3 WELCOME
THE SILICON BATTLEFIELD
It ’s a war out there. Or – if you’re reading our magazine online – in here. In the 20th century, the big powers clashed with nuclear-armed bluster and proxy wars in developing countries. Today, the face-off takes place online, with battalions of trolls and bots trying to directly influence the populations of their rivals. Social media platforms are a major front in this war, with Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp being employed to deliver messaging to targeted groups, often with the purpose of exploiting pre-existing fault lines in an enemy ’s society. Highly visible examples of this have been seen in the West, where combinations of bots, sock puppets and ads have helped hijack political conversation and fuelled extremism on all sides. Anti-democratic ideas that were politically unthinkable in an age before social media are spreading internationally. And while disinformation can be aimed at obscuring the truth – take science denialism or recent examples of coronavirus misinformation – its purpose is more often to flood the information sphere with so many conflicting stories that citizens lose interest in the truth altogether. In this issue, we converse with information war expert Nina Jankowicz about how Soviet practices from the Cold War are being supercharged in the digital age. We also talk to renowned film producer and British peer Lord David Puttnam about the UK government ’s Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee as the country scrambles for a solution. In the meantime, stay safe. Support your local newspaper. And don’t feed the trolls.
EDITORIAL
EDITOR Neal Romanek +44 (0) 1223 492246 nealromanek@bright-publishing.com
STAFF WRITER Chelsea Fearnley
JUNIOR DIGITAL CONTENT WRITER Verity Butler
CHIEF SUB EDITOR Beth Fletcher
SENIOR SUB EDITOR Siobhan Godwood
SUB EDITORS Elisha Young & Felicity Evans
CONTRIBUTORS Ann-Marie Corvin David Davies
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ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Matt Snow +44 (0) 1223 499453 mattsnow@bright-publishing.com
NEAL ROMANEK, EDITOR
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