“It is this much darker, more sinister basket of things that are not just standard political tactics.”
— Molly McKew

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Information warfare is a tactic used to push misleading or persuasive information to a large group of people.

Propaganda, a type of information warfare, has forever been used by states, religions and governments to promote views, incite hatred and manipulate opinion.

In the digital age, information warfare is more prevalent than ever. With the growth of social media, there has been a dramatic increase in the weaponisation of information.

Many companies now have a broader reach and influence than the state, and with data-driven targeted information, the tools to wage information warfare are available to all. The Cambridge Analytica scandal highlighted how data and misinformation were used, through social media, to manipulate voters in the 2016 U.S. elections.

In this interview, I talk with Molly McKew, an information warfare expert and foreign policy & strategy consultant. We discuss propaganda in the digital age.

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Show notes and transcription:
https://www.defiance.news/podcast/information-warfare-molly-mckew

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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Show Intro
00:01:39 - Welcoming Molly to the show
00:01:44 - Information Warfare introduction
00:04:34 - Russian interference in the US elections
00:08:44 - Molly’s career background
00:11:43 - Russian v US election interference
00:15:18 - Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal & behavioural engineering
00:23:22 - News manipulation
00:28:48 - Russian PR machine
00:32:01 - The role of social media
00:36:33 - Brittany Kaiser and CA/Facebook
00:41:23 - Apathy towards manipulation
00:45:26 - Social media CEOs in the future becoming de facto heads of state
00:47:59 - Facebook Libra
00:49:45 - China social scoring
00:50:20 - Molly as a target of information warfare

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