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Cyber strategies on social media: is this cyber war?
“Look we don't need politicians, we've all got iPhones and computers, right? So any decision that has to be made, any policy, we just put it online. Let the people vote… thumbs up, thumbs down, the majority wins. That's a democracy. That's an actual democracy.” The Waldo Moment – Black Mirror This is just a quote from a most popular science fiction series released on Netflix a few years ago: Black Mirror. It is astonishing, though, how sci-fi can reflect the tendencies of real society. I decided to mention this particular quote from episode 3 of the second season because it brilliantly depicts some basic controversial characteristics of so-called “information society”, when it comes to politics^1. Information society optimistic narratives usually see technology as a neutral tool for the progress of humankind. On the other hand, the darker view highlights its controversial consequences^2. Following the creation in the USA of the first Internet prototype, the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency NETworks), there was optimism among researchers and students that the new developments would improve transparency and freedom in the circulation of ideas^3. This was the open access policy of the first Internet, stating that every communication should be published and given open access. Historically, the ARPANET birth was supported by the DoD (USA Department of Defense), which financed the project, until the open access policy, sponsored by research groups, became incompatible with the secrecy the military needed to protect sensitive information. At this moment, the decision was made to create a different network of computers, the MILnet, which did not follow the open access policy^4. In 1990, the Net expanded and the Internet was created. The World Wide Web went on to spread across the entire globe, enveloping all aspects of human life from the economy, to politics. The increasing importance of the Web, created a new environment for communication, called “cyberspace”, which the Department of Defense Joint Publication 3-12^5 defines as follows: “Cyberspace consists of many different and often overlapping networks, as well as nodes (any device or logical location with an Internet protocol address or another analogous identifier) on those networks, and the system data (such as routing tables) that support them. Cyberspace can be described in terms of three layers: physical network, logical network and cyber-persona.” Political scientists often refer to the cyber-persona level in their studies^6. This is because it consists of interactions at the societal level between Internet users. This kind of analysis is even more significant these days, when political debate is mainly taking place in the cyber-sphere, eventually shaping cultures and ideas. In recent times new actors have appeared in the international system, playing an important role in it and exerting a certain level of power on States. These are NGOs, political parties, transnational corporations, terrorist organizations 7 and so on. It has been claimed that the digital arena empowers them, overtaking the Nation-State and its sovereignty. This is a very controversial issue, which needs to be taken seriously. In fact, non-State actors are growing in importance and cannot be treated within the framework of traditional theories. From strategic studies we can have a complete description of what is psychological warfare, in which we can find information warfare as a subgroup. Psychological Operations (PSYOP) can be seen as deceptive strategies aiming at influencing the enemy or the adversary’s supporter group. Indeed, with the spread of information technologies and the internet, these kinds of strategies could be even more effective and subtle. However, in order to arrive at this conclusion, we should first ask ourselves what an information society is. When we talk about it, we usually refer to a society in which the use of ICT technologies has extensively spread among individuals, affecting all aspects of human life. The most (^1) Roger C. Molander, Andrew S. Riddile, Peter A. Wilson, Strategic Information Warfare, RAND Corporation, 1996 (^2) David Lyon, New Technology and the Information Society: whose vision?, « Electronic media and mission », Vol. 9, n°4, OCTOBER 1994, Sage Publications, pp. 11- (^3) Damien Van Puylvede, Aaron F. Brantly, Cybersecurity : Politics, Governance and Conflict in Cyberspace, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2019, pag. 11 (^4) Ibidem (^5) Ibidem , pag. 27 (^6) Ibidem , pag. 28
important innovation it has brought about is the centrality of networks in nowadays societies. Today, we cannot define ourselves without taking into account the “inter-connectedness” of the new-age way of living. More importantly, this is with or without our awareness. For instance, when we are alone at home and we open Facebook or Instagram, we think we are alone, but through the Internet, we are constantly connected with other people^8. Inevitably, this aspect of our social life also affects political decision-making, since political debate is taking place on the cyberspace. Without going into democratic theories, I just want to mention that the emergence of an info-sphere with all its global characteristics, while pursuing the dream of the Rousseauian deliberative democracy, is paradoxically challenging the way liberal-democracies are built. This is because there is the risk of a hyper-democracy^9 , which ironically leads to no democracy at all^10. The way political regimes tackle cyber-threats is commonly called “surveillance”, because it aims at protecting on-line information while paradoxically invading citizens’ privacy. As far as Western democracies are concerned, a misuse of surveillance policies can be damaging for citizens’ human rights. Firstly, since there are not (yet) many different ways to counter malicious exploitation of information (whether they are of public or private concern) it is difficult to assess whether or not liberal-democracies can adopt different technical tools from autocracies to operate cybersecurity. This means that fundamental freedoms which are guaranteed by our systems might be in danger. I am referring to fundamental liberal freedoms such as the right to protest, to have opinions, to strike or to a free press. This can actually raise a lot of concerns about the way we are rushing into surveillance security systems. In this sense, the NSA operation which was leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 is emblematic^11. In particular, this “rushing into surveillance systems” may leave aside fundamental ethical considerations over the right balance between freedom and security. It is fundamental to talk about tools which guarantee surveillance against cyber-threats; it is equally fundamental to talk about tools which guarantee privacy and free speech. When it comes to the problem of “fake news”, we cannot ignore the role ICTs and in particular social-media have in shaping “the public sphere”^12. Definitions of this concept are diverse, and philosophers such as Jurgen Habermas or Hanna Arendt, have enquired into it for a long time. The public sphere, in which opinions are shaped, is strictly connected to reasoning, which is part of the nature of human beings and comprises critical reasoning and argumentation^13. According to Paul E. Ceruzzi^14 , what differentiates this with other technological eras is that this one has major socio-cultural implications^15. Since communication implies information, it also implies the medium of this communication process. Here, the big Pandora’s box is open. Optimists of the “Information Society” highlight the role the Internet has in spreading knowledge to everyone. This was the idea behind Wikipedia, until their creators realized their website was being used to spread false information and share subversive messages^16. In the XV century Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press permitted the Bible to enter into everyone’s house, leading to Martin Luther declaring that it was “the biggest and most extreme divine action into the propagation of Bible’s influence”^17. In “ L’avènement de l’imprimerie et la Réforme ”^18 Elizabeth Einstein develops the concept of “disintermediation”, which is the possibility for “the people” to access superior knowledge directly, without the intercession of an “interpreter”. She also highlights the delegitimization effects the printer had for the authority of the Catholic Church, eventually giving rise to a new contestation of the (^8) Luciano Floridi, La quarta rivoluzione , Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milano, 2017 (^9) Stefano Rodotà, Come cambia la sovranità democratica con il web , Editori Laterza, Bari, 2013 (^10) Giovanni Orsina, Democrazia del narcisismo: breve storia dell’antipolitica , Marsilio editori, Venezia, 2018 (^11) Edward Snowden, Permanent Record , Metropolitan Book, NY, 2019 (^12) Jurgen Habermas, The structural transformation of the public sphere: inquiry into a category of the bourgeois society , (^13) Anna Harendt, The Human Condition , The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1958 (^14) Paul E. Ceruzzi, Computing: a Concise History , MIT Press, Cambridge, 2012 (^15) Damien Van Puylvede, Aaron F. Brantly, Cybersecurity : Politics, Governance and Conflict in Cyberspace, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2019 (^16) Raffaele Alberto Ventura, La Guerra di tutti , Minimum fax, Roma, 2019 (^17) Raffaele Alberto Ventura, La Guerra di tutti , Minimum fax, Roma, 2019 (^18) Elizabeth Einstein, L’avénement de l’imprimerie et la Reforme, « Annales. Economie, Sociétés, Civilisations », vol. 26, n.6, 1971, pp. 1355-
its pervasiveness. According to Jetty Klausen^20 , Twitter is the platform most used by jihadists. Indeed, Twitter campaigns are organized and not spontaneous. For Osama Bin Laden: “ […]we are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our Umma.” In the aftermath of Al-Qaeda’s expulsion from Afghanistan in 2001, the organization realised that it was still possible to communicate with its audience exploiting the connection between the media and the information system. This demonstrates the actual power of propaganda and how subtly it can reach the audience of “believers”. Journalists, in fact, are the most important transmission channel since they are commonly seen as authoritative sources of information^21. At that time the most used media was still television. Terrorist organizations used to send videos to Al-Jazeera, which eventually published whatever they received for the sake of information. After the 2005 London terrorist attacks, Al-Qaeda sent a video of them taking responsibility for the attack, which would simultaneously afford them the visibility they wanted. When they discovered Twitter, they realized they did not have to use journalists in order to reach their audience. They could just post on Twitter and yet journalist would report their posts on journals or blogs. Jetty Klausen studied the communication strategies of Jihadists fighters, meaningfully linking it to the proper battle. Firstly, Twitter is perfect for Psychological Operations as it can be used for both proselyte and terror. The above mentioned research adopts Social Network Analysis, which is a quantitative research method used to describe social networks. They started from the analysis of the popularity of each Twitter account and their degree centrality (how many links to and from each node, which is the unit of the network, in connection with others). They found out that there is a cluster of accounts comprising fighters tweeting from the battlefield, which are linked to accounts of the foreign fighters. The latters, in fact, mostly re-tweet posts from the first group. In addition, they all have nicknames and sometimes they are fake-accounts linked to martyrs. Sometimes the accounts are not managed by individuals, but directly by the organization. From Colonel Jarred Prier^22 research, we have a better comprehension of this phenomenon. In particular, he studied the social engineering of the Twitter game. “ Social media facilitates the spread of a narrative outside a particular social cluster of true believers by commanding the trend. It hinges on four factors: (1) a message that fits an existing, even if obscure, narrative; (2) a group of true believers predisposed to the message; (3) a relatively small team of agents or cyberwarriors; and (4) a network of automated “bot” accounts. The existing narrative and the true believers who subscribe to it are endogenous, so any propaganda must fit that narrative to penetrate the network of true believers.”^23 Furthermore, there are three methods for the purpose of commanding the trend: trend creating, trend hijacking and trend distribution^24. Trend distribution involves adding a message to each trend; trend hijacking uses different hash tags, even those which does not entirely concern the initial topic but are particularly trending in that moment; trend creating is the most difficult one and requires a lot of resources and effort^25. It is possible, for terrorists, to build a team of both real cyber-warriors and bots. Typically, there is a small central group of cyber-warriors which is linked to another automatized network of accounts re-tweeting the posts the first group created. Bots follow both the human-controlled accounts and the other bots’ accounts. Then, there is a bottom-group of accounts, which could be either real or automatized. They are not followed by many other accounts but they follow the core group and the bot network. This structure evidences the instrumental usage of bots and their dependence on the core group^26. This actually means that a network of bots does not change the narrative: it is the small core group that does it. In fact, if the small group is not followed and does not rest on an existing narrative, the usage or not of bot is actually irrelevant. They will not be followed. Indeed, social change can be generated only through coordinated group action. However, how to automatize Facebook or Twitter accounts? In the ISIS case it was through an app: Dawn of Glad Tidings. Whoever installed it, directly linked its Twitter account to the app, (^20) Jetty Klausen, Tweeting the Jihad: Social Media Networks of Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, « Studies in Conflict & Terrorism », N°38, 2015, ROUTLEDGE, Taylor & Francis Group, pagg. 1- (^21) Jarred Prier, Commanding the trend: social media as information warfare, « Strategic studies quarterly », Winter 2017 (^22) Ibidem (^23) Ibidem (^24) Ibidem (^25) Ibidem
autonomously sharing the posts the App created^27. Not to forget the issue of foreign fighters, it is important now to talk about the so-called Network at Large^28. This is the group of sympathizers and affiliates which are predominantly located in Western countries. This is the most functional vector of IS propaganda in Western countries and the messages these accounts spread are not as violent as the ones’ shared by the core group of fighters. From Klausen’s study, the role women have in the network at-large Twitter accounts is striking. Some of the women lived in Raqqa or in other locations in Syria and Iraq, then moved to other countries (or even remained there posting content with Western geo-localization)^29. “Umm” was the name they used most, which is for “mother of the oldest son”. It is an appellative commonly used for women in Islamic culture. “The content of the umm’s accounts strains to make extremism appear like a normal life-style decision. An example is a posting of pictures with their children dressed in ISIL fan gear, similarly to how a Manchester United fan might dress up her kids for fun”^30. To sum up, the power of terrorist organizations is augmented through their communication strategy on social media. We can consider this as a proper PSYOP, in terms of proselytizing and propaganda strategies. Secondly, they spread terror on social media, exploiting the link between the official information system and Twitter. In Colonel Prier’s words, they hijack trending hash-tags in order to create congestion on that trending topic and let people talk about them. This is what happened during the World Soccer Cup in 2014 with the hash-tag #WorldCup2014 were used to make terror threats against the tournament venues in Brazil^31. Another important similar case was during the kidnapping of the American journalist Steven Sotloff, which was a campaign directed to President Obama. The hash-tag used was #StevenHeadinObamaHands and it was used to attribute the beheading of the journalist to the President^32. This communication strategy is used to misrepresent and alter the reality of IS power^33. In cyberspace, IS pretends to be more powerful than it really is by only using its narrative and its public threats to infidels. This is how to “weaponize” social media. In the book “Likewar: the weaponization of social media”, Singer and Brooking make a comparison between the Nazi invasion of France in 1940 and the ISIS Mosul besiege in 2014. The hash-tag on that occasion was #AllEyesOnISIS and the terror they spread through that hash-tag actually operated as a pain creator. It was an actual blitzkrieg in which the surprise effect of the attack played around the unprepared garrisons of the enemy. Even though the twitter campaign was not the preeminent tactic they used for the siege, it did have a role in spreading terror among citizens. Sooner or later, it worked: before they truly entered the city, everyone had left, Iraqi armed forces included^34. Along with terrorists’ strategies on social-media, Russian strategies are worth to be studied. During the Cold War the Soviet Union carried out an info-war through a programme called Operation INFEKTION 35. This was a disinformation campaign against the USA, in which they tried to spread false-information through the media system in order to shape foreign public opinion and often to discredit American politicians or influential American people. For example, they invented the idea that the U.S. military created AIDS in laboratory, a lie that echoes through the internet to this day^36. With social-media, this kind of info-war strategy is even more effective, because fake-news goes viral very quickly and can reach even more people than traditional media. As we already said, political organizations usually exploit them only if they follow certain semantic patterns which already exists inside population ideology, culture or folklore. This is exactly what Russia is doing: they know national-folklore will never disappear and therefore they exploit it spreading fake-news which are inside that semantic scheme. Elaborated in 2013 by Valery Gerasimov, the country’s top-ranking general at that time, this strategy was then popularly known as the Gerasimov Doctrine, formally written into the Russian military strategy in 2014 and seen (^27) Ibidem (^28) Jetty Klausen, Tweeting the Jihad: Social Media Networks of Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq, « Studies in Conflict & Terrorism », N°38, 2015, ROUTLEDGE, Taylor & Francis Group, pagg. 1- (^29) Ibidem (^30) Ibidem (^31) Jarred Prier, Commanding the trend: social media as information warfare, « Strategic studies quarterly », Winter 2017 (^32) Ibidem (^33) Ibidem (^34) P. W. Singer, Emerson T. Brooking, Likewar, the weaponization of social media , Mariner Books, New York, 2019, pagg. 6- (^35) P. W. Singer, Emerson T. Brooking, Likewar, the weaponization of social media , Mariner Books, New York, 2019, pagg. 100-
It is difficult to define the concept of information warfare, it is perhaps even more difficult to find a definition of Psychological operations. With the emergence of information technologies, new warfare concepts made their appearance. The exploitation of these new tools has certainly changed warfare, improving the usage of non- conventional tactics. This term is usually used to refer to other strategies, such as Electronic Warfare (EW), Command and Control (C2W), Intelligence-based-warfare (IBW), Psychological operations (PSYOP), hacker warfare, economic information warfare and so on. For a better comprehension of the phenomenon it is impossible to ignore Sun Tzu’s masterpiece “The Art of War”. It is a classic of strategic science in which we can find a broad conceptualization of these new (at least for westerners) tactics. Firstly, for Sun Tzu it is possible to win wars without fighting. This means that deception and influence over the opponent has a central role. The aim is to influence and constrain, while altering the opponent’s thoughts, emotions and habits. “Psychological warfare operations are integral to the broad concept of information warfare (xinxi zhanzheng). A product of the Information Age, information warfare is the struggle to dominate the flow of information in order to enhance and support one’s own strategic goals while degrading and constraining those of an opponent.”^46 Furthermore, information warfare for Sun Tzu lies in propaganda. As John Arquilla states, infowar is the “persuasive effort that directly target mass publics”. Another important concept from John Arquilla is the “noosphere” (sphere of mind). The cyberspace has increased the role of an ephemeral “info-sphere”, in which information is shared, and cultures and values are shaped. It has therefore created a good environment for a “noopolitik”, an intimate sphere in which political values and ideas are built. Another important contribution in this debate comes from Arquilla’s book on the Zapatista Movement in Mexico entitled “The Zapatista Social Netwar in Mexico”, which depicts some basic aspects of the so-called “netwar”^47. This is, in Arquilla’s and Ronfeldt’s words, “societal-level ideational conflicts waged in part through internetted modes of communication”^48. The Zapatista Movement was a farm-workers movement from Chiapas which claimed the independence of the region from Mexico. The insurgency of the Zapatista Movement was repressed by the Mexican Army, until they decided to exploit the Internet to denounce the Army’s violation of human rights. Eventually targeting liberal public opinion, they exerted a lot of pressure on the Mexican authorities which decided to stop the operations. This event has fuelled an interesting debate about asymmetric warfare (a conflict in which the two parts does not have the same means for fighting) and the possibility that networks could empower non-state actors (considered as the less powerful ones in the international system). “[…]The information revolution is favouring and strengthening network forms of organization, while simultaneously making life difficult for old hierarchical forms. The rise of networks—especially “all-channel” networks, in which every node is connected to every other node—means that power is migrating to non-state actors, who are able to organize into sprawling multi-organizational networks more readily than traditional, hierarchical, state actors can. This means that conflicts will increasingly be waged by “networks,” perhaps more than by “hierarchies.” It also means that whoever masters the network form stands to gain major advantages.”^49 A network is an organization in which subgroups (nodes) are dispersed and can communicate among each other thanks to the new communication technologies. Also, it can be trans-national and exploited for any purpose. Nowadays, netwars are waged by Islamic terrorist groups, drug dealers and criminal gangs, human rights activists or nihilist subversive groups. Networking is not only related to the cyber-sphere, since what happens in that realm can have real world repercussions. We should therefore take into consideration that the two spheres are intertwined and if some violent contents are shared on social-media, they can turn real if one of the nodes decides to act. This occurred in the case of the neo-Nazi that killed a woman in Charlottesville in 2017, or the numerous gang fights which are caused by social media debates^50. We usually define the cyber-space, with respect to military and security affairs, as the fifth domain, with the first four being air, earth, water and space. The fifth domain is entirely artificial and the main problem stemming from this is that the environment can be easily manipulated. This means the border between reality and fiction is weak and can be exploited for war purposes. While it is impossible to damage a physical object without leaving traces in the real space, in the cyberspace it is (^46) Dean Cheng, Winning without fighting: the Chinese Psychological Warfare Challenge, « Backgrounder », No. 2821, July 11, 2013 (^47) David Ronfeldt, John Arquilla, Graham E. Fueller and Melissa Fueller, The Zapatista “Social Netwar” in Mexico , RAND corporation, 1998 (^48) David Ronfeldt, John Arquilla, Cyberwar is coming , RAND corporation, 1993, pag. 144 (^49) Ibidem, pag. 7 (^50) P. W. Singer, Emerson T. Brooking, Likewar, the weaponization of social media , Mariner Books, New York, 2019
possible to spread a damaging virus (Stuxnet) into critical infrastructure and damage the blackbone of a country, without being recognized. Nonetheless, it is important to reflect on some basic international relations concepts before pushing too far forward the idea that cyber-wars can cause real wars. There has been a long-lasting debate over this issue between those who highlight the potential damage and others the actual damage of cyber- weapons^51. In a famous article from Thomas Rid, we can find a more clearly defined usage of the term war when related to the cyber-domain. This is: “politically motivated cyber-attacks are not wars but sophisticated versions of sabotage, espionage and subversions.” “any act of war has to have the potential to be lethal; it has to be instrumental and it has to be political.”^52 The fundamental idea behind these phrases is that, since cyber-attacks are not physically damaging, at least not as much as kinetic attacks, they are actually less threatening. This is because, taking for granted the idea that power is the capability to impose certain behaviours on others, through cyber-space it is perhaps possible to damage but at the same time it is impossible to recognize the attribution, waning its deceptive aim. Cyber-space is effective for warfare only when accompanied by kinetic attacks. This means that it is very risky to avow the possibility of a war by looking at what is happening in the cyber-space. Moreover, cyber-attacks are predominantly anonymous, meaning that there is little intention into politicize it. When an attack lacks attribution, it is implicitly used only for sabotage. This means that the actual threat is very low, and therefore we can at least classify it as a “low intensity level”^53 conflict. This is even more important when it comes to social media. Nowadays disinformation campaigns and fake-news are becoming one of the most debated issues among politicians and public opinions. There is increasing interest on the topic, though sometimes it is treated superficially, taking for granted some of the issues listed above. The danger in here is to instrumentally use the fake-news motive against an electoral opponent, even though he has no direct linkages to the trolls who are spreading the news. In order to high attention of the public on this topic, it is fundamental (and more efficacious) to elaborate a legislative framework against them, which could improve digital knowledge and protect citizens against digital abuses. This is what the European Union is starting to do with the project SocialTruth, presented in March 2020 after the spread of fake- news around Covid-19^54. After Cambridge Analytica scandal, the issue has risen concern in Europe and in the US, since fake news are becoming incredibly influential in shaping opinions and ideas among citizens, also when they vote. Several considerations, however, must be made around this topic. Firstly, when telecommunication technologies and new media (radio, television, etc.) first appeared, they were also used by politicians to talk to their electorate (or support groups) in a more direct and confidential way. Whoever was able to use the new tools conquered the audience and won the election. This was the case with Franklin Delano Roosvelt in 1930s with his “Fireside Chats” a weekly radio programme in which he talked about politics to American people, with him eventually becoming the President of the United States of America in 1932. Nevertheless, the new media have also empowered a class of new tycoons which invested in this sector at the outset. Just as Orson Welles displayed in his masterpiece “Citizen kane”, since the very beginning new discoveries in this sector have always empowered a new class of oligarchs^55. This means that whoever owns the technological means, also has the means to reach power through the manipulation of this above called “intimate sphere”^56. There is no better way to describe Steve Bannon and his “social-media Empire”. Stephen Kevin Bannon is an American media executive, political strategist, former investment banker, and the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, a far-right website which he described in 2016 as "the platform for the alt-right". He served as White House Chief Strategist in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump during the first seven months of Trump's first term. Moreover, (^51) Damien Van Puylvede, Aaron F. Brantly, Cybersecurity : Politics, Governance and Conflict in Cyberspace, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2019, pagg. 91- (^52) Thomas Rid, Cyberwar will not take place , Hurst, London, 2013 (^53) Damien Van Puylvede, Aaron F. Brantly, Cybersecurity : Politics, Governance and Conflict in Cyberspace, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2019, pagg. 91- (^54) https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/socialtruth-fighting-fake-news-trust-times-covid- (^55) P. W. Singer, Emerson T. Brooking, Likewar, the weaponization of social media , Mariner Books, New York, 2019, pagg. 30-
