Britain is becoming a soft target for Russian and other state propaganda because the UK is not prepared to educate people on how to deal with information warfare, according to a former White House adviser and security expert.
Fiona Hill told a parliamentary committee that she feared the UK had become “extraordinarily vulnerable” to online manipulation feeding into the electoral system because there was a lack of discussion about civil defence.
“I think part of the problem is also on the societal level: that the UK increasingly looks like a soft target rather than a hard target, because modern war, as we all know, is fought with so many different methods now, including propaganda,” Hill said.
She contrasted the UK with Sweden, which has an idea of “psychological defence”. It is about “training people to think about how you deal with all kinds of information warfare, so people can recognise when they’re being manipulated”.
The concept dates back to the cold war, but after a hiatus Sweden set up a psychological defence agency in 2022, which tries to work with the public and highlight online disinformation.
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If you look at the yougov voting intention poll by age it becomes very obvious that predominantly young, online-informed people are actually voting Green, Lib Dem, Labour etc.
If you look at the elderly boomers, age 50-65 and 65+ then its all Reform and the Conservatives.
If you further look at where people get their information based on age, on which there are many reports including by yougov, you’ll see that boomers get it much more from TV, tabloids, radio etc. At first i was confused at the radio bit but It makes sense - they own cars and listen to radio while in them.
The call is coming from inside the house. This is a transparent call to internet censorship to stop left-wing discourse about the Epstein alliance and their wars in the middle east that the establishment finds unpalatable and drive the young to believe in right-wing lies. Kremlin’s own rolling internet blackouts in Russia won’t be far behind this initiative for the UK and the think of the children types on here will fall for it hook line and sinker, probably support it as Lemmy goes away even.