Militarization of the internet

By privatizing the internet within a country, the state can reinforce their own ideas and propaganda to their citizens without outside news sources or platforms attempting to provide different information.

Because the internet is a public domain, states have the ability to interfere with elections using online resources, promote propaganda, and overall disrupt national security for other countries.

China has instituted a Social Credit System (SCS) for its public internet users, aimed to track the “creditworthiness” and “trustworthiness” of both individuals and organizations utilizing cyberspace.

Instead of keeping the details surrounding their conquests and invasions confidential, ISIS wanted the world aware of every move they made as a way to instill fear into Iraq’s military.

Thousands of fans and “Twitter botnets” created hashtags, the most well-known being #AllEyesOnISIS, as a means of spreading information, images, videos, and propaganda documenting the towns and cities they overtook.

The propaganda quickly spread throughout Arabic-speaking Twitter, contributing to the existing fear felt amongst those within the region, with a particular emphasis on those residing in Mosul.

This “contagion of fear” resulted in approximately 30,000 Iraqi soldiers, along with the vast majority of Mosul’s population, to flee, resulting in what has been referred to as ISIS’s “propaganda victory.” The ability of organizations to rewrite their personal narratives and manufacture a picture of defeat for national armed forces is quickly shifting the construct of the battlefield and the ways in which war is conducted and fought.

To do so, the state blocked and delegitimized news outlets that held opposing thoughts to their Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, as well as the ideas within his party.

The United States government gave out tens of billions of dollars in contracts to private firms, such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to develop technologies.