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Fighting for Influence in Open Societies: The Role of Resilience and Transparency

This article uses the framework of message, messenger, and media from a forthcoming book, From Quills to Tweets: How America Communicates War and Revolutions, to examine how influencers manipulate identity, reality, and perceptions to create such an outsize effect. By analyzing the challenges holistically through this lens, we can weave deep networks of resilience that include initiatives for radical transparency on sources and funding, build networks of resilience to manipulation through public-private initiatives, purge social media sites of inauthentic accounts and media that incites hatred and violence, and promote responsible communication of incidents to avoid amplifying the manifesto of attackers. However, one of the most difficult challenges to overcome will be the false comfort of algorithms that feed us what we want to read—ideas that confirm our own biases—and keep from us viewpoints that challenge our empathetic and cognitive bubbles. In his history of the Peloponnesian War, the thirty-year clash between Sparta, Athens, and their alliance systems, Thucydides argues that states go to war for reasons of fear, honor, and interests.2 But his examination of great power competition also shows that nations march to war because of decisions made by people—wise leaders, shallow showmen, fickle mobs of citizens swayed by impassioned rhetoric, and manipulative envoys who know just when to twist the knife of mistrust. As Kori Schake wrote, Thucydides “demonstrates time and again that vibrant societies are brought to ruin by the fletcher forum of world affairs 152 vol.43:2 summer 2019 angry or enervated publics who ignore the moderating counsel of seasoned, educated elites.”3 Small wonder in the twenty-first century that armed groups, private companies, regional powers, and states with global reach are all competing to manipulate individuals as part of the high-stakes competition over power, access, and influence. The ability to change the sentiments of the public, or even just the minds and the hearts individuals, brings with it the potential to influence policy, disrupt economies, incite violence, and even provoke civil war. To be clear, the competition to influence individuals is not a new phenomenon: diplomats, spies, revolutionaries, marketers, and politicians have always been on the front line of this contest. However, social media technologies and patterns of global conflicts have empowered a new group of super-influencers that have changed the stakes for the new battle for loyalty and identity. This article uses the framework of message, messenger, and media from a forthcoming book, From Quills to Tweets: How America Communicates War and Revolutions, to examine how influencers manipulate identity, reality, and perceptions to create such an outsize effect.4 The examples include the role of Anwar al-Awlaki, an individual who inspired many others to violence, the use of social media by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) for recruitment campaigns, and Russian campaigns to disrupt the U.S. elections in 2016. In all three cases, the skilled messenger whose messages manipulated identity played a vital role in the initial stages of attraction and indoctrination, and technology and social media amplified the message and reach of the manipulation. In the case of both ISIS and Russian campaigns, the medium of communication itself—social media—not only carried the message but distanced the human messenger from the target audience so successfully that it raises questions about the future of algorithmic influencers. MESSENGER AND MESSAGE Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American Muslim cleric who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011 and has inspired multiple attacks Social media technologies and patterns of global conflicts have empowered a new group of superinfluencers that have changed the stakes for the new battle for loyalty and