 Cyber Conflict, Module 15, Social Media and Information Operations. Once you have completed the readings, lecture, activity and assessment, you will be able to articulate how nation states can use social media for information operations. Describe why novelty is considered important for the spread of fake news. Welcome to Cyber Conflict, Module 15. This course has introduced you to the United States four major adversaries in cyberspace, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. It has also offered some background on how these countries use their cyber capabilities. We have seen that Russia manipulates its enemies through propaganda and other activities associated with reflexive control theory. China typically uses cyber tools for espionage related to the development of its economy and military forces. Iran spies on its own population with cyber technology to disrupt anti-regime sentiment or subsequent protests. And North Korea develops asymmetric cyber weapons to disrupt the ability of U.S. and South Korean forces to respond to crises on a Korean peninsula, as well as a means of gaining respect in international diplomatic circles. Based on Russia's success in using social media to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we are likely to see other adversaries use similar methods of social media for similar reasons in the future. Certainly, influencing the outcome of democratic elections is not the only way for adversaries to use social media. For instance, as your readings point out, both Israel and Hamas used social media during the Gaza conflict to inform or influence target audiences about ongoing military operations in the so-called First Twitter War. However, to understand how our adversaries may go about targeting future U.S. elections, let's review a recent report filed by special counsel Robert Mueller, which outlines the degree of Russia's interference. In February 2018, Mueller filed an indictment that detailed how the Russian government used social media to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. The indictment charged 16 individuals for their roles in working with a Russian troll farm, the Internet Research Agency. According to the indictment charges, the Internet Research Agency engaged in information warfare by, quote, impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States, end quote. The indictment outlined how Russian operatives impersonated U.S. citizens to create fake social media accounts of political activists. Russia then attempted to influence Americans through both false and biased information on those accounts. To succeed, Russia's front organization, the Internet Research Agency, oversaw a sophisticated operation employing hundreds and with an operating budget of several million U.S. dollars. The agency was headed by a fully staffed management group and organized into several departments, including graphic design, data analysis, search engine optimization, and information technology. One member of the agency's management group, Alexandra Khrilova, actually traveled to the United States under false pretenses to collect intelligence to better inform the organization's operations. Khrilova's information combined with other employees' research findings allowed the agency to create social media pages on a range of polarizing issues, such as immigration, religion, and culture. By 2016, some of these social media pages had gained hundreds of thousands of followers and were being shared and referred to by more mainstream news sites. Mueller's indictment does an excellent job of highlighting the logistics of an information warfare effort, but it does not broach the question of how or why people are influenced by fake news. In early 2018, the journal Science published the results of a study that looks at this question. The study examined more than 126,000 contested stories disseminated through Twitter and found that the number of times that the fake news story was shared was significantly higher than real news stories, especially if the topic involved business, terrorism, war, entertainment, and politics. For example, the study found that fake stories on Twitter were shared at a 70% higher rate than true stories. Why is this? Although we have no absolute answers yet, the study pointed out that information theory predicts that stories with novel content are more likely to attract human attention and be subsequently shared than stories lacking such novelty. The study noted that novel stories are perceived as being attractive because they update our understanding of the world, and from a social perspective, increase one's status by being in the know. Although it may seem that we are far from preventing adversaries from intervening in future elections or otherwise attempting to influence our nation's policies, we have at least been enlightened to the problem, which is the first step in combating it. According to the Science Journal article that you read, which of the following is not a reason that fake news is able to rapidly proliferate? A. The novelty of false news stories better engages the human attentional system. B. People feel that sharing novel news stories may increase their social status. C. When information is novel, people intuitively feel that it is worth more and are more likely to share it. D. People knowingly share fake news stories out of boredom. The answer is D. People knowingly share fake news stories out of boredom. True or false? Nation states have been known to use fake news to shape perceptions regarding the efficacy and legality of military operations. The answer is true. The activity for this module asks that you consider how much do you think you were influenced by fake news generated by Russian troll farms during the 2016 U.S. presidential election? To try and find out, perform an Internet search for the names of fake news sites produced by the Internet Research Agency. Then, review your Facebook and Twitter posts during the election season. Did you comment or share articles that are now known to be fake? If so, what about these articles attracted your attention? Did you find them somehow novel? What steps can you take to mitigate the effect of future fake news stories?