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Europe must stand strong against disinformation and psychological warefare (lemmy.zip)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by BoycottTwitter@lemmy.zip to c/europe@feddit.org
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I believe the world is facing a new threat: disinformation and cognitive and psychological warefare. Russia is already doing it. They call it "new generation warfare".

The article describes it best:

"the Russian view of modern warfare is based on the idea that the main battlespace is the mind and, as a result, new-generation wars are to be dominated by information and psychological warfare, ... morally and psychologically depressing the enemy’s armed forces personnel and civil population. The main objective is to reduce the necessity for deploying hard military power to the minimum necessary."

Now Europe is facing another threat. The United States.

The NSS says "Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations".

I don't know for sure how they will do it but I suspect it could be similar to what Russia does. Things like online trolls and bots brainwashing vulnerable people.

So I'm calling for action: please contact your politicians and warn them about this and warn everyone you can. Demand media literacy education and classes designed to foster critical thinking skills, mitigate the harm caused by social media, encourage emotional resiliency and strength, encourage conflict resolution skills. I singled these out because I notice that those who are weak in these skills are more vulnerable. This is by no means a silver bullet but I hope that experts can also look into how to deal with psychological warfare and by making it an issue more people are aware of hopefully we can do everything we can to stop it.

Also you can make a difference yourself. Block and report trolls and people who regularly share disinformation on social media, call out those who unintentionally shared disinformation. Ideally trolls would be blocked shunned as opposed to people being drained/tricked by them. Also do what you can to give the gift of media literacy to others. This website has three different tests you can try for disinformation: https://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/c.php?g=1241077&p=9082320

I would also recommend reading this article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_warfare

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[–] HowRu68@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yes , Göbbels did use the TV- then a new tech- as a medium for propaganda. Disinfo is of all ages btw. Propaganda in Europe was after WW II a long time (political) taboo, but USA embraced it.