Democracies are being gamed. Authoritarian governments, moneyed elites and fringe hackers are exploiting our digital infrastructure and the vulnerabilities in our democratic system to influence our politics and elections. In just a few years, it has become a perpetual information war.
Inherently unstable and prone to wild volatility, our digital ecosystem has at its heart a vacuum open to the influence of those with the motivation, money or expertise to exploit it. Played successfully it can lead to unprecedented swings of public opinion.
Martin Moore explains how hackers interfere in our democratic processes, why they can do it and outlines what we need to do to save democracy for the digital age. This is a story about active measures, data mining, psy-ops, mercenaries, microtargeting, the alt-right, plutocrats, the collapse of local news, Silicon Valley, Trump, trolling, surveillance and you.
