It is possible, though perhaps not likely, that Ukrainian attacks on Russian data centers brought about a fair amount of relief from Russian-controlled propaganda and misinformation bot accounts on social media. It would be nice to believe that some of the worst elements online really had been silenced, but the effects of what we might call “kinetic service disruptions” might be harder to corroborate with hard data than with some anecdotes. The incident still tells us a few things worth knowing.
■ Data centers are now infrastructure, and we should assume that they will become targets for heavy ordnance in all future armed conflicts. Bridges and power plants will continue to matter, but data centers are now on the list, too.
■ Furthermore, many people are now aware that inauthentic characters on social media are being propped up by geopolitical adversaries who gain from having misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and general mayhem introduced to the currents of public opinion. This awareness is good insofar as it causes people to recognize that not everything is as it seems online.
■ Regrettably, the other side to that coin is that people are still voluntarily exposing themselves to the platforms where those bad actors appear. It’s a lot of media and it’s being consumed in heavy doses.
■ There certainly are pro-social ways these tools can be used, but even looking past the harm done by truly malicious actors, we really need to think about the customs that are taking hold. Normalizing frequent and heavy media consumption is risky business, a matter unwittingly presaged by Florence Nightingale even before the Civil War, when she wrote: “I have never known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant interruption who did not muddle away their intellects by it at last.” The malicious content is bad enough, but we need new habits responsive to modern realities to spread just as quickly as the propaganda.