I think we may look back on this as the first Great Information War. Except we're already 8 years in.
The first Great Information War began in 2014. The invasion of Ukraine is the latest front. And the idea it doesn't already involve us is fiction, a lie.
1/
It was Putin's fury at the removal of President Yankovych in Feb 2014 that kicked everything off. Information operations were first crucial step in invasion of Crimea & Donbass. A deliberate attempt to warp reality to confuse both Ukrainians & the world.
2/
This was not new. The Soviets had practiced "dezinformatsiya" for years. But what was new in 2014 was technology. Social media. It was a transformative moment. "Hybrid warfare" on steroids: a golden Willy Wonka ticket to manipulate hearts & minds. Almost completely invisibly.
3/
But it wasn't just Ukraine. We now know Russia began another offensive in Feb 2014. Against the West. Specifically, but not exclusively, America. How do we know this? Because the FBI conducted a forensic, multi-year investigation. That almost no-one paid any attention to.
4/
The Mueller Report. You've heard of it. But probably as a headline about how it didn't "prove" collusion between the Kremlin & Trump campaign. We can come back to that. What it did prove - BEYOND ANY DOUBT - was that Russia attacked 2016 US election through multiple routes.
5/
And just *one* of the ways Russia attacked 2016 US election was via the tech platforms. Especially: Facebook. This was a military technique, it pioneered in Ukraine in 2014. By 2016, it refined, iterated & supersized these. Most brilliantly of all, they were entirely invisible
6/
And it wasn't just Russia. Companies such as Cambridge Analytica. Political operatives such as Manafort. Amoral opportunists such as Cummings. They learned how to exploit a platform that was totally open - anyone could do so. And totally closed - no-one could see how.
7/
But also it *was* Russia. That's what the Mueller Report proves. And, again, Ukraine is at centre of it all.(Read @profshaw's thread here. Note walk-on role for Arron Banks's business partner & his friend the Russian spy) 8/
In 2016, we knew none of this. Russia & other bad actors acted with impunity &, in some cases alignment. But now, through the sheer bloody hard work of academics, journalists & FBI, we do know.
But it was complex, messy, difficult. So..We brushed it all under the carpet
9/
We failed to acknowledge Russia had staged a military attack on the West. We called it "meddling". We used words like "interference". It wasn't. It was warfare. We've been under military attack for eight years now.
10/
This failure is at the heart of what is happening now in Ukraine. Because the first offensive in the Great Information War was from 2014-2022. And Putin won.
And he won by convincing us it wasn't even a war.
11/
We fell for it. We said it was "just ads" that "don't work anyhow". And "a bot didn't tell me to vote". Facebook is still an open threat surface. Exploited by authoritarians from Philippines to India to Brazil to Hungary. It's maybe not a world war. But the world is at war.
12/
Meanwhile, in Britain, we're a captured state. In America, the institutions of govt worked. Even in spite of Trump. The authorities investigated. Individuals were indicted, charged, jailed. The hostile actions of a foreign state examined & unpicked.
13/
(Not that it mattered.) The US media & therefore public failed to understand the real lessons of Mueller Report. And in the UK? We didn't even bother trying. We allowed Johnson's govt to sweep 2016 under the carpet. Nigel Farage. Arron Banks. Facebook. Russia. The lot.
14/
But it wasn't 'just ads'. It was war. And it's absolutely crucial that we now understand that Putin's attack on Ukraine & the West was a JOINT attack on both.
That began at the exact same time.
Across the exact same platforms.
15/
And this new front, the invasion of Ukraine, is not just about Ukraine. We are part of the plan. We have always been part of the plan. And Ukraine is not just fighting for Ukraine but for the rest of us too.
16/
And maybe that could be why we've failed to understand Putin's strategy in Ukraine? Because it's not just a strategy in Ukraine. It's directed at us too. And that's what makes this such a uniquely perilous moment. Not least, because we still don't understand we're at war.
17/
If it helps, the penny dropped for me with Skripal. Planned by the GRU - Russia's military intelligence. As was the weaponised hack-&-leak of Hillary's emails. Military doctrine carried out by military officials in military operations. Just like the one now in Ukraine.
18/
Last week, the new owners of the Observer wrote to tell me they would *not* be issuing me with a new contract.
So...I want to say publicly that it was an absolute privilege to speak on behalf of my Observer colleagues during our strike. I don't regret doing so. And I learned so much from it.
1/
It means my 20 years at the Guardian & Observer is drawing to a close 😢. For most of that time, it's been the journalistic job of my dreams. I worked with the best editors, photographers & designers & got to do stories that wouldn't have been possible anywhere else. I know how lucky I've been.
2/
And I'm lucky too, in a way, that this is happening as the world convulses. My beat has been trying to understand the information revolution, it's the crisis beneath the crisis...& now I'm throwing myself into its swirling eddies just as the wave hits the shore.
This is what should be on every front page right now. What's happening in the US right now is an illegal power grab by a private citizen.
IT'S A COUP.
It's a digital coup. It's Musk who's leading it. The consequences are terrifying. And it's coming for us next. 1/
Please read this. I'm far from alone in saying it. The great
@TimothyDSnyder, @RBReich, @ruthbenghiat have all been shouting it.
There's superb reporting happening into every aspect of what's happening. But there's no framing. It's all facts, no story. broligarchy.substack.com/p/it-is-a-coup
This is a digital coup. A data coup. What Musk's cyber troops - mercenaries - have done is take control of the federal government's operating systems. They've downloaded or scraped vast quantities of data. It's a hack on an unprecedented scale. 3/
Britain: we have to understand wtf we’ve done. We’ve allowed one of Trump’s closest allies have access to our entire NHS data systems. This is the CEO of Palantir telling shareholders that ‘when it’s necessary to scare enemies & on occasion kill them’
There is much more I want to say on this but if you’re in the US right now, you need to understand that Silicon Valley is your creepy ex boyfriend. Who’s now conspiring with Donald Trump. They have your data & it can & will be weaponized against you.
Understand: the first use case of all technology is always against woman. A predator(s) used technology to surveille, harass & intimidate Hannah. And this is now what’s coming for journalists, activists, civil servants, lawyers & many more in the USA now.
The technology we use in every day life is powered by what @shoshanazuboff christened ‘surveillance capitalism’. But now we are heading into‘surveillance authoritarianism’. We are already in a coercively controlling relationship with these platforms
NEW: Hannah is my ex-step daughter. And when I was in middle of my Cambridge Analytica investigation, she had a stalker. Stalkers. A whole cast of characters making her life hell. In 2021, I approached the BBC: could we try & nail the perpetrator(s)? 1/
This was Han during those years. You would never know how much she was hiding from the world. Every day brought a new wave of abuse & threats that she dealt with alone. She finally opened up & told me the whole story in the dark winter lockdown of 2021. 2/
It was wildly confusing. But it was also clear where this could end. A young woman from Hannah’s school, with whom she shared a group of friends, was murdered by her stalker. And there was a common thread: the police hadn’t taken the action required 3/
This is president of @Google - a company accused of illegally harvesting copyrighted work - saying journalists need to learn to use AI or ‘risk missing out’.
He’s just been appointed to the board of @guardian. I hope every journalist in the org watches this & asks: why?
This is a headline in @pressgazette today. This is a rapacious company whose business practices have done more to undermine journalism than almost any other yet he has been appointed to Guardian board while *still actually working for Google*. The conflict of interest is off the charts