"The West is losing today's infowars..."

[exploited]

[Saz]

The internet isn't really properly censored in china though, there are always ways around. That's not the point of censorship though, its just to make it hard enough for most people to not bother. There really is no way around that fact, just as there is really no way to censor the internet unless you cut it off completely from abroad. We leak stuff all the time, people just don't care, we all already know xi and putin are corrupt dictators.

We probably just collect a ton of information and use it for broader intelligence purposes, not publicly. You think the NSA doesn't have an inside line on WeChat? The one thing China does that we don't and can't really stop is stealing IP. We could steal theirs but really there is no point - its two different economic models and right now they don't have anything worth stealing we don't have. If they did we would steal it.

There isn't a tech solution to this. The solution is presented right in the article though. Flip the war switch on, it defeats the point of this low grade bullshit because you have alerted us anyway. Trump seems to be taking care of this.

[Kane]

I'm going to post more in a bit but two things:

- this is still a relatively conventional analysis of something that has become far more asymmetrical
- our primary concern should be with how our social networks are and have been weaponized by state actors to divide us from the inside

Everything Saz and you have expressed is correct and your counter-measures are adequate from the point of view that this is something that can be solved by more conventional action done against them. We simply require a leader willing to utilize the tools at their disposal to send clear messages - the trade war is a start albeit done in the least strategic fashion possible. Laying out a red line re intervention in our electoral processes and then following through should an attack persist needs to happen. If Russia again attempts to influence US elections then we should retaliate with action that actually sends a signal. The same goes for China.

[John Galt]

i'm not sure if i agree that the point of syria was to stoke migrant crisis. i think it was really just to punch the US in the face in regards to the "red line", in order to push them away so they could deal with ukraine. the migrant crisis precipitating in brexit was just icing on the cake for them, because that's some butterfly effect going on there

[Kane]

Sam Harris interview with Renée DiResta:

https://samharris.org/podcasts/145-information-war/

Renée DiResta' bio:

https://cyber.harvard.edu/people/rdiresta

Joe Rogan interview with Tim Pool

http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/tim-pool

Tim Pool Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Pool

These podcasts support a couple of things I've been observing:

- Russia, through the IRA, has been engaged in a campaign utilizing social media to sow divisions in the US through misinformation
- Russia does not necessarily care how they do it - they simply do what works (what carries over and touches millions upon millions of users in a given app)
- This started in 2015 - this was before Trump was even a candidate
- We cannot hope to control state actors that use twitter, facebook, instagram, etc - VPNs, nature of the apps, how these companies make money all operate counter to that goal
- It is conceivable that Russia may have jump started the fragmentation on the left using identity politics and intersectionality
- Russia has launched campaigns to promote conspiracy theories entirely unrelated to overt political interests such as anti-vaccers
- Russia is doing the same throughout Europe
- China has been stealing IP for a very long time using both physical actors as well as their own hackers back home (APT10)
- It's entirely conceivable that China is also engaged in manipulating social networks
- Facebook, through Cheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg, actively engaged in hiding what was happening on their platform under the guise of free speech
- Facebook has seen no real consequences
- There is no discernible standard for TOS when it comes to these companies - you can be banned arbitrarily and without recourse through no fault of your own
- There are state actors using these apps to attack our country's servicemen/women - today we learned of such an attack by an Air Force officer that defected to Iran and utilized Facebook to out her colleagues
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKCN1Q2228

I think that the current structure of the social network in the US has been monopolized by a few tech companies to such a degree that it has allowed other actors to take control. There needs to be a resurgence of healthy competition and new apps that can challenge the status quo. Legislation needs to pass that establishes clear demarcations on the TOS of these companies offer which would protect US consumers and seek to counter outside influence.

This all needs to happen now. It won't. Moreover - I'm not sure it can be corrected. They are literally tapping into the minds of people using Facebook, instagram, twitter, etc and appealing to their partisanship or their worldview and helping them reinforce patently false narratives. As ex has proffered elsewhere - we need to start educating teenagers and students about social media and how to use critical thinking skills so that they can defend themselves from this crap.

Everything else is cheese. We have the military, the intel, the capability to strike back or to send a message when an actor has gone too far. But I'm sitting here typing this and Trump is president. And the senate is trying to pass legislation, again, that would more severely punish Russia.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKCN1Q22J9

[Kane]