this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
347 points (95.1% liked)

World News

39102 readers
2947 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

trickiest part is the information warfare, since we can't always respond in a similar way due to intense authoritarian controls of their local information spaces. We're largely on the defense in that arena, though we should counter as best we can while we build up our own defenses

This paints information warfare as a nothing burger that is distinct from a physical assault. It really isn't. Russia (allegedly) took down parts of the Ukraine grid for a few hours during their ongoing assault against the country. Saudi refineries have been taken offline. Stuxnet did significant damage to the Iranian nuclear program.

Misinformation is arguably worse, since it can significantly damage social cohesion in victim countries. I don't think we have a very good handle on the role of foreign actors in the rise of populism in the past decade, but you can bet your polling booth it's nonzero.

Do we really need to talk about economic espionage like it's nbd? Imagine Taiwan without fabs. Or Canada without Nortel (oh wait, you don't need to). So much of our economic growth is driven directly through innovation, and national power/prosperity comes from that growth. It's a big deal.

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

I agree, it's a very big deal. I never said it was nothing and we shouldn't respond. I said we should respond in kind, as we can.

I merely draw a distinction between these kinds of attacks, and the actual invasions of places like Gaza or Ukraine. Information warfare has a culpable deniability to it, similar to espionage, that makes it inherently harder to tackle.

It's just not so simple as bomb the people that fuck with us or something like that. That would not fix the problem. It's trickier.