Adversarial Manipulation, Social Media, and the War for Your Mind
I grew up in a part of the world where demonic exorcisms were still a thing. Not just an annual tent revival phenomenon way out in the backwoods, but a routine, near-daily occurrence led by my school teachers, grocery store clerks, and street preachers. The convergence of hoodoo-meets-evangelical cultures occurred in the little pocket of chert-laden hills where I was raised, and it was hard to escape a merry ol’ demonic exorcism whenever anyone felt like your actions, “spirit”, or general “bad look” warranted.
I observed these laying-on-of-hands and casting-out of bad spirits on others until I was around six. It was at that time that the mother of a little girl I was playing with decided my face showed the “mark of the devil” and interrupted our game of tag to anoint my head with holy oil and beg the Lord to remove all demonic beings from my body. I returned home late that evening to relay the day's events to my Pop, who laughed and said, “Welcome to Mississippi, kiddo.”
Public school history class was more religious than anything, so I learned the ins and outs of the local population’s deep fear of “Satan seizing our spirits” courtesy of taxpayer dollars. These hard-core spiritual warriors were always on the lookout for people who may have “come under the influence of the dark lord of the underworld” and they wouldn’t hesitate to leap into action, whip out some religious iconography and assault you with scripture, hoping the exorcism would succeed in its attempted “rebuke” of all things bad and evil.
Adversarial Manipulation of the Homefront
From the more mainstream position I hold now, I’ve learned that it's easy for some to joke about the devotion of these individuals to their convictions; however, the more time I’ve spent wading into research on the ongoing onslaught of cyber attacks by our adversaries - China, Russia, Iran, and others - and their attempts at influencing Americans beliefs, values, and actions, I keep coming back to the spiritual advisers who so devotedly safeguarded not only their own cognition, but also the community around them. They - so much more than the digitally-dependent, tech “savvy” professionals I’m around now - understood the concept of adversarial manipulation and its role in winning a war.
I’ve been researching weaponized information, specifically mis- and disinformation, for a lot longer than y’all have been talking about it. Originally intrigued by the multi-domain impacts of social media on the people around me, businesses, and public sector organizations, I dove into exploring the mechanisms and effects of this new digital world on the physical one. Things posted on the Internet were impacting real people in real time. They were changing their beliefs, acting against their best interests, and causing harm to a lot of good things we hold dear, including democracy. My awareness of the negative impacts drove me to dig even further. Who was causing such discontentment? Who was exploiting foundational freedoms in our country? Why were Americans susceptible to such information-driven manipulation?
The Bible-thumping preacher’s wife, who stopped my game of tag to cast out demons, was convinced my childlike soul had become prey to an evil adversary - a malignant entity that intended me harm and would use this influence to cause me to harm others. My religion doesn’t support her hypothesis, and I didn’t enjoy the slimy oil she anointed my forehead with, smearing down my face; however, I was impressed that she seemed to care about my “eternal damnation” and was trying in her own way to do something about it. Crazy, because very few people take any action against a much more present and real adversarial actions poisoning our society through TikTok reels. Instead, we just watch them, share them, and wonder why society has gotten so crappy.
Cyberwarfare, Snake Handling, and Social Media
The more I’ve learned about foreign influence, cyberwarfare, and the ongoing war for our minds, the more I find myself reflecting on the quick-acting SF- “Spiritual Forces” - of backwoods Mississippi. They cared deeply about the souls of their neighbors - enough to fast for days, give money they didn’t have, and handle poisonous snakes in the name of “fighting Satan.” Fanatics? Yes, sure. I agree. But I keep coming back to their awareness of “enemy” action that you could not necessarily see, and reflecting on how this parallels with the ongoing state of cyberwarfare.
Americans everywhere are being inundated with information developed and disseminated by our adversaries. These countries do not wish us well. They do not support our democratic freedoms. They do not champion our economic prosperity or quality of life. They engage in a low-cost, high-impact way of war by bombarding us with manipulative narratives via social media. All ages, all people, all places in the US - everyone with an internet connection is a potential target in the modern state of cognitive warfare. Unlike previous wars, these assaults are not restricted to a battlefield with highly trained warfighters; instead, our adversaries have chosen a different path through a “door” we left virtually open from which to conduct their assault.
And the crazy thing is, we continue to take the digital mortaring without raising the first defense.
Defending Against Malign Foriegn Influence
There are many ways we can defend our communities, organizations, and nation against adversarial manipulation. I’ve spoken and written extensively on this fact for the past decade, so I won’t rehash my proposed solutions here. Throughout all my conversations on the cyber-meets-cognitive war we find ourselves in, one aspect of disturbing sentiment continues to stand out - many people, including technology professionals, remain blissfully unaware that they are actively targeted and engaged in this element of warfare on a daily basis.
How? By feeding foreign-controlled social media apps with information about our preferences. By sharing mis- and disinformation with their friends and family. By failing to take a hard stance against these digital “demons” that have infiltrated our society. These collective failures slowly corrode the foundation on which our country is built - the unabashed goal of our adversaries, who set out to accomplish this feat without firing the first shot. We must awaken the cyberwarrior in us all to support our nation at this time of covert crisis.
If you’d like to learn more about cyber-meets-cognitive warfare, here are some reputable resources: