In simple terms, information warfare is the use of information and technology to affect an adversary.
An infamous example of this would be the British firm, Cambridge Analytica’s role in manipulating the 2016 presidential campaign in favour of US President Donald Trump.
Defence and strategic experts have also called out the larger gambit of social media manipulation as a form of information warfare, a threat to the national security.
Lt Gen (Retd) Satish Dua, a former Chief of Integrated Defence Staff and an expert on counter terrorism and strategic affairs, told The Quint that in today’s age of ‘perception,’ of how public views a thing or event, information spaces are used to shape minds and build narratives.
“India has taken cognisance of information warfare but we have a lot of catching up to do. Countries like US, China and Pakistan have invested heavily to strengthen their command on narratives in the cyber-space,” he added.
He also spoke about how it’s necessary to remain connected in a global village and not cut off the platforms.
“We should be able to dictate our valid security concerns and the safeguards we want them to institute for us,” said the retired general.
So what should the tech giants do? Are their policies enough to deal with such coordinated inauthentic behaviour which evidently can have serious repercussions in a democracy?