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Messing with the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News
A former FBI Special Agent, U.S. Army officer and leading cyber-security expert offers a devastating and essential look at the misinformation campaigns, fake news, and electronic espionage operations that have become the cutting edge of modern warfare—and how we can protect ourselves and our country against them. Clint Watts electrified the nation when he testified in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. In Messing with the Enemy, the counterterrorism, cybersecurity and homeland security expert introduces us to a frightening world in which terrorists and cyber criminals don’t hack your computer, they hack your mind. Watts reveals how these malefactors use your social media information and that of your family, friends and colleagues to map your social networks, identify your vulnerabilities, master your fears and harness your preferences. Thanks to the schemes engineered by social media manipulators using you and your information, business executives have coughed up millions in fraudulent wire transfers, seemingly good kids have joined the Islamic State, and staunch anti-communist Reagan Republicans have cheered the Russian government’s hacking of a Democratic presidential candidate’s e-mails. Watts knows how they do it because he’s mirrored their methods to understand their intentions, combat their actions, and coopt their efforts. Watts examines a range of social media platforms—from the first Internet forums to the current titans of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn—and nefarious actors—from al Qaeda to the Islamic State to the Russian social media troll farm—to illuminate exactly how they use Western social media for their nefarious purposes. He explains how he’s learned, through his successes and his failures, to engage with hackers, terrorists, and even the Russians—and how these interactions have generated methods for fighting back against those that seek to harm people on the Internet. He concludes with a snapshot of how advances in artificial intelligence will make future influence even more effective and dangerous to social media users and democratic governments worldwide. Shocking, funny, and eye-opening, Messing with the Enemy is a deeply urgent guide for living safe and smart in a super-connected world.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published May 29, 2018
314 people are currently reading
1897 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
July 25, 2018
Messing with The Enemy by Clint Watts was a gift from my husband for graduation. The title of the book was what really intrigued me. At first it was difficult to get into because it was hard to keep track of the terrorists he talked about and the various terrorist groups they came from. This book was crazy! I liked how Watts built up to the good stuff, making sure you understood everything and how it all tied together. We all love social media, but I don’t think anyone really thinks about how it could be used as a weapon against us. It can, it will, and it has. Look at what happened in the 2016 election. This is not the first time that Russia has threatened our democracy through cyber attacks, but this time using troll armies and “black” propaganda, to name a few. We were too stupid to see what they were doing to us. This book opened my eyes in so many ways. I’ll share just a few of Watts’ most jaw-dropping statements but there is so much stuff in this book that I wish I could share but IG doesn’t give me enough space:
“The Russians didn’t have to hack election machines; they hacked American minds.”😳
“The erosion of trust in social media may lead the less educated to rely more heavily on their preference bubbles, and the more educated to become apathetic and disengaged from democracy. If that happens, democracies will lose ground to authoritarians, Science will retreat under attack from zealots, and countrymen will turn on one another, to propel their own personal preferences over the greater good.”
Stay informed, be careful what “news” you’re sharing, try to get out of your filter and preference bubbles. Watch out for those algorithms. And STAY. INFORMED.
“The Russians didn’t have to hack election machines; they hacked American minds.”😳
“The erosion of trust in social media may lead the less educated to rely more heavily on their preference bubbles, and the more educated to become apathetic and disengaged from democracy. If that happens, democracies will lose ground to authoritarians, Science will retreat under attack from zealots, and countrymen will turn on one another, to propel their own personal preferences over the greater good.”
Stay informed, be careful what “news” you’re sharing, try to get out of your filter and preference bubbles. Watch out for those algorithms. And STAY. INFORMED.
did-not-finish
December 4, 2018DNF at page 49
I had the privilege of hearing Mr. Watts give a presentation on this topic a couple weeks ago, which inspired me to get his book from the library. Unfortunately, for someone so professional and composed in person, his writing doesn't hold up.
There's some good information here, buried underneath memoir-esque recountings of his habit of harrassment/prank calls at West Point and other ego-boosting aneceotes, but I'm not seeing much I didn't already know (either from the aforementioned presentation or otherwise).
Being an expert does not preclude one from coming across as kind of a jerk in print, and I'm choosing not to read further.
I had the privilege of hearing Mr. Watts give a presentation on this topic a couple weeks ago, which inspired me to get his book from the library. Unfortunately, for someone so professional and composed in person, his writing doesn't hold up.
There's some good information here, buried underneath memoir-esque recountings of his habit of harrassment/prank calls at West Point and other ego-boosting aneceotes, but I'm not seeing much I didn't already know (either from the aforementioned presentation or otherwise).
Being an expert does not preclude one from coming across as kind of a jerk in print, and I'm choosing not to read further.
July 23, 2018
I found this book to be a "page-turner" but not in a good way: I kept flipping ahead to see how many more pages there were to the end of the next section and I must confess to skimming a bit from time to time. Surprisingly, the book also lacks an index. All the same, I'm glad I made it through because, otherwise, I wouldn't have come across this great sentence on page 236, "... Starbucks in the social media era has become the place where people come together to communicate with other people who aren't there."
January 10, 2019
The most important takeaway from reading this book is the awareness of the danger posed to our society by a social media world. Despite the weaponization of misinformation and disinformation by the Russian regime and others, ultimately our most dangerous enemy is ourselves. "The threat to American democracy comes not from Russia, but from America." By digging ourselves further into our social media "preference bubbles," we as Americans have become more divided, more gullible, more extreme, and less happy. Clint Watts has done us a great service by pulling back the curtain on the dark side of our ever-more connected world.
August 30, 2018
Clint Watts, former student of West Point and officer in the Army, has been combatting terrorism and studying terrorists as part of the FBI and beyond. He is such an interesting character with a deep understanding of how the internet and more specifically how social media has allowed recruitment across borders, hacking into government databases/emails and the swaying of national elections, and the spread of conspiracies and Fake News™. Definitely worth a read for any other avid followers current events and breaking news cycles.
May 30, 2018
Lying about known facts makes it hard to believe the authors other accounts. The chapter on wikileaks makes the book read like a!teenage history.
April 6, 2020
This is a refreshingly grounded and reputable deep-dive into information warfare. Watts provides his take on a topic that's become so popular among foreign policy/nat sec circles recently that most analyses run in circles, ironically creating the same echo chambers that they seek to elucidate. He manages to break out of this trap, providing a unique perspective by uniting his early 2000s work on counterterrorism with more recent work on foreign cyber-enabled influence operations. The coherence of the book suffers a bit from jumping back and forth between the two topics because of the disparate timelines, but the underlying messages of transferrable lessons drawn from both areas of work and applicable to many more ring through clearly. Watts provides analysis-backed and experience-tested recommendations, while also showing a keen grasp of the interaction between group psychology, propaganda, politics, and social media. The tone of the book is almost conversational at times, communicating both Watts' somewhat irreverent take on government bureaucracy and DC think tank/contract culture, while also underscoring many of the more terrifying insights. The final section detailing his recommendations is extremely well-done and thorough. I ruminated for a while on the specific call for people to more actively engage in their physical (rather than virtual) communities through activities like volunteer work, mentorship programs, sports and games, in-person classes, and local events. I 100% buy the validity of this as an antidote to the problems of an overly-online society where apathy threatens to overwhelm any sense of citizenship. But the current reality of social distancing casts a sober light on this hope.
Another insight I enjoyed was his warning "in information warfare, don't fear David or Goliath, but Judas," cautioning individuals to take steps to ensure their personal online security by assuring those allowed into their networks do not have reason or capacity to subvert them. It's perhaps a paranoid view, but after reading this book, I can't see how you couldn't view it as necessary. This book is overall is a dire warning, not just about the ability of foreign malicious actors to wreak havoc on governmental processes, but also about deeply upsetting trends in our own society. Many of those trends are routed in the fact that social media and online activity have created or unearthed "destructive addiction and a collective anger" that at times feels uncontrollable. We definitely need dedicated professionals like Watts to continue working on combatting the bad actors overseas, but this book also takes each and every one of us, as private individuals, to task, calling for us to take ownership of our online lives and social media consumption, rousing us to look beyond our insular "preference bubbles," turn towards common good, public service, and expertise rather than self-aggrandizement, personal gain, and fleeting vindication.
Another insight I enjoyed was his warning "in information warfare, don't fear David or Goliath, but Judas," cautioning individuals to take steps to ensure their personal online security by assuring those allowed into their networks do not have reason or capacity to subvert them. It's perhaps a paranoid view, but after reading this book, I can't see how you couldn't view it as necessary. This book is overall is a dire warning, not just about the ability of foreign malicious actors to wreak havoc on governmental processes, but also about deeply upsetting trends in our own society. Many of those trends are routed in the fact that social media and online activity have created or unearthed "destructive addiction and a collective anger" that at times feels uncontrollable. We definitely need dedicated professionals like Watts to continue working on combatting the bad actors overseas, but this book also takes each and every one of us, as private individuals, to task, calling for us to take ownership of our online lives and social media consumption, rousing us to look beyond our insular "preference bubbles," turn towards common good, public service, and expertise rather than self-aggrandizement, personal gain, and fleeting vindication.
July 28, 2018
Ok, I didn’t know when he said “messing with the enemy,” he meant it in a pranking sense. I saw the author in Bill Maher during the 5-6 minutes sit down following the monologue and he was very out together and eloquent. He didn’t come across that way in the book. He seemed juvenile, just like his pranks. I rather read something else right now.
February 5, 2025
If there was ever an inspiration for amateur counterterrorism analysts like me, this book would be it.
Clint Watts has written the best and most readable book on internet radicalization, disinformation, social media, and politics that I have seen. The relevance of the words were important in 2018 but are exponentially more-so now in 2025.
I have a particular fondness for people who are able to forge their own methods of tackling societal problems. It appears Watts is just that: a man who identified the growing problem of internet trolls and the dangerous power of social media bubbles and the effects both could have on radical groups and modern politics who also figured out his own ways to counter them, discredit them, and expose them to the world. Watts shares this personal coveted position with benevolent hacker groups, cybersecurity experts, other counterterrorists and analysts in conflict and radicalization, engineers, and certain investigative journalists. J. M. Berger is one in particular that Watts has worked with on projects mentioned in this very book. I've been impressed with Berger's work before. ISIS: The State of Terror, which he co-wrote with Jessica Stern, was an incredibly well researched analysis of the terror group.
But the interesting thing about Watts was his insistence on his own efforts to screw with terrorists abroad. Tired of Pentagon and contractor bureaucracy, Watts could influence world events and actual terrorists from his laptop or phone at any time, within his own preferred parameters. The community he built of experts and critical thinkers guided his actions against the standard nat sec institutional recommendations. His own experiences are a jarring view of efficiency and competency in the face of the current threat of social media on American society today and how useless both government and private sector have been at mitigating it.
Messing with the Enemy is not just a biography of Watt's career. In the latter half of the book, he details the extraordinary effects that the internet and social media in particular have had on American society, politics, and culture. It is a very convincing argument backed up by events in the years since publication. It is also a highly alarming one, and more urgent since nothing has been done since publication. The only successful major attempt to regulate social media, the banning of Tik Tok, has gone miserably for various reasons. Polarized and "oligarchized" government as the US should not be expected to fix the issue. Corporations should never be expected to put societal interests over profits. Thus the answer must come from smaller scale American citizenry efforts, a very difficult answer that demands personal discipline and grassroots organization perhaps without the use of the very social media tools that citizens have relied upon.
Is BlueSky a market cure to the ailing industry of social media? That remains to be seen, but I doubt it. Watts identified the problem in 2018, when there may have still been time to prevent a deepening crisis of trust and apathy in the American populace. In 2025, it is now far too late for that, and I fear only an actual, acute crisis where many people across the country are hurt or affected will be the only way to motivate Americans to take collective action. We just hate each other too much, and we're too addicted to that hate.
A super high recommend for me, and a book I would require reading for everyone in the world.
Clint Watts has written the best and most readable book on internet radicalization, disinformation, social media, and politics that I have seen. The relevance of the words were important in 2018 but are exponentially more-so now in 2025.
I have a particular fondness for people who are able to forge their own methods of tackling societal problems. It appears Watts is just that: a man who identified the growing problem of internet trolls and the dangerous power of social media bubbles and the effects both could have on radical groups and modern politics who also figured out his own ways to counter them, discredit them, and expose them to the world. Watts shares this personal coveted position with benevolent hacker groups, cybersecurity experts, other counterterrorists and analysts in conflict and radicalization, engineers, and certain investigative journalists. J. M. Berger is one in particular that Watts has worked with on projects mentioned in this very book. I've been impressed with Berger's work before. ISIS: The State of Terror, which he co-wrote with Jessica Stern, was an incredibly well researched analysis of the terror group.
But the interesting thing about Watts was his insistence on his own efforts to screw with terrorists abroad. Tired of Pentagon and contractor bureaucracy, Watts could influence world events and actual terrorists from his laptop or phone at any time, within his own preferred parameters. The community he built of experts and critical thinkers guided his actions against the standard nat sec institutional recommendations. His own experiences are a jarring view of efficiency and competency in the face of the current threat of social media on American society today and how useless both government and private sector have been at mitigating it.
Messing with the Enemy is not just a biography of Watt's career. In the latter half of the book, he details the extraordinary effects that the internet and social media in particular have had on American society, politics, and culture. It is a very convincing argument backed up by events in the years since publication. It is also a highly alarming one, and more urgent since nothing has been done since publication. The only successful major attempt to regulate social media, the banning of Tik Tok, has gone miserably for various reasons. Polarized and "oligarchized" government as the US should not be expected to fix the issue. Corporations should never be expected to put societal interests over profits. Thus the answer must come from smaller scale American citizenry efforts, a very difficult answer that demands personal discipline and grassroots organization perhaps without the use of the very social media tools that citizens have relied upon.
Is BlueSky a market cure to the ailing industry of social media? That remains to be seen, but I doubt it. Watts identified the problem in 2018, when there may have still been time to prevent a deepening crisis of trust and apathy in the American populace. In 2025, it is now far too late for that, and I fear only an actual, acute crisis where many people across the country are hurt or affected will be the only way to motivate Americans to take collective action. We just hate each other too much, and we're too addicted to that hate.
A super high recommend for me, and a book I would require reading for everyone in the world.
May 17, 2020
This book was interesting and valuable. I don't necessarily think it taught me much new information but it confirmed and elaborated on issues I've come across elsewhere from a different perspective. It seems like some reviewers DNF'd the book fairly early on and I agree that the author's recounting of juvenile pranks at West Point was less than amusing and not really necessary. It does though perhaps get across the message that the author acknowledges that's he's a bit of an asshole? I was actually surprised when I looked up the author because the tone of the book felt like that of a younger (immature) man.
The very end of the book offers some more practical advice on how to survive in the social media world (which given it's the subtitle of the book possibly should have been more prominently placed in the book). There's the very basic- use social media less and be more involved in your actual community. Step outside one's 'preference bubbles' and engage with those who hold different opinions from those around you. And most importantly to think critically when you do engage online.
He uses the abbreviation CMPP:
Competency: is the source of the information capable of knowing, gathering, and understanding the information they are providing?
Motivation: Why is the source providing the information?
Product: What is the type of information being consumed? Print, audio, video, social media, etc. How does the medium provide different meanings or impressions on reality?
Process: How was the information gathered? Primary or secondary sources? Did they do their own research or pick and choose bits of data to support their conclusions?
People really need to start realizing that their actions on social media are not passive and that what they see online is very rarely random but curated based off of their actions and algorithms that track user behaviour. And that this whole process can be manipulated. I know I'm edging closer and closer to eradicating my online presence- but as an introvert who isn't the most fond of people socializing in person (even without a global pandemic) is not my favourite thing.
The very end of the book offers some more practical advice on how to survive in the social media world (which given it's the subtitle of the book possibly should have been more prominently placed in the book). There's the very basic- use social media less and be more involved in your actual community. Step outside one's 'preference bubbles' and engage with those who hold different opinions from those around you. And most importantly to think critically when you do engage online.
He uses the abbreviation CMPP:
Competency: is the source of the information capable of knowing, gathering, and understanding the information they are providing?
Motivation: Why is the source providing the information?
Product: What is the type of information being consumed? Print, audio, video, social media, etc. How does the medium provide different meanings or impressions on reality?
Process: How was the information gathered? Primary or secondary sources? Did they do their own research or pick and choose bits of data to support their conclusions?
People really need to start realizing that their actions on social media are not passive and that what they see online is very rarely random but curated based off of their actions and algorithms that track user behaviour. And that this whole process can be manipulated. I know I'm edging closer and closer to eradicating my online presence- but as an introvert who isn't the most fond of people socializing in person (even without a global pandemic) is not my favourite thing.
August 7, 2018
This was a difficult book for me to read but I'm glad I did. There is far reaching insight into social media and how it affects what we read and in many ways, believe. I also found myself thinking about my older brother who was a Marine commander and had the same impish sense of humor and ability to "mess with" anyone about anything just to get a reaction. My bother was killed in 1996; I'm sure he would have had a great deal to say about the 2016 election and the Russians as well as North Korea were he living. Hope he is praying for us and our democracy.
I highly recommend Ft. Zumwalt graduates, students, teachers, staff and personnel take the time and opportunity to read what this Ft. Zumwalt North High School graduate has to say. Clint Watts is to be commended for his research and work on understanding how the enemy thinks and acts. Watts has warned us; he has sounded the alarm. Who among us is listening? How will we respond? I, for one, will continue to read a wide variety of published news articles reviewed by editors and publishers. I will continue to educate myself on current events. I will listen to those who do not share my political beliefs and attempt to engage in respectful discourse. And, most important, I will vote.
I highly recommend Ft. Zumwalt graduates, students, teachers, staff and personnel take the time and opportunity to read what this Ft. Zumwalt North High School graduate has to say. Clint Watts is to be commended for his research and work on understanding how the enemy thinks and acts. Watts has warned us; he has sounded the alarm. Who among us is listening? How will we respond? I, for one, will continue to read a wide variety of published news articles reviewed by editors and publishers. I will continue to educate myself on current events. I will listen to those who do not share my political beliefs and attempt to engage in respectful discourse. And, most important, I will vote.
January 8, 2021
I would call this book a “necessary read,” IF you can get through it. It was a bit of a slog, and sometimes hard to follow and only digestible in small portions. However, I’m deeply impressed by the insights it offers as well as deeply disturbed by how woefully behind our country is in the world of information wars.
January 15, 2020
I appreciate Watts' understanding of the use of social media for propaganda and other influence. I was not as interested in his personal accounts of his dialogue with terrorists as I was with information on Russia. I now understand how Russia became so much better than the U.S. at using all aspects of media.
A few surprising concepts for me. I was shocked how Putin's favorability among Americans recently doubled in two years. (175) I am amazed how propaganda can be targeted. (I am not sure I am going to “like” anything on Facebook any more.) What a disappointment to find, “America sucks at information warfare, absolutely sucks.” (189) America is not only lacking in a message that resonates but also in an effective way to deliver that message. (192) And unwitting Americans fall for Kremlin's message time after time. (193)
America was caught off guard by foreign experts in social media propaganda. It is scary to think of the little being done to correct that. Defense contracting has been less about getting the job done than getting money to certain people, such as former military and intelligence officers. (206) The billions of dollars spent by the U.S. is still not as effective as the adversaries low budget operations. (207) It is embarrassing. Watts argues that the Department of Homeland Security should notify the public of falsehoods and smears regarding domestic issues and the State Department should do the same about falsehoods related to U.S. foreign policy. (209) But they don't so we common citizens get duped.
I recommend this book. There is much to wade through to get to the good points, but it is worth it. Watts gives great techniques for testing social media posts for their truthfulness.
A few surprising concepts for me. I was shocked how Putin's favorability among Americans recently doubled in two years. (175) I am amazed how propaganda can be targeted. (I am not sure I am going to “like” anything on Facebook any more.) What a disappointment to find, “America sucks at information warfare, absolutely sucks.” (189) America is not only lacking in a message that resonates but also in an effective way to deliver that message. (192) And unwitting Americans fall for Kremlin's message time after time. (193)
America was caught off guard by foreign experts in social media propaganda. It is scary to think of the little being done to correct that. Defense contracting has been less about getting the job done than getting money to certain people, such as former military and intelligence officers. (206) The billions of dollars spent by the U.S. is still not as effective as the adversaries low budget operations. (207) It is embarrassing. Watts argues that the Department of Homeland Security should notify the public of falsehoods and smears regarding domestic issues and the State Department should do the same about falsehoods related to U.S. foreign policy. (209) But they don't so we common citizens get duped.
I recommend this book. There is much to wade through to get to the good points, but it is worth it. Watts gives great techniques for testing social media posts for their truthfulness.
November 5, 2022
I feel pretty strongly about how bad this book was.
What it does well:
- describes the Wild West of early terrorist twitter
- Accurately diagnoses the problem with the dc beltway consulting behemoth as just a mirror reflection of the government rather than outsourced innovation and explains why the US is so bad a preventing violent extremism beyond drone strikes.
What it does poorly
- Casts way too wide of a net. As a result, the writing is poorly structured and jumps around too much, especially in the later chapters.
- Toots his own horn at an astonishing level. Tone is often insufferable.
- For a book about the dangers of online extremism, a bit more than one sentence on Charlottesville would’ve done serious favors to his case.
- Doesn’t provide citations for ideas that are definitely not his and makes big, controversial claims without supporting data or citations.
- For someone whose bread and butter is social media analytics, there is a painful lack of actual social media analytics beyond “the terrorist posted a thing.”
- Gives too much credit to Russia and their active measures on Twitter, fundamentally misunderstanding the indigenous nature of the very offline anti democratic, white supremacist movement.
- Seemingly unable to disassociate groups and networks, revealing old school biases.
Ultimately, you might learn a few new things here and there, but there are way better books in the “social media: bad because terrorism” genre. I guess thank you Clint watts for pulling me out of a reading dearth and making me care about books that have no business being published.
What it does well:
- describes the Wild West of early terrorist twitter
- Accurately diagnoses the problem with the dc beltway consulting behemoth as just a mirror reflection of the government rather than outsourced innovation and explains why the US is so bad a preventing violent extremism beyond drone strikes.
What it does poorly
- Casts way too wide of a net. As a result, the writing is poorly structured and jumps around too much, especially in the later chapters.
- Toots his own horn at an astonishing level. Tone is often insufferable.
- For a book about the dangers of online extremism, a bit more than one sentence on Charlottesville would’ve done serious favors to his case.
- Doesn’t provide citations for ideas that are definitely not his and makes big, controversial claims without supporting data or citations.
- For someone whose bread and butter is social media analytics, there is a painful lack of actual social media analytics beyond “the terrorist posted a thing.”
- Gives too much credit to Russia and their active measures on Twitter, fundamentally misunderstanding the indigenous nature of the very offline anti democratic, white supremacist movement.
- Seemingly unable to disassociate groups and networks, revealing old school biases.
Ultimately, you might learn a few new things here and there, but there are way better books in the “social media: bad because terrorism” genre. I guess thank you Clint watts for pulling me out of a reading dearth and making me care about books that have no business being published.
February 7, 2019
Interesting book. I appreciate the perspective he brings to the table. If you’re only reading this cause you think it’ll be like a trash trump book you’ll be disappointed. There are other books that do the palace intrigue better.
I like all the perspectives it offers and that it’s a deeper dive into how people use social media to expand their influence. Appreciate that suggestions are offered on how to safe guard yourself from being caught up in your bubble or falling for misleading stories.
Solid book.
I like all the perspectives it offers and that it’s a deeper dive into how people use social media to expand their influence. Appreciate that suggestions are offered on how to safe guard yourself from being caught up in your bubble or falling for misleading stories.
Solid book.
November 6, 2022
Clint Watts talks about how the internet and social media connected people for the evil: starting with how it helped to keep Al-Qaeda alive but ended up also driving their demise, how it helped ISIS to grow and recruit and finally how it helped Putin and Russia to throw fuel on divisions that already existed in our countries (US and others).
I love the part where he talks about how Finland avoided falling into the same traps the US did by educating their people. Because they are neighbours to Russia and live under constant attacks, they know how to deal with their shenanigans and therefore are not impacted as we are in the United States for example.
I also laughed out loud even though I shouldn't when he describes American turned radicalized terrorist Omar Shafik Hammami, who decided to implement democracy on his terrorist cell by advising the leader to listen more to his subordinates. Typical cultural clash: the leader understood this as a threat to his leadership and set up to kill Omar. It has also lightened a bulb in my head: it's quite interesting to see how radicals - including the ones in the far-right in the US and Brazil for example - love to impose dictatorship on others while expecting to be heard and not having things imposed on themselves. Oh, the irony.
I like his protocols by which incoming information was vetted in his old government jobs, which he refers as CMPP:
1. Competency “Is the source of the information capable of knowing, gathering, or understanding the information they are providing?”;
2. Motivation – “Why is the source providing the information?”;
3. Product – “What is the type of information being consumed?;
4. Process – how the information was acquired. Were the sources primary or secondary? “Did anything occur during collection of the information that could change or distort its meaning?”
Watts testified before the Senate Select Committee in 2017 on Intelligence about the methods of Russian meddling by trolling in the 2016 election by bluntly stating that one of the foremost users of Russian-style trolling techniques was Donald Trump. However, in this book he finds us all guilty of falling into the extremism. For the islamic terrorists, it's more important to have their caliphate and pursue violence than to follow an ideology or Islam or even to govern. For MAGAs, it's about winning, being tough and not about being right or compromising. And for America's left, it's more important to be politically correct rather than pragmatic and also compromising with some who reject some of their views. Maybe I am biased, but I'd say it's hard to compromise with people who want to hang you, disrespect you, are terrorists or prefer to use violence against you because they see you as their enemy but then I am no diplomat. Maybe there are ways I am not aware of.
Clint Watts ends up the book on an optimistic note, but he left me wondering how any of us can escape the overwhelming information that comes through social media and the internet and who are not as savvy and expert on this field as he is.
I love the part where he talks about how Finland avoided falling into the same traps the US did by educating their people. Because they are neighbours to Russia and live under constant attacks, they know how to deal with their shenanigans and therefore are not impacted as we are in the United States for example.
I also laughed out loud even though I shouldn't when he describes American turned radicalized terrorist Omar Shafik Hammami, who decided to implement democracy on his terrorist cell by advising the leader to listen more to his subordinates. Typical cultural clash: the leader understood this as a threat to his leadership and set up to kill Omar. It has also lightened a bulb in my head: it's quite interesting to see how radicals - including the ones in the far-right in the US and Brazil for example - love to impose dictatorship on others while expecting to be heard and not having things imposed on themselves. Oh, the irony.
I like his protocols by which incoming information was vetted in his old government jobs, which he refers as CMPP:
1. Competency “Is the source of the information capable of knowing, gathering, or understanding the information they are providing?”;
2. Motivation – “Why is the source providing the information?”;
3. Product – “What is the type of information being consumed?;
4. Process – how the information was acquired. Were the sources primary or secondary? “Did anything occur during collection of the information that could change or distort its meaning?”
Watts testified before the Senate Select Committee in 2017 on Intelligence about the methods of Russian meddling by trolling in the 2016 election by bluntly stating that one of the foremost users of Russian-style trolling techniques was Donald Trump. However, in this book he finds us all guilty of falling into the extremism. For the islamic terrorists, it's more important to have their caliphate and pursue violence than to follow an ideology or Islam or even to govern. For MAGAs, it's about winning, being tough and not about being right or compromising. And for America's left, it's more important to be politically correct rather than pragmatic and also compromising with some who reject some of their views. Maybe I am biased, but I'd say it's hard to compromise with people who want to hang you, disrespect you, are terrorists or prefer to use violence against you because they see you as their enemy but then I am no diplomat. Maybe there are ways I am not aware of.
Clint Watts ends up the book on an optimistic note, but he left me wondering how any of us can escape the overwhelming information that comes through social media and the internet and who are not as savvy and expert on this field as he is.
September 21, 2018
You'll never look at people online the same way again...
May 18, 2018
A good overview of how al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, ISIS, WikiLeaks, the Kremlin, etc. have all used the internet and social media to influence and manipulate the public. Turns out the author is quite adept at this manipulating business as well: a tangible example of this is his Twitter chats with terrorist Omar Hammami; the exchanges show how they are designed in order for Hammami to eventually discredit himself.
The book, however, suffers from repetition of its ideas (and sentences: by my count, the author repeated three times how no one was interested in his research so he had to go back to his day job; and three times he mentioned that he and his colleagues were getting poorer), but I do think the societal ills outlined in its pages are serious and the U.S. government needs to support the work being done by the author and people like him.
As for the 2016 presidential election, the author asserts: "Without the Russian influence effort, I believe Trump would not have even been within striking distance of Clinton on Election Day." And yet, curiously, just a few sentences down (on the same page 161) we get: "No one will ever be able to prove without a doubt whether Russia did or did not win the election for Donald Trump." So if you can't prove it, why do you believe it?
The book also has its LOL moments: the phone pranks (immature, yes, but the "wild dogs running around the meat plant" killed me); the description of young analysts languishing in defense contracting hell; and that psychological disease called Facebook-envy.
Thank you Goodreads Giveaways and Clint Watts for this book. From it I learned that "Americans appear, at least on social media, to be absolutely miserable, downtrodden, victims of their excess and unfortunate to be alive." Lol.
The book, however, suffers from repetition of its ideas (and sentences: by my count, the author repeated three times how no one was interested in his research so he had to go back to his day job; and three times he mentioned that he and his colleagues were getting poorer), but I do think the societal ills outlined in its pages are serious and the U.S. government needs to support the work being done by the author and people like him.
As for the 2016 presidential election, the author asserts: "Without the Russian influence effort, I believe Trump would not have even been within striking distance of Clinton on Election Day." And yet, curiously, just a few sentences down (on the same page 161) we get: "No one will ever be able to prove without a doubt whether Russia did or did not win the election for Donald Trump." So if you can't prove it, why do you believe it?
The book also has its LOL moments: the phone pranks (immature, yes, but the "wild dogs running around the meat plant" killed me); the description of young analysts languishing in defense contracting hell; and that psychological disease called Facebook-envy.
Thank you Goodreads Giveaways and Clint Watts for this book. From it I learned that "Americans appear, at least on social media, to be absolutely miserable, downtrodden, victims of their excess and unfortunate to be alive." Lol.
June 8, 2018
I'm torn, because this is a fantastic, accessible collection of the latest research on weaponized information, disinformation, propaganda, and online radicalization. Watts follows the Russia disinformation arc from early efforts to boost Syria through the U.S. presidential elections in 2016 and onto the current state of affairs. The heart of this analysis is accessible through this fantastic article at War on the Rocks coauthored by JM Berger and Andrew Weisburd. Watts presents as close as possible to an even-handed take in this messed up American political moment, and his contempt for conspiracists ranges from xenophobic authoritarianism to credulous anti-vaccine activism. The point is not so much the impact of Russian misinformation campaigns on the 2016 election, although Watts has a hypothesis, but rather that the Russian government has been able, in true judo-champion fashion, to turn the interests and activities of U.S. citizens against each other and against the liberal institutions that lie at the heart of our way of life. Watts' most critical point is also his truest- Russia will not bring about the end of the U.S. republic- Americans will. It's up to us to change our behavior and survive, or not.
The book's narrative thread relies upon Watts as a first person narrator, and it is here that I was less impressed. The Carfizzi anecdote might lend credence to Watts' contention that he is personally, constitutionally suited to the role of 'messing with the enemy,' but I've never had a taste for the cruel or the juvenile. Watts' later Cassandra-like litany of all the times he was right, he was ahead of the curve, and he was ignored was absolutely right but unlikely to win him any friends. For all his contempt for government bureaucracies and the vast majority of the people who staff them, perhaps it is only another similarly-ignored bureaucrat who can really feel his pain on that one. Regardless, the litany is again juvenile and detracts from what is otherwise a very serious and thoughtful book with a bibliography well-worth plumbing.
The book's narrative thread relies upon Watts as a first person narrator, and it is here that I was less impressed. The Carfizzi anecdote might lend credence to Watts' contention that he is personally, constitutionally suited to the role of 'messing with the enemy,' but I've never had a taste for the cruel or the juvenile. Watts' later Cassandra-like litany of all the times he was right, he was ahead of the curve, and he was ignored was absolutely right but unlikely to win him any friends. For all his contempt for government bureaucracies and the vast majority of the people who staff them, perhaps it is only another similarly-ignored bureaucrat who can really feel his pain on that one. Regardless, the litany is again juvenile and detracts from what is otherwise a very serious and thoughtful book with a bibliography well-worth plumbing.
August 1, 2018
"Messing with the Enemy" is one story at the beginning. It was mildly amusing, wish there had been more of it.
The closing arguments in the last chapter are actually rather nice - basically "We need more community, in real life."
Everything in between is basically "I'm kinda like Will Graham from Red Dragon/Hannibal (the series)." but for terrorists. There's an absolute and willfully blind faith in the USA. Everything it does is de-facto in service to freedom, democracy and righteousness. Snowden is a coward and/or a villain, Russia is still the Great Imperial Enemy, the US is incapable of Psy-Ops (nevermind that we jointly invented modern propaganda), and Manning was a well intentioned, but thoroughly wrong, child who was ultimately vindicated (no mention whatever of the conditions of detention, the results of detention, or indeed, the WHY of detention). And the greatest enemy of the US of all? Americans that don't believe what they're told, especially deliberate lies. And his little "Of course I'd capture, torture and kill if ordered - because he's a terrorist. I wouldn't even think about it."
Dude. . . just. . .go fuck yourself. I'd say check up on US history, but I suspect you know, if anything, more about our crimes than I do, with more certainty, and you just support them.
You got one thing absolutely right tho mate, you do indeed have the mind of a terrorist.
The closing arguments in the last chapter are actually rather nice - basically "We need more community, in real life."
Everything in between is basically "I'm kinda like Will Graham from Red Dragon/Hannibal (the series)." but for terrorists. There's an absolute and willfully blind faith in the USA. Everything it does is de-facto in service to freedom, democracy and righteousness. Snowden is a coward and/or a villain, Russia is still the Great Imperial Enemy, the US is incapable of Psy-Ops (nevermind that we jointly invented modern propaganda), and Manning was a well intentioned, but thoroughly wrong, child who was ultimately vindicated (no mention whatever of the conditions of detention, the results of detention, or indeed, the WHY of detention). And the greatest enemy of the US of all? Americans that don't believe what they're told, especially deliberate lies. And his little "Of course I'd capture, torture and kill if ordered - because he's a terrorist. I wouldn't even think about it."
Dude. . . just. . .go fuck yourself. I'd say check up on US history, but I suspect you know, if anything, more about our crimes than I do, with more certainty, and you just support them.
You got one thing absolutely right tho mate, you do indeed have the mind of a terrorist.
August 19, 2018
Interesting Title but with an unexpected twist
This is a very well researched and knowledgeable book on how the USA has been and continues to be victimized by our world's adversaries which is not what the title leads you to think.
We are hamstrung by our own bureaucracies and politicians. This author places a great deal of blame for our failures on the advent of social media in its various platforms but I think he needs to expand his thesis to include cable news which escapes responsibility in this book. Cable news predates Facebook, Twitter, etc., and was the beginning of our political decisiveness. There was a time where political views expressed over network broadcasts where required to offer equal time to opposing views. This author accurately documents today's political divisions and the total absence of accountability due to our social preferences but Fox news escapes mention and avoids liability as do other media outlets such as the print media who now are more interested in political spin than in presenting unbiased and factual news. What is the future of our society when nearly everything we read or see on video has been edited, taken out of context or when outright lies are accepted, reported and go unchallenged.
This is a very well researched and knowledgeable book on how the USA has been and continues to be victimized by our world's adversaries which is not what the title leads you to think.
We are hamstrung by our own bureaucracies and politicians. This author places a great deal of blame for our failures on the advent of social media in its various platforms but I think he needs to expand his thesis to include cable news which escapes responsibility in this book. Cable news predates Facebook, Twitter, etc., and was the beginning of our political decisiveness. There was a time where political views expressed over network broadcasts where required to offer equal time to opposing views. This author accurately documents today's political divisions and the total absence of accountability due to our social preferences but Fox news escapes mention and avoids liability as do other media outlets such as the print media who now are more interested in political spin than in presenting unbiased and factual news. What is the future of our society when nearly everything we read or see on video has been edited, taken out of context or when outright lies are accepted, reported and go unchallenged.
August 26, 2024
The book’s title, Messing with the Enemy, derives from Watt’s using social media as a counterterrorism measure. Watts has spent years “messing” with al-Qaeda, ISIS and other terrorist organizations in his work for the US military (Watts is a West Point graduate) and as a private consultant. Watts gives many examples of how terrorists have used Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and other social media platforms to dramatically expand their propaganda and recruiting efforts. Watts has used these same platforms to mess with terrorists and weaken them. Watts states that the advent of social media was one of two fortuitous events that allowed the advance of global terrorism (the other event being the US “calamitously invading Iraq, fracturing and destabilizing a nation in the heart of the Muslim World”). Watts gives a detailed history of how the use of social media has evolved within terrorist organizations and how it is being used today.
Watts then jumps into Russia’s extensive efforts to use social media to interfere in multiple western democracies, and in particular America. “Active measures” is the tagline for the Russian campaign to defeat the West “through the force of politics, rather than the politics of force.” Putin, utilizing his KGB background, moved from trying to defeat the US from the outside-in towards collapsing the US from the inside-out. Watts states that Vladimir Putin’s propagandists have achieved stunning success in mind manipulation, and that their tactics are being duplicated by authoritarian politicians everywhere “to overwhelm democratic audiences with waves of conflicting information – fake news – designed to manipulate audiences for a hidden puppet master.” Watts goes into significant detail on tactics being utilized, including troll armies consisting of hecklers (who drive wedge issues), honeypots (who try to compromise adversaries) and hackers (who hack to influence, not just to steal). Also significant are bots: artificial accounts that emulate real people and can rapidly spread falsehoods and amplify fake news and misinformation. A common Russian goal is to get people to question everything. “If you can’t trust anyone, then you’ll believe anything.” Making us fearful is another goal, for fear lowers our ability to distinguish fact from fiction. Typically, the intent of Russian activists isn’t to necessary take a side on an issue, but rather to sow discord. Thus, the Russians will take both sides of liberal and conservative issues.
Overt Russian-sponsored state media is known as “white” propaganda. Media established in foreign countries by Russia is known as “gray” propaganda. “Black” propaganda includes covert actions by Russia to plant false stories that appear to come from a local source. Through these colorful efforts, Russians share and recycle conspiracy issues, craft misinformation and redirect attention to mislead Americans and get us fighting with each other
Russia has multiple broad goals from these efforts. One is to shift focus from Russian’s own domestic issues towards Western social problems and the flaws of democracy. Another is to weaken support for the US government and its institutions. Putin is also trying to make Russia more popular within the US. Polls now show that Putin’s favorability rating has increased 166 percent since 2015 amongst Republicans, and 92 percent amongst Independents. Amongst all Americans, Putin’s favorability has double in just two years, even though he has launched the greatest assault against our democracy in history.
Russian strives to identifying individuals who are ripe for influence and manipulation towards Russian goals. Russian strategists call these people “useful idiots” who are typically driven by fame and fortune. Watts describes in detail Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election towards Trump. Trump classically fits the bill as a useful idiot for the Russians. Russian efforts to sway the election focused on “creating and sustaining a narrative of corruption, criminality and conspiracy that clouded the Clinton campaign from start to finish.” Watts states that “the Russians didn’t have to hack the election machines; they hacked American minds.” Watts doesn’t believe that Trump won solely because of the Russians, but that Russian efforts were one of multiple factors leading to a Trump victory, and without the Russians, Trump would not have won. Russia continues their efforts today to divide Americans, engaging in campaigns to pit us against each other. They are doing the same in other Western Democracies, including France, Germany and Britain.
With the rise of social media, more Americans get news from social media than mainstream media. Fake news has exploded. Watts believes social media is tearing the world apart. As social media users, we indicate our preferences, and create what Watts labels “preference bubbles”. We become digital tribes sorting ourselves into our preference groups and making decisions based on group-think. Russia sees this as a “dream come true” in that we voluntarily provide them all the information they need to manipulate us as they work to destroy our democracy.
So, what should one do? Watts stresses the obvious: be very cautious when online. “Treat everything as if the whole world is watching” and thoroughly scrub your online sources to avoid getting trapped into false news.
Reading Watt’s book put a pit in my stomach, seeing how easy it is to manipulate our society. Will Facebook and other social media companies finally step up and invest to counter these attacks? Will our government force them to? Clearly not with the Trump Administration in charge. Hopefully America wakes up to this threat to our democracy.
Watts then jumps into Russia’s extensive efforts to use social media to interfere in multiple western democracies, and in particular America. “Active measures” is the tagline for the Russian campaign to defeat the West “through the force of politics, rather than the politics of force.” Putin, utilizing his KGB background, moved from trying to defeat the US from the outside-in towards collapsing the US from the inside-out. Watts states that Vladimir Putin’s propagandists have achieved stunning success in mind manipulation, and that their tactics are being duplicated by authoritarian politicians everywhere “to overwhelm democratic audiences with waves of conflicting information – fake news – designed to manipulate audiences for a hidden puppet master.” Watts goes into significant detail on tactics being utilized, including troll armies consisting of hecklers (who drive wedge issues), honeypots (who try to compromise adversaries) and hackers (who hack to influence, not just to steal). Also significant are bots: artificial accounts that emulate real people and can rapidly spread falsehoods and amplify fake news and misinformation. A common Russian goal is to get people to question everything. “If you can’t trust anyone, then you’ll believe anything.” Making us fearful is another goal, for fear lowers our ability to distinguish fact from fiction. Typically, the intent of Russian activists isn’t to necessary take a side on an issue, but rather to sow discord. Thus, the Russians will take both sides of liberal and conservative issues.
Overt Russian-sponsored state media is known as “white” propaganda. Media established in foreign countries by Russia is known as “gray” propaganda. “Black” propaganda includes covert actions by Russia to plant false stories that appear to come from a local source. Through these colorful efforts, Russians share and recycle conspiracy issues, craft misinformation and redirect attention to mislead Americans and get us fighting with each other
Russia has multiple broad goals from these efforts. One is to shift focus from Russian’s own domestic issues towards Western social problems and the flaws of democracy. Another is to weaken support for the US government and its institutions. Putin is also trying to make Russia more popular within the US. Polls now show that Putin’s favorability rating has increased 166 percent since 2015 amongst Republicans, and 92 percent amongst Independents. Amongst all Americans, Putin’s favorability has double in just two years, even though he has launched the greatest assault against our democracy in history.
Russian strives to identifying individuals who are ripe for influence and manipulation towards Russian goals. Russian strategists call these people “useful idiots” who are typically driven by fame and fortune. Watts describes in detail Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election towards Trump. Trump classically fits the bill as a useful idiot for the Russians. Russian efforts to sway the election focused on “creating and sustaining a narrative of corruption, criminality and conspiracy that clouded the Clinton campaign from start to finish.” Watts states that “the Russians didn’t have to hack the election machines; they hacked American minds.” Watts doesn’t believe that Trump won solely because of the Russians, but that Russian efforts were one of multiple factors leading to a Trump victory, and without the Russians, Trump would not have won. Russia continues their efforts today to divide Americans, engaging in campaigns to pit us against each other. They are doing the same in other Western Democracies, including France, Germany and Britain.
With the rise of social media, more Americans get news from social media than mainstream media. Fake news has exploded. Watts believes social media is tearing the world apart. As social media users, we indicate our preferences, and create what Watts labels “preference bubbles”. We become digital tribes sorting ourselves into our preference groups and making decisions based on group-think. Russia sees this as a “dream come true” in that we voluntarily provide them all the information they need to manipulate us as they work to destroy our democracy.
So, what should one do? Watts stresses the obvious: be very cautious when online. “Treat everything as if the whole world is watching” and thoroughly scrub your online sources to avoid getting trapped into false news.
Reading Watt’s book put a pit in my stomach, seeing how easy it is to manipulate our society. Will Facebook and other social media companies finally step up and invest to counter these attacks? Will our government force them to? Clearly not with the Trump Administration in charge. Hopefully America wakes up to this threat to our democracy.
May 4, 2018
Imagine if in the title “Russians” was replaced with for example “Africans” or “Arabs”
What a disgusting display of casual racism and xenophobia.
What a disgusting display of casual racism and xenophobia.
April 9, 2020
Sheeeeyit…
:(
:(
August 5, 2023
We’ve been in something like a war since the waning years of the Obama Administration; we just didn’t know it. Clint Watts doesn’t draw this precise conclusion in his excellent account of information psyops in the age of social media, but it seems like a reasonable take to me.
We’re accustomed to thinking of war in terms of tanks and bombers and Minutemen roaring out of Nebraska silos, and by that definition it might be better to classify the past decade as a Warm War — something midway between spycraft and nukes.
But if we stretch Clausewitz’s classic definition of war (“nothing but a continuation of policy with other means”) then I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to classify as war the digital assaults of Russia in cooperation with or parallel to North Korea, Iran, and China: tyranny versus freedom.
From Watts’ vantage point, first as a federal counter-terrorism agent and then as a private vigilante, he charts the inroads authoritarians have carved into the hearts and minds of the world’s democracies, beginning with Islamic terror forums and escalating to the “active measures” of Putin’s troll factories.
Watts’ book deserves a read, even by those whose defenses will go to red alert when he discusses the Russian campaign to distort the 2016 campaign for the American presidency. Society has fractured so thoroughly since then that it’s difficult to have a calm conversation with anyone about it.
Certainly Watts believes Putin tipped the election for Trump: not by anything so gauche as hacking voting machines or embedding Boris Badenov in Trump’s campaign staff, but by flooding the soft targets of Michigan and Wisconsin with social media campaigns savaging Clinton and elevating Trump.
Whether or not you believe Russian trolls changed the course of American history, it’s impossible to doubt they tried. With capitalist democracies leaving dictators in the economic dust, the latter are fighting back the only way they can: asymmetrically, terroristically, aiming for our hearts and minds.
These assaults turn our human desire for connection against us. From within the diversity of the free world, targeted amplification of wedge issues whips the winds of discomfort into a hurricane of fear and hatred; until the only ones we feel we can trust are the people who think, and fear, exactly as we do.
If hackers, terrorists, Russians, and fake news mills can engineer a catastrophic enough loss of faith in the ideas of truth and democracy, then we the people — confused, demoralized, and paranoid — might well turn to our own Putin or Khomeini for comfort and order. If you no longer believe anything, you’ll soon believe anything.
Awareness, then, of the strategies and tactics of the online jackboot brigades is your first defense. For that reason I recommend this book to anyone trying to grapple with the past ten years of chaos. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and that vigilance starts in your very own web browser.
We’re accustomed to thinking of war in terms of tanks and bombers and Minutemen roaring out of Nebraska silos, and by that definition it might be better to classify the past decade as a Warm War — something midway between spycraft and nukes.
But if we stretch Clausewitz’s classic definition of war (“nothing but a continuation of policy with other means”) then I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to classify as war the digital assaults of Russia in cooperation with or parallel to North Korea, Iran, and China: tyranny versus freedom.
From Watts’ vantage point, first as a federal counter-terrorism agent and then as a private vigilante, he charts the inroads authoritarians have carved into the hearts and minds of the world’s democracies, beginning with Islamic terror forums and escalating to the “active measures” of Putin’s troll factories.
Watts’ book deserves a read, even by those whose defenses will go to red alert when he discusses the Russian campaign to distort the 2016 campaign for the American presidency. Society has fractured so thoroughly since then that it’s difficult to have a calm conversation with anyone about it.
Certainly Watts believes Putin tipped the election for Trump: not by anything so gauche as hacking voting machines or embedding Boris Badenov in Trump’s campaign staff, but by flooding the soft targets of Michigan and Wisconsin with social media campaigns savaging Clinton and elevating Trump.
Whether or not you believe Russian trolls changed the course of American history, it’s impossible to doubt they tried. With capitalist democracies leaving dictators in the economic dust, the latter are fighting back the only way they can: asymmetrically, terroristically, aiming for our hearts and minds.
These assaults turn our human desire for connection against us. From within the diversity of the free world, targeted amplification of wedge issues whips the winds of discomfort into a hurricane of fear and hatred; until the only ones we feel we can trust are the people who think, and fear, exactly as we do.
If hackers, terrorists, Russians, and fake news mills can engineer a catastrophic enough loss of faith in the ideas of truth and democracy, then we the people — confused, demoralized, and paranoid — might well turn to our own Putin or Khomeini for comfort and order. If you no longer believe anything, you’ll soon believe anything.
Awareness, then, of the strategies and tactics of the online jackboot brigades is your first defense. For that reason I recommend this book to anyone trying to grapple with the past ten years of chaos. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and that vigilance starts in your very own web browser.
January 15, 2019
Counterterrorism expert Watts presents a chilling account of the disinformation campaign being waged against the U.S. on social media by Russia and other geopolitical players. Such "active measures" resulted in Donald Trump's rise to the presidency.
Watts expertise shines through. He has been a US Army infantry officer, an FBI Special Agent, and a counter-terrorism consultant for the FBI's Counter Terrorism Division and National Security Branch. He knows how the U.S. government works, and he recognizes its bureaucratic inefficiencies and the disadvantages it faces against its autocratic adversaries.
Messing with the Enemy summarizes several important fake news stories of 2015-2016 that proved extremely successful in Russia's information war: the Incirlik incident in Turkey, the Jade Helm 15 exercise, and the Seth Rich murder. Trolls created these fake news stories—outright conspiracy theories—and social networks and news outlets amplified the stories nationwide, making it difficult for ordinary people to understand the truth. These efforts proved how easy it was to influence segments of the American public with social media.
Russia was just warming up. Trolls used these same techniques to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign and help the Trump and Stein campaigns. On Facebook alone, Russian-backed accounts posted more than 80,000 pieces of content and may have reached up to 126 million users. Watts writes, "The Russians didn’t have to hack election machines; they hacked American minds."
According to Watts, troll armies consist of three types of accounts: hecklers, honeypots, and hackers. Hecklers drive wedge issues into their target audience. Honeypots compromise adversaries by installing malware on their devices. Hackers work with honeypots to hack into phones and computers, using contact lists for spam distribution.
Watts suggests that U.S. government agencies should anticipate rather than react to kompromat. However, Watts concludes that America’s problem in counterinfluence is that we don’t know what to say, because we don’t know what we believe in anymore. Maybe we all need to enroll in a basic Civics class.
You've probably seen Watts numerous times over the last two years. He's testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, published several op-eds, and been a regular contributor on MSNBC. His recommendations to counter foreign disinformation campaigns are simple, but of course they are not being implemented by the current administration.
Social media subtly creates large-scale confirmation bias, and users tend to choose information they like, even if it's untrue or even fake. Watts shares a touching personal story about how such bias led him to temporarily believe an anti-vaccination story. Watts offers practical advice for how we can personally deal with "preference bubbles," fake news, and disinformation on social networks: form real relationships by actively participating in your community. That's ultimately how you defeat online troll armies. Get real.
Watts expertise shines through. He has been a US Army infantry officer, an FBI Special Agent, and a counter-terrorism consultant for the FBI's Counter Terrorism Division and National Security Branch. He knows how the U.S. government works, and he recognizes its bureaucratic inefficiencies and the disadvantages it faces against its autocratic adversaries.
Messing with the Enemy summarizes several important fake news stories of 2015-2016 that proved extremely successful in Russia's information war: the Incirlik incident in Turkey, the Jade Helm 15 exercise, and the Seth Rich murder. Trolls created these fake news stories—outright conspiracy theories—and social networks and news outlets amplified the stories nationwide, making it difficult for ordinary people to understand the truth. These efforts proved how easy it was to influence segments of the American public with social media.
Russia was just warming up. Trolls used these same techniques to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign and help the Trump and Stein campaigns. On Facebook alone, Russian-backed accounts posted more than 80,000 pieces of content and may have reached up to 126 million users. Watts writes, "The Russians didn’t have to hack election machines; they hacked American minds."
According to Watts, troll armies consist of three types of accounts: hecklers, honeypots, and hackers. Hecklers drive wedge issues into their target audience. Honeypots compromise adversaries by installing malware on their devices. Hackers work with honeypots to hack into phones and computers, using contact lists for spam distribution.
Watts suggests that U.S. government agencies should anticipate rather than react to kompromat. However, Watts concludes that America’s problem in counterinfluence is that we don’t know what to say, because we don’t know what we believe in anymore. Maybe we all need to enroll in a basic Civics class.
You've probably seen Watts numerous times over the last two years. He's testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, published several op-eds, and been a regular contributor on MSNBC. His recommendations to counter foreign disinformation campaigns are simple, but of course they are not being implemented by the current administration.
Social media subtly creates large-scale confirmation bias, and users tend to choose information they like, even if it's untrue or even fake. Watts shares a touching personal story about how such bias led him to temporarily believe an anti-vaccination story. Watts offers practical advice for how we can personally deal with "preference bubbles," fake news, and disinformation on social networks: form real relationships by actively participating in your community. That's ultimately how you defeat online troll armies. Get real.
February 15, 2019
Clint Watts is not a super great researcher I would say. He's also not a technologist. BUT he uses his military background to provide a compelling social commentary on how terrorists and authoritarians weaponize American platforms against American interests. There's a lot of memoir in this book, which made it a much more enjoyable read for me but also distracts from big gaps in the research aspect of it.
Still... I found the stories about how Watts became a celebrity among jihadists charming. He also does a great deal to humanize them-- which might seem like a strange thing to praise an American writer for but is necessary if one wants to understand how terrorist networks self organize. Americans like to think of organizations like ISIS as a cohesive evil force. Taking a closer look at the internal politics, the rise and fall of certain "influencers" and how our ability to see the organization is dependent on our ability to match it to a specific narrative, creates a less scary and more nuanced understanding of what these people want.
When it comes to solutions, however, Watts has none. I was relieved to find that he only devoted a few paragraphs to this stupid idea he keeps pushing of a Consumer Reports for news media. UGH-- no one will build this thing Clint because it is dumb. People who actually work in technology have tried these types of fixes before and it almost always descends into a pointless game of Whack-a-mole. When the cost of standing up a blog that you can pass off as a "news site" is next to nothing and the cost to evaluating and rating the news site is high there's no way this works. To say nothing of the many ways malicious actors could damage or steal the good ratings of "credible" news sources (lookalike domains, spoofing attacks or manipulating the incentive structure that governs all journalists... someone should send Watts a copy of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator)
There is one possible solution that comes from Watts's own work that he never pays much attention to: tell people which stories in their social media feeds are being promoted by bot networks affiliated with bad actors. This is what Watt's Hamilton 68 project does and it would be great to see it evolve into a Chrome extension or something similar. If people could see which content was being promoted by bad actors they might stop and ask themselves "Why?" before they had time to consider anything else about it. After all, Russia is not just using fake news in their active measures. They are also boosting legitimate news stories in order to escalate conflict.
Still... I found the stories about how Watts became a celebrity among jihadists charming. He also does a great deal to humanize them-- which might seem like a strange thing to praise an American writer for but is necessary if one wants to understand how terrorist networks self organize. Americans like to think of organizations like ISIS as a cohesive evil force. Taking a closer look at the internal politics, the rise and fall of certain "influencers" and how our ability to see the organization is dependent on our ability to match it to a specific narrative, creates a less scary and more nuanced understanding of what these people want.
When it comes to solutions, however, Watts has none. I was relieved to find that he only devoted a few paragraphs to this stupid idea he keeps pushing of a Consumer Reports for news media. UGH-- no one will build this thing Clint because it is dumb. People who actually work in technology have tried these types of fixes before and it almost always descends into a pointless game of Whack-a-mole. When the cost of standing up a blog that you can pass off as a "news site" is next to nothing and the cost to evaluating and rating the news site is high there's no way this works. To say nothing of the many ways malicious actors could damage or steal the good ratings of "credible" news sources (lookalike domains, spoofing attacks or manipulating the incentive structure that governs all journalists... someone should send Watts a copy of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator)
There is one possible solution that comes from Watts's own work that he never pays much attention to: tell people which stories in their social media feeds are being promoted by bot networks affiliated with bad actors. This is what Watt's Hamilton 68 project does and it would be great to see it evolve into a Chrome extension or something similar. If people could see which content was being promoted by bad actors they might stop and ask themselves "Why?" before they had time to consider anything else about it. After all, Russia is not just using fake news in their active measures. They are also boosting legitimate news stories in order to escalate conflict.
June 25, 2018
Having seen former FBI analyst Clint Watts a number of times on MSNBC as a commentator, and liked his forthrightness, I was interested to see what he had to say in his book. He writes well & that came in handy a number of times because the book contains a lot of technical jargon. But he spells out definitions & uses helpful acronyms.
Overall, he shows how the internet & its evolving tools have been valuable, especially in dealing with terrorism. Having worked within the government, he makes it clear that it's a whole lot easier to do work outside the bureaucracy than within it. He has a fascinating background & certainly the creds to demonstrate that he knows what he's talking about.
Watts shows the effects, good & (mostly) not-so-good, of social media today. He particularly uses two examples: the rise of ISIS & the election & aftermath of the "useful idiot" (his term, not mine) who currently occupies the White House. Frankly, it appears that the U.S. is at this moment in deep doo-doo, though Watts suggests ways in which each of us could work to turn that around.
A few pithy quotes:
"Ultimately, America's problem in counterinfluence [vs. authoritarians of any ilk, esp. Russia] is that we don't know what to say, because we don't know what we believe in."
"...it won't be the Russians who come to dismantle our collective psyche; it will be Americans willfully doing it to one another in pursuit of their own personal gain."
"Clickbait populism -- the promotion of popular content, opinions, and the personas that voice them -- now sets the agenda...Clickbait populism drives another critical emerging current: social media nationalism...This social media nationalism provides its virtual citizens with shelter from reality and replaces real-world compromise with the collective virtual pursuit of shared preferences...[These] have led to a third phenomenon:...the death of expertise...social media users...have selectively chosen information and expertise they like over that which is true or even real..."
"...we must remember that people still have a choice. The backbone of preference bubbles, social media nations, and global commerce is ultimately trust...The erosion of trust in social media may lead the less educated to rely more heavily on their preference bubbles, and the more educated to become apathetic and disengaged from democracy..."
"American democracy, a highly imperfect system, remains the best chance for citizens to thrive and strive, and I will continue to support and pursue its best interests, in both the physical and virtual worlds."
Overall, he shows how the internet & its evolving tools have been valuable, especially in dealing with terrorism. Having worked within the government, he makes it clear that it's a whole lot easier to do work outside the bureaucracy than within it. He has a fascinating background & certainly the creds to demonstrate that he knows what he's talking about.
Watts shows the effects, good & (mostly) not-so-good, of social media today. He particularly uses two examples: the rise of ISIS & the election & aftermath of the "useful idiot" (his term, not mine) who currently occupies the White House. Frankly, it appears that the U.S. is at this moment in deep doo-doo, though Watts suggests ways in which each of us could work to turn that around.
A few pithy quotes:
"Ultimately, America's problem in counterinfluence [vs. authoritarians of any ilk, esp. Russia] is that we don't know what to say, because we don't know what we believe in."
"...it won't be the Russians who come to dismantle our collective psyche; it will be Americans willfully doing it to one another in pursuit of their own personal gain."
"Clickbait populism -- the promotion of popular content, opinions, and the personas that voice them -- now sets the agenda...Clickbait populism drives another critical emerging current: social media nationalism...This social media nationalism provides its virtual citizens with shelter from reality and replaces real-world compromise with the collective virtual pursuit of shared preferences...[These] have led to a third phenomenon:...the death of expertise...social media users...have selectively chosen information and expertise they like over that which is true or even real..."
"...we must remember that people still have a choice. The backbone of preference bubbles, social media nations, and global commerce is ultimately trust...The erosion of trust in social media may lead the less educated to rely more heavily on their preference bubbles, and the more educated to become apathetic and disengaged from democracy..."
"American democracy, a highly imperfect system, remains the best chance for citizens to thrive and strive, and I will continue to support and pursue its best interests, in both the physical and virtual worlds."
June 27, 2018
goodreads is about the deepest extent to which my 'social media' footprint goes, so there was a 'told-ya-so' aspect to picking up this book. However, what were once just sad small anecdotes about the drama and danger of Facebook etc, has for me become a question of just how we all got so divided so quickly; there are bright shining clues in this book.
Clint Watts has a dense, sometimes jumbled writing style, and was not compelling enough as a character for me to enjoy some of his self-congratulations. Fortunately, he is generous in quoting other books ( from de Tocqueville Democracy in America to The Long Tail and Machine, Platform, Crowd) for insight as to how we got here. I take it to come from one word: preference. Watts writes:
"Unbridled preference, when accumulated on a global scale, has torn the fabric of societies, crippled democratic institutions, and polarized audiences ...turned smart crowds into dumb mobs, preferred fictions over actual facts...an environment where humans have access to more information than ever but actually understand less about the physical world."
A quote from The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols adds to the looking-glass aspect of our divided self-delusion:
"...any assertion of expertise produces an explosion of anger from certain quarters of the American public, who immediately complain that such claims are nothing more than fallacious 'appeals to authority,' sure signs of dreadful 'elitism,' and an obvious effort to use credential to stifle dialogue."
It is indeed too easy for any of us to, as Watts says, '...with a few clicks.. and a Google search or two, (think we are) as smart as a medical doctor, a dietitian, or (our) elected leaders.'
Ultimately, there is no simple, definitive 'surviving' strategy laid out by Watts, though knowledge of the dangers is a start. Russian use of confusion and disinformation, division and relentless obfuscation, is perhaps little different than advertising snake oil was 100 years ago, cigarettes 30 years ago, Enron stock 10 years ago. Caveat emptor, and we are all buyers.
Clint Watts has a dense, sometimes jumbled writing style, and was not compelling enough as a character for me to enjoy some of his self-congratulations. Fortunately, he is generous in quoting other books ( from de Tocqueville Democracy in America to The Long Tail and Machine, Platform, Crowd) for insight as to how we got here. I take it to come from one word: preference. Watts writes:
"Unbridled preference, when accumulated on a global scale, has torn the fabric of societies, crippled democratic institutions, and polarized audiences ...turned smart crowds into dumb mobs, preferred fictions over actual facts...an environment where humans have access to more information than ever but actually understand less about the physical world."
A quote from The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols adds to the looking-glass aspect of our divided self-delusion:
"...any assertion of expertise produces an explosion of anger from certain quarters of the American public, who immediately complain that such claims are nothing more than fallacious 'appeals to authority,' sure signs of dreadful 'elitism,' and an obvious effort to use credential to stifle dialogue."
It is indeed too easy for any of us to, as Watts says, '...with a few clicks.. and a Google search or two, (think we are) as smart as a medical doctor, a dietitian, or (our) elected leaders.'
Ultimately, there is no simple, definitive 'surviving' strategy laid out by Watts, though knowledge of the dangers is a start. Russian use of confusion and disinformation, division and relentless obfuscation, is perhaps little different than advertising snake oil was 100 years ago, cigarettes 30 years ago, Enron stock 10 years ago. Caveat emptor, and we are all buyers.
May 10, 2019
“Social media nationalism and clickbait populism have led to a third phenomenon that undermines the intelligence of crowds, threatening the advancement of humanity and the unity of democracies: the death of expertise. As the barriers to internet access got lower and lower, anyone, regardless of education, training, or status, could explore information and voice their opinion in debate. This would seem, on the surface, to be good for democracies, as increased information, awareness, and voice would seem to encourage more civic engagement and debate and better collective outcomes. Instead, social media users, in their relentless pursuit of preferences, have selectively chosen information and expertise they like over that which is true or even real. Social media users participating in the crowd have chosen to be happier and dumber by not just challenging McAfee and Brynjolfsson’s core but also by seeking to destroy it.”
This was a good book that would alternate back and forth a little between a boring chapter and an intriguing one. My favorites were when Watts was taking down the bureaucracy and everything that's wrong with our intelligence apparatus. I highly recommend this book for everyone who has ever worked for, with, or in intelligence.
“America sucks at information warfare, absolutely sucks. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Democracies are marketplaces of ideas. We stand for freedom, liberty, human rights, and peaceful protest, so stopping one thing, like the violent views of terrorists or nefarious Russian influence of homegrown Americans, gets quite tricky. American values and those of other Western democracies are their greatest strength when shared and promoted—and a major vulnerability in the eyes of those who seek to exploit them. Suppressing ideas undermines American values. And so countering bad ideas, like those that fuel terrorism or authoritarianism, proves vexing, as we tend to believe that the remedy to be applied is more speech, even though we are not entirely sure what to say, how to say it, or who should say it.”
This was a good book that would alternate back and forth a little between a boring chapter and an intriguing one. My favorites were when Watts was taking down the bureaucracy and everything that's wrong with our intelligence apparatus. I highly recommend this book for everyone who has ever worked for, with, or in intelligence.
“America sucks at information warfare, absolutely sucks. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Democracies are marketplaces of ideas. We stand for freedom, liberty, human rights, and peaceful protest, so stopping one thing, like the violent views of terrorists or nefarious Russian influence of homegrown Americans, gets quite tricky. American values and those of other Western democracies are their greatest strength when shared and promoted—and a major vulnerability in the eyes of those who seek to exploit them. Suppressing ideas undermines American values. And so countering bad ideas, like those that fuel terrorism or authoritarianism, proves vexing, as we tend to believe that the remedy to be applied is more speech, even though we are not entirely sure what to say, how to say it, or who should say it.”
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