Corey Brickley
AT FIRST glance, you might think you were in the office of a technology start-up. People peer at computers and talk about influencers, reach and hashtags. Like their peers in Silicon Valley, these men and women know how the internet can be used to change hearts and minds. But this is a world away from the primary-colour campuses of the tech giants. These offices lie behind barbed wire, and everyone is wearing the green patterned camouflage of the British Army.
The 77th Brigade is the British Army’s unit for what it calls “information manoeuvre” and what everyone else calls information warfare: using print and online media to change the behaviour of hostile parties and prevent them causing problems at home. When I visited, just over two years ago, everything was in motion. Flooring was being laid, units installed. Desks formed neat lines in offices still covered in plastic, tape and sawdust. Even then, there was a sense that they were already too late.
Today, they face new kinds of conflict that are breaking out online, leading to mass deception, protests and even deaths. Our information flow is being invaded. Attention is being hacked. The hostile manipulation of information has even been blamed for rigging elections, the Brexit vote and paving the road for Donald Trump.
Whether real or imagined, the fear of such activity is changing our world. Amid all the intrigue and shadows, you have become the front line. Your opinions, your values, what you hold to be true, even the way you feel, are all under siege. And it isn’t clear what anyone can do to stop…
