RAND recently published “The Information Warfighter Exercise Wargame Rulebook” based on the IWX exercises that the Marine Corps conducts twice a year. We will be adapting that rulebook to a virtual playing field where two opposing sides will leverage algorithms, deep fakes, malware, app tracking, and ad targeting to achieve victory. Rather than a military engagement, this exercise will demonstrate the national security risks that both the U.S. and Chinese governments recognize exist in information manipulation on social media platforms today.
The PRC, in particular, has recently purchased a 1% share of Bytedance and taken one of 3 board seats. Bytedance owns Douyin and its Western counterpart TikTok – the most popular social video app in the world today. This comes at the same time as a crackdown by China’s Internet watchdog the Cyberspace Administration of China published draft regulations that would impact how algorithms serve content and news to users of social media platforms.
The Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, does a good job illustrating how social networks use algorithms to manipulate emotions and spread conspiracy theories and disinformation.
Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct British company that helped the Trump campaign secure a victory largely through its manipulation of Facebook user data and micro-targeting, was a subsidiary of Strategic Communications Laboratories – a military contractor that specialized in information warfare.
Social media’s power to influence, micro-target, and connect the disaffected and disinfranchised is of immense tactical importance to nation state adversaries. This wargame will show what’s possible. Admission to the wargame plus all of our virtual talks is included in one low price of $99.
Here’s how to register.
