I grew up during the height of the Cold War, when every home-improvement show we attended had a model bomb shelter. Thankfully, we won that one. But today we may face a threat that is even more insidiously dangerous.
I’m sure you’ve heard th
e accusations that Russia was behind the email hacks during the 2016 presidential election campaign. But could they (or anyone) go beyond simple hacking? What if fake news was planted on social media that was targeted to people deemed susceptible to believing such a story? What if that story was then amplified by agents to make it sound more plausible? What would be the effect on our democracy if enough people believed it?
There is a chilling cover story in the May 29, 2017 issue of Time magazine entitled “Hacking Democracy: Inside Russia’s Social Media War on America” by Massimo Calabresi. It discusses such scenarios in detail, with this warning — “…Russia may finally have gained the ability it long sought but never fully achieved in the Cold War: to alter the course of events in the U.S. by manipulating public opinion.” Or, as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress on May 8, “If there has ever been a clarion call for vigilance and action against a threat to the very foundation of our democratic political system, this episode is it.”
I just hope enough people take this seriously.
Read the complete article at http://time.com/4783932/inside-russia-social-media-war-america/ . The photo came from that article.