DNA Edit: Propaganda War - The Army needs to bolster its digital defence

The Indian Army preparing the blueprint for an information warfare strategy to combat social media propaganda and to create a bulwark against fake news is a step in the right direction.

It should have undertaken these measures earlier since the impact of social media on the public psyche is already well-documented.

Consider this: A video clip of lynching in Pakistan’s Sialkot travels across the border through WhatsApp and triggers communal clashes in UP’s Muzaffarnagar district. The new mode of warfare doesn’t involve traditional battlefield confrontations, nor recruitment of spies and jihadis to inflict collateral damage on the enemy.

In the age of social media, a doctored/propaganda video, commonly called fake news, can have quite a disastrous effect. Since technology has made dissemination of words and image effortless, the indoctrination of impressionable minds has become a lot easier.

Countries skilled in psychological warfare have long been using social media. The US had used the powerful images of the Arab Spring to engineer dissent across the Muslim world. The “spontaneous” outpourings of protest were manipulated for the support of democracy in much of the Arab world.

Russia went one-up on the US when it “tinkered” with the Presidential elections and sowed doubts in the minds of the American public. China, too, has become a master at this game of psychological warfare. Beijing systematically uses popular online social networks, in addition to traditional media forms, to spread misleading and intentionally divisive propaganda. The Taiwan government is grappling with the spate of misrepresentations of the conditions of Taiwan’s civil society and the country’s economic situation.

India, on the other hand, has been slow to respond to these challenges. Its digital defence and aggression will determine how effectively it neutralises its enemies without firing a bullet.