Latest from Alicia Wanless
Opinion
Cambridge Analytica has blurred the line between persuasion and manipulation
For some, the difference between persuasion and manipulation lies in outcome. A person is manipulated if he or she feels shortchanged, whereas persuasion suggests a mutually beneficial resolution. Who decides and determines this, though? And what if the target audience has no idea such efforts are taking place?
Opinion
Yes, Canada is vulnerable to information cyber attacks
The danger here isn't just of foreign adversaries plying us with fake news, but also of our own smug sense of superiority that what happened down south can't happen here.
Opinion
We keep looking to tech giants to solve our propaganda problems. We're looking in the wrong place
Google, Twitter and Facebook are all businesses earning billions of dollars in revenue. And while millions of users access these platforms for free, these internet companies aren't public services in the sense that they are beholden to citizens to act in their favour
Opinion
As Canadian troops arrive in Latvia, the battle for support lands at home
The real power in modern information warfare is what I call "participatory propaganda," in which a propagandist seeks to influence unsuspecting people in order to get them to actively start spreading a certain message. We might start seeing that in Russian propaganda efforts to delegitimize the mission in the eyes of Canadians.