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The Cyber Defense Review

Tackling Disinformation, Online Terrorism, and Cyber Risks into the 2020s

By Oz Sultan | April 30, 2019

Over the past decade, social media has become an abusive component of the general media that we consume daily. In many cases, social media precedes and precludes traditional news mediums, by getting information out early or by providing detailed accounts of what is happening on the ground across the world.

What started out as social media users, influencers, and netizens capturing everyday happenings and reporting them in real-time (from 2007 to the present), evolved to include complex and organized propaganda systems by 2009. [1] Early propaganda systems involved state-sponsored propaganda sites presented as independent social media handles. State-sponsored disinformation began with Russian troll activism in Finland in the early 2000s. Infowar expert Dr. Saara Jantunen’s book “Infosota”, published in 2015, details the complicated networks of troll houses and blogs that constitute the concerted Russian infowar effort. [2]

Tackling Disinformation, Online Terrorism, and Cyber Risks into the 2020s



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