream, almost all major social media platforms got flooded with public reactions/emotions in the support of Zelenskyy and an equal proportion of hatred against Russian President Vladimir Putin. From the beginning, Zelenskyy’s moves tok the internet by storm, and everything related to him was ‘viral’ on social media platforms, and that was, perhaps, a sufficient reason to hail the ‘glory’ of a President, whose country was in the middle of a war!

Before ending his speech, Zelenskyy played a 2 min 20 seconds video too, where mass devastation of his country by Russian troops, along with scenes of good old days and present scenario were presented in a single frame (with slow music in the background). The video was so perfectly composed that it makes one wonder whether the Ukrainian President is sitting inside a bunker with his troops (from where he often posts pictures and videos on his Instagram/Twitter/YouTube/Facebook etc.) or with his ‘Kvartal-95’ studio staff!

If the Russia-Ukraine war would have been a movie or a reality show, it would have been declared a global blockbuster by far and Zelenskyy would have been nominated for an Oscar 2022 (through online voting lines)! But unfortunately, this is not the case. In between these much-celebrated ‘glories’, standing ovations, routine social media lives, and heroic press conferences; there are some grim realities of War and some real numbers that exist too.

War has already caused grave damage to common Ukrainians, their properties, infrastructure, and source of livelihood are severely destroyed. According to a recent UN report, War in Ukraine damaged over $100 billion worth of infrastructure and inflicted hundreds of civilian and military causalities. And if the conflict drags on, it risks creating a “devastating freefall into poverty” and “extreme vulnerability” for millions of people. There are also estimates that if the War protracted at the current pace, the rest of the world will soon start feeling the heat as well, and all prospects of post-Covid global economic recovery will get seriously affected!

But far from all these real-life challenges, the Ukrainian President is busy fighting a different kind of war.

Weapon of Mass ‘Deception’ and New Front Lines

It is said that “control people’s perceptions of reality and you control them.” Applying aggressive PR campaigns to deceive the real objectives/status of the War, is a part of a long and tested Western strategy. But what has changed now is that this time it turned more open, blunt, precise, and real-time, with the help of big tech platforms and their political/diplomatic executives.

It is interesting that when Russian troops marched toward Ukrainian borders, Zelensky sent an SOS call to Meta executives to block Russia’s media outlets from posting to Facebook in Ukraine and to cut off Facebook and Instagram in Russia itself. Nick Clegg, former deputy Prime Minister, United Kingdom, and current Policy Affairs head of Meta (who was promoted to the position a few days before the War) responded to that call by not only blocking Russian Media in Ukraine but by making ‘temporary’ changes in the platform’s overall policy toward hate speech too (so that Ukrainian can post ‘death threats’ to Russians and Putin). According to Bloomberg’s report, from the beginning of war, Clegg is in constant touch with Zelensky and his staff, he is sending them regular updates over emails, and facilitating them by providing additional features such as blocking pro-Russian accounts, hiding their friend lists, and blocking ads from Russian businesses, etc.

When asked an explanation for such motivated moves by Russian prosecutor, Nick Clegg tweeted that: “Our policies are focused on protecting people’s rights to speech as an expression of self-defense in reaction to a military invasion of their country.”

Now the question comes if media which Russian government controls is called ‘state-controlled,’ then how Meta can be called ‘free’ medium, after such politically motivated steps and ‘special gestures,’ taken by a former political executive?

It is interesting that for every social media/big tech product that the Russian government blocks in their country, there are VPNs and Onion Routers kind of service protocols to surpass that and to open the gates of the dark web for Russians but when a normal internet user, sitting in a third country, try to access Russian media outlets from Google, a “403 – Forbidden. That’s an error,” message returns to their screen (as an extra token for the so-called liberty)!

Volunteer Hackers and Digital Mercenaries

On 27th February, Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Digital Transformation, called out all hackers of the world to join Ukraine’s “IT Army,” and help the country to fight on the cyber front. On the same day, pro-Ukrainian hacktivists of the infamous ‘Anonymous’ hacker group launched a series of cyberattacks against websites of the Russian government, their financial institutions, media, and businesses. Within 48 hours, they claimed to take down over 300 Russian government platforms. As per the latest updates, more than 300,000 volunteer hackers (mostly millennials and teenagers) from different parts of the world have already joined the fight from Ukraine’s side. Through a telegram group “IT Army of Ukraine”, these volunteers are coordinating with each other, disrupting Russia and the neighboring Belarus government and their critical infrastructure, including Railways, and electricity grids, sharing the location coordinates of Russian tanks and troops with Ukrainian forces, and launching simultaneous propaganda war against Russia, with a simple and innocent claim- “they are fighting for what is right and what is truth.”

Covering the key in charge of this entire campaign, Mykhailo Fedorov, The New York Times article (published on 12th March) says: “The work has made Mr. Fedorov one of Mr. Zelensky’s most visible lieutenants, deploying technology and finance as modern weapons of war.” In fact, “Mr. Fedorov is creating a new playbook for military conflicts that shows how an outgunned country can use the internet, crypto, digital activism and frequent posts on Twitter to help undercut a foreign aggressor.”

Now Mykhailo Fedorov has a new request, which he again tweeted from his official account: “If Apple and Google notify all the smartphones in the world about the constant Russian shelling of Ukraine, all the people would force their governments to close the sky over Ukraine because of war horrors.”

From a simplistic view, it appears healthy participation of pro-active internet users to bring down the evil army of invaders but what if this trend becomes the new normal! Can the trend of running such a global war recruitment exercise and activism campaign, on the basis of morality and truth, bypassing all geopolitical talks/negotiations/efforts and other sovereign nations’ own national interests, be called moral and just, in all the cases, all the time? And what if in the future, some real terror regime will start a similar open hacking cum social campaign against the world? Then what would be the moral basis to fight against that kind of war?

Smartphones, Fast Internet, and Influencers cum War Fighters

On 18th March, a video of the Ukrainian president went viral on media, when he paid a visit to civilians wounded by attacks on Ukraine, at a hospital in the capital Kyiv and met a teenage girl receiving treatment for shrapnel wounds. Seeing the president next to her, the little girl started crying out of joy, and then she told the Ukrainian Premier how he is popular on “TikTok,” adding: “everyone supports you in TikTok,” it prompted Zelensky to smile and he joked: “Yes? So we have occupied TikTok?” The girl replied, “all talks are about you, it is all about you.”

This light-hearted moment is, unfortunately, the reality of common Ukrainians at the moment, which is also called the first “TikTok War” of our time! The country is under serious attack but Elon Musk’s Starlink’s fast internet services are healing the wounds of Ukrainians with TikTok, Instagram, Telegram, YouTube, Twitter, and FB lives.

From the beginning of the War, social networks have been flooded with videos from Ukrainian civilians documenting their live experiences of War, and the images of women and teenagers/kids posing for selfies, shooting ‘TikTok’ videos (wrapped in blankets in underground bunkers, army tanks in the streets, and so on.), playing music instruments amid the debris of buildings destroyed by shelling, etc. are going viral everywhere. Ukrainian social media influencers, who usually post videos of their travel, fashion, movies, foods, etc., have now started sharing their war experiences posing with combat gears and machine guns and they have virtually turned into ‘war-fighters’ on the battlefields of social networks.

If this social influencing game would have played out between the two countries, then it would still be called OK, but the problem lies in the unfair acceleration of this trend, at the global level. While on one hand, all major social networks have restricted Russian content from their platforms, on the other hand, they encouraged battalions of social media influencers (Ukrainians/Non-Ukrainians) to run a one-sided campaign against Russia.

We must note that there are millions of social influencers (cum paid workers of tech clubs) with direct access to billions of smartphone users! Encouraging them to leverage their access to spread propaganda for objectives of a War, under the guise of morality, truth, democracy, freedom, and ‘western values,’ kind of things, is certainly more dangerous than the state-controlled propaganda machines!

State Controlled vs. Internet Controlled

The Russian news editor, who unfurled an anti-war sign behind the newsreader on a live TV show and flashed a placard with words like: “Stop the war,” and “Don’t believe the propaganda. They are lying to you here,” earned a social media star and international celebrity status overnight for her ‘daring’ act of speaking against the government and army of her country (from Zelensky to Macron, everyone praised her for this act). But the question is- Will a regular internet user who expresses his/her views in support of Russia, be allowed to become a celebrity/influencer on the U.S.-controlled tech platforms? Forget about expressing support for Russia, even accessing the Russian side of the story is being completely forbidden in the so-called platforms of freedom and democracy!

So what is worse, State-controlled media or Big Tech club-controlled internet?

Occupying the moral ‘High Grounds’

It is often said that wars of self-interest usually end when the winner’s interests are satisfied but wars of morality are often “longer and bloodier.”

In 2009, while launching NATO’s new strategic concept, former US Defense Sectary James Mattis said: “we need a new Strategic Concept that reconciles war’s grim realities with the human aspirations of our own people and the global audience,” as changing character of war in the information age will require military forces that recognize that “capturing perceptions” is the new ‘high Ground’ in today’s conflicts, as “the moral is to the material as three is to one.”

From the beginning of the War, the focus of Ukraine is on holding the moral high grounds with the help of information weapons- Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Telegram and TikTok and they certainly have an edge here. But there is an interesting side of this superficial moral high ground as well.

From Churchill to World War II’s ‘Darkest Hour’ to Pearl Harbor to ‘9/11,’ to Terrorism to Third World War, in his speeches, Zelenskyy- the moral warrior of the social media age, is using every occasion to call out his allies and partners to turn this war into a global crusade for democracy, liberty, peace, and freedom! But at the same time, with the full support of the narration industry behind his back, he is quite assured that he will never be called an ‘aggressor,’ a term which is more frequently used for the Russian President (who on the contrary consistently cautioning the world to refrain from contributing to any kind of escalation).

Influence on India

In his article “To Be or NATO be: Putin’s War on Ukraine Is Also a Western Creation,” former foreign secretary, Kanwal Sibal writes: “The propaganda against India by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist and so on shows that a free press is no guarantee of objective information.”

The approach of Indian media (print/electronic/social) in this entire event exposed our vulnerability and vacuum in the narration industry too, Kanwal Sibal summarized our situation more precisely when he wrote: “The Ukrainian crisis has also exposed how our own press is incapable of reporting responsibly on international affairs. It is treating the Russian assault on Ukraine as a quasi-assault on India, with an outpouring of emotional sympathy for Ukraine and castigation of Russia as the aggressor, ignoring the complex causes of the conflict and the need for mature, balanced, and factual reporting, with due consideration of not being entirely out of line with the country’s foreign policy interests in search of TRPs.”

This war has many lessons for the countries like India, where not only in traditional media but on new-age tech platforms too, the western bloc has an absolute and ever-increasing dominance!

We observed that how social media policies can be relaxed for ‘violent speech,’ tech mercenaries (army of hackers) can be recruited online, funds to run the War can be crowd-sourced via crypto, releasing coordinates of troops movement to enemies has become the new definition of morality, and the War itself turn into a military show streaming 24/7 in smartphones, now should we continue to enjoy this free entertainment or take some steps for the future war preparedness?

What Next – Weaponization of AI?

In the Russia-Ukraine crisis, one thing which comes out in open is that every single western product or idea – from food to money to social media to technology is a potential strategic weapon! And a decision on how, when, and where to launch it, will not be taken by voting in the UN!

If the weaponization of information via social networks is capable to attack the ‘wetware’ of billions of people, what would be the scale of damage when AI will be weaponized in the future? We must note that all these tech platforms already have inbuilt AI capabilities, it is only a matter of convenience and choice of Big Tech and their PR staff to leverage it for their goals or not!

With 100 percent market access, we have given a free pass to Big Tech club in our Narration Industry (and their related economy) but what would be our future options when AI would be weaponized against our own strategic interests? And how are we planning to tackle that situation?

The post Mass Deception as a new kind of warfare appeared first on IMR.

The list of banned apps include – Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera – Selfie Camera, Garena Free Fire – Illuminate, Viva Video Editor, Tencent Xriver, Onmyoji Arena, AppLock and Dual Space Lite. India has blocked 321 apps since border tensions with China in May 2020.

In June last year, India banned 59 Chinese mobile applications including the widely-used social media platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, and Helo citing a threat to the nation’s sovereignty and security. The apps were banned under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said.

The first round of bans was announced in June 2020, days after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese troops at Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh. The tension had escalated following a deadly clash in the Galwan Valley on June 15 that year.

The eastern Ladakh border standoff between the Indian and Chinese militaries erupted on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong Lake areas and both sides gradually enhanced their deployment by rushing in tens of thousands of soldiers as well as heavy weaponry.

“It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work.” Thus spake Chairman Mao. China is no longer in Mao’s thrall and follows Xi Jinping thought these days. Still, the notion that it is good to be attacked by the enemy retains its essential sense: it shows you make an impact that calls for countermeasures.

True, the initial ban that India imposed on a clutch of smartphone apps by Chinese companies, including TikTok, the short video app that is both a threat to US tech companies dominant in the business and a shield for them against the charge of unassailable monopoly, did not cause any serious damage to Chinese business. But, expanding the scope of the bans and persisting with them do, it would appear, make an impact.

At a press conference on 17 February, the spokesman for China’s commerce ministry, Gao Feng, expressed concern about India’s ban on Chinese apps.

saying that it hoped India would treat all foreign investors, including Chinese firms, in a transparent, fair and non-discriminatory manner. “We hope India can take concrete measures to maintain the sound development momentum of bilateral economic and trade cooperation,” Gao Feng, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, told a press conference.

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