Weaponization of Social Media

Social Media has become an important part of our lives as we depend on it for our updates, to stay in touch with loved ones (Facebook), to befriend those we do not know (Twitter), share memes, and engage in a meaningful discussion. However, it is not a bed of roses as one must deal with a myriad issue when signing up. Twitter is an extremely important Social Network as information is amplified extremely fast if shared by important influencers. This is also how information and misinformation spreads because the majority will always believe what they read. It is safe to say that Social Media has been weaponized, and it is not for the best.

Nations realizing potential

Nations were quick to realize the potential of Social Media as they worked on finding ways to manipulate opinions on Social Media. Britain was one of those which recognized the potential and announced in 2015 that its 77th Brigade would “focus on non‐lethal psychological operations using social networks like Facebook and Twitter to fight enemies by gaining control of the narrative in the information age”. Even terrorists like ISIS capitalized on Social Media to announce its invasion of Norther Iraq in 2014. It took a hashtag #AllEyesOnISIS for them to get noticed. They used Social Media to recruit foreign fighters and share their propaganda. There was even a smartphone app which let their fans follow their progress. It is said that the power of social media allowed a mere 1500 fighters with small arms to take over Mosul without any contest. Even though there was a Garrison in place, morale was low and the reports on Social Media made it look like as if the invading force were bigger than it was. They staged everything on such a level which made their one-sided victories into something bigger. All of that was achieved by sharing those photos on Instagram. Their supporter base used Twitter to push the agenda that their small skirmishes were bigger victories. Plus, they utilized a few hashtags to push their views to the world. It was known as the first terrorist group to hold both the physical and digital territory. It took the tragic incident of James Foley’s beheading on Social Media for Twitter to take a more aggressive approach in tackling the growth of ISIS accounts.

Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter have been doing a mixed job in countering propaganda. They have taken down State Sponsored groups but will usually ignore certain markets such as the World’s largest Democracy. An appropriate label is “Cyber Troops”, which are government, military or political party teams who work to manipulate the push of information (or disinformation) on social media. Each nation has a different engagement strategy, which could be either positive interaction or abusive comments for those who do not agree with their agenda. The Saudis have used “hashtag poisoning” which is a strategy where trending hashtags are spammed with useless comments so that criticism is disrupted.

We also have Computational Propaganda, which tends to manipulate public opinion. It is a new phrase which can be described as “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” This was a strategy used by foreign actors to manipulate a lot of campaigns to suit their own needs.

There were many skeptics in Pakistan who claimed that the Fifth Generation Warfare does not exist despite evidence to the contrary. Hybrid Warfare is preferred to conventional wars as it is easier to fool people with disinformation. The key is to spread poorly sourced disinformation where those amplifying it have no idea, they are pawns in the agitation propaganda.

In 2019, The EU Disinfo Lab discovered a network of sites run by Indians to share propaganda against Pakistan. That was a huge discovery, but it did not do much for the skeptics who have dismissed the ISPR’s claims of a Hybrid War. It is interesting to note that the Indians have appointed a Deputy Chief of Army Staff (Strategy) and the Director General (Information Warfare). This shows how valuable information is in this era and how there must be a strategy in place.

Sock puppets, Trolls and Astroturfing

There is a lot we do not understand about social media, where incorrect jargon is used to describe activities which can be manipulated. Sock puppets are a term which many are not familiar with. In simple words, we can say that they are online personalities whose purpose is to deceive others. They are merely false identities assumed by an entity. They are created to often praise, defend, or support a person or an organization. This is done so that they can manipulate public opinion by engaging in disinformation campaigns. One of the most well-known international examples is of the US elections in 2016, the disinformation campaign against the White Helmets in Syria.

There is also astroturfing, which is a strategy which masks the sponsors of a message or an organization, is a strategy which masks the sponsors of a message or an organization so that it looks like it originates from grassroots participants. The goal of astroturfing is to either amplify or suppress political information, which ends up creating an illusion of popularity or disapproval. That leads to the bandwagon effect and makes it more difficult to slow things down.

Many nations use Astroturfing to hide the identity of their sponsor and make it look like as if it is grassroots activism. Earlier they used bots to spread their agenda but moved back to human operated accounts after the Social Networks clamped down. Some use a mix of human accounts and bots to fulfil their needs. The British created video content as part of their “anti‐radicalization” campaigns designed to deter British Muslims from going to Syria.

Trolls are those who antagonize others on social media and are usually abusive so that they can get a reaction. They usually tend to be offensive and partisan so that they can make it happen. Their idea is to ensure conflict occurs. One way to tell if an account is a troll is to check the history of abuse and to see if certain people have been targeted.

Bots are automated and run on their own, for both good and evil. Automated bots can be detected based on how many tweets the account posts and the source of those tweets, which tends to be the API.

People tend to mistake sock puppets for bots and trolls, though in a way sock puppets are an extension of trolls. Sock Puppets tend to be the more correct definition as they are fake personalities which make it easier for them to troll without the fear of getting caught. Plus, they are there to manipulate online discussions so that they can gain sympathy for their cause.

How Western Nations use Sock puppets

There are more sophisticated methods used by developed nations where software was developed to allow them to run a sophisticated operation. The system allows one person to control up to ten personalities, where they have a complete background which makes them look like real people who can be from any part of the world. Not only that but they are also able to use a super strong VPN which allows them to use random IP addresses so that they can hide the existence of their operation.

This is one reason they have never been caught as they spend a lot of money to try and get away with it. Social media researchers and the two social networks have been able to catch state actors because they do not cover their tracks at that level as their more well-funded counterparts. These days sock puppet operations are run as part of the astroturfing campaigns where the level of work has gotten better. There was a time when the display pictures used were readily available. Technology has improved so much that Neural Networks can be trained to produce images which are made up but look like real pictures. This is known as GAN (Generative Adversarial Networks). The good thing is that one can detect them if they are examined closely so you can spot symmetry issues, distortions etc. On the downside, there will be a time when they will be able to get it right when they have enough training data so that these imperfections will not be noticeable.

Social Media researchers have worked hard to uncover these disinformation campaigns. It requires a lot of effort to investigate it as the methods are quite cumbersome. Automated accounts are easy to detect and thus are removed from social networks faster. In the past, bot accounts would strike together in unison when they would like posts or attack their targets. They were easy to detect because of the extremely high frequency of posts as well as the fact that all the display pictures were the same. It was also quite suspicious when accounts claiming to be American would tweet about MAGA but had a history of tweeting in a foreign language. It is a well-known fact that a lot of investment is required in making them look authentic. There is the case with Jenna Abrams, an account with 70,000 followers, who tweeted far-right opinions. She turned out to be a sock puppet controlled by the Internet Research Agency (Troll farm) which was funded by the Russian government.

Indian Weaponization of Social Media

Indian Journalist Swati Chaturvedi covered how the BJP was able to weaponize Social Media and use it to mobilize people in her book “I am a troll: Inside the Secret World of the BJP’s Digital Army”. Swati investigated the BJP cell for two years and interviewed “30 trolls” who helped shape the narrative of the party and found that they functioned by running armies of volunteers as well as paid employees who spread propaganda on SM to malign their rivals and gather support for the party. The BJP Cyber troops have abused and threatened critics of the government, which has resulted in a very toxic SM environment in India. Superstar Aamir Khan lost out on a lucrative endorsement deal after he commented about the rising intolerance in India. His comments led to a firestorm on Social Media which resulted in the company not renewing its deal with him.

The Fifth Generation Warfare has peaked as the enemy has not stopped with its campaigns against Pakistan. A recent example was when Indian SM users spread news that a civil war had started in Pakistan. The news cycle may have kicked off when an exiled Pakistani tweeted a video of Altaf Hussain supporters clashing with the police and claimed that they were police in civilian uniform who had started a rebellion. The Indian Media did not act responsibility and ran the news without fact checking. This was just one of many incidents where the news was shared without verification. Another incident was the fake letter from COAS Qamar Javed Bajwa, which asked the commander of the Gujranwala Corps to protect the PMLN workers from the PTI. The major claimed that this was the Pakistan army signaling their impatience with the PTI government. Even though the letter was quickly dismissed as a fake, it was still a sign of how the Indians have been using 5GW to spread disinformation.

They have also been a steady presence in hashtags such as #FreeBalochistan or anything remotely associated with it. Now they have also moved on to support secessionist movements in Sindh, former FATA, and the GB Regions. Accounts were also created to show their location in those regions which were shown to be part of greater India.

Indians have also created Baloch sock puppets to try and share their propaganda. In many cases, they were caught out because the accounts were not sophisticated enough and made several errors which were caught out by eagle eyed users. A common occurrence is their role in sharing misleading images in these anti Pakistan hashtags. There has also been a strong Indian presence in certain polarizing trends which were setup by Pakistanis but were populated by Indian trolls who were hoping to amplify the message. A good example is one of the anti-Shia hashtags which were started by the TLP but got more support from the Indians.

Another example is the war of words between the Turkish and Emiratis, where the Pakistanis were supporting the Turks and the Indians jumped onto the side with the Emiratis. A network graph of the hashtag showed that the Indians were at the centre of those trends. In fact, there were several trends against the Pakistani Military showed an Indian presence.

Unfortunately, Twitter does not seem to take any action against them, and accounts are critical of India tending to get suspended or banned there for violating their rules. Many accounts speaking about IIOJK suffered because of that. One fails to understand why Pakistani accounts fall under Indian authority. Prominent critics of Hindutva like Ashok Swain have disappeared from SM because of harassment by trolls.

Steps to take

Pakistan needs to take the threat of information warfare seriously and spend more resources on countering propaganda. Nations are progressing because they have understood the power of Social Media and how it can be weaponized. There is the need to spend more on researching these entities so that we can stop the flow of fake news or disinformation. It is unfortunate that we have not been able to do a decent job of countering this as well as the fact that some will not accept it as a reality despite all the evidence. The 5th Generation war is for real and our government must allocate more funds to fight this.

Edit: Ashok Swain is on a break from Twitter. His account was not suspended.