How to Fight Disinformation

Social media has become weaponized, with certain places becoming digital front lines. This is part of the hybrid warfare doctrine developed by the Russian Federation and other bad actors. We have been fighting it for decades, but this is still a strange concept for most people in the United States and Western Europe.

The first thing to understand is that they are weaponizing our free speech against us. The United States will have a legal problem fighting this unless we get into a hot war. Why? Free speech. It becomes a national security question when we get into a hot war. There were limits during the First and Second World Wars, with the former becoming questionable after the war. Those sedition laws are still in the books.

So first, what are the principles of disinformation? If you know them, recognizing them will become much more manageable.

The first is denial. This gets us into the post-truth world we now live in. Denial of actual truth is essential. If you are Russia, one of those crucial truths is that you are an empire. They have been doing this since before the Soviet period. It works for them.