EmptyTimCup
08-07-2012, 06:04 PM
Recent Media Hackings, Twitter Breaches Highlight the Age of Information Warfare (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/08/06/Recent-Media-Hackings-Twitter-Breaches-Highlight-the-Age-of-Information-Warfare)
The mainstream media have increasingly fallen victim to pranks and hackings over the last several months. The outcome has been a general readership that has repeatedly believed false statements presented by imposters as truth. The incidents pose some disturbing and problematic issues. We live in a day and age where social media has become a primary vehicle for disseminating information, and Twitter specifically has become, for many, a first stop for news. At the same time, it’s a highly politically charged environment today, where online activism is at an all-time high. Certain factions of groups like Wikileaks and Anonymous have branched out to function more like political operatives in a left-hacker alliance, whereby some even acknowledge participation in “a low-impact sort of civil war.”
Propaganda and disinformation has not only impacted the personal lives of many activists, but it has now become an undeniable component of our country’s consumption of news and current events. The line between reality and fiction grows blurrier by the week. And that represents an encroaching danger in the cyber-world, where information warfare is now a constant in the political landscape.
The most recent example occurred this past Friday, when supporters of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad targeted the Reuters news agency.
Thomson Reuters said the blogging platform of the Reuters News website was compromised on Friday and a false posting purporting to carry an interview with a Syrian rebel leader was illegally posted on a Reuters' journalist's blog.
"Reuters.com was a target of a hack on Friday," the company said in a statement. "Our blogging platform was compromised and fabricated blog posts were falsely attributed to several Reuters journalists."
One of the false posts purported to be an interview with Riad al-Asaad, the head of the Free Syrian Army.
"Reuters did not carry out such an interview and the posting has been deleted," the Reuters statement said.
The mainstream media have increasingly fallen victim to pranks and hackings over the last several months. The outcome has been a general readership that has repeatedly believed false statements presented by imposters as truth. The incidents pose some disturbing and problematic issues. We live in a day and age where social media has become a primary vehicle for disseminating information, and Twitter specifically has become, for many, a first stop for news. At the same time, it’s a highly politically charged environment today, where online activism is at an all-time high. Certain factions of groups like Wikileaks and Anonymous have branched out to function more like political operatives in a left-hacker alliance, whereby some even acknowledge participation in “a low-impact sort of civil war.”
Propaganda and disinformation has not only impacted the personal lives of many activists, but it has now become an undeniable component of our country’s consumption of news and current events. The line between reality and fiction grows blurrier by the week. And that represents an encroaching danger in the cyber-world, where information warfare is now a constant in the political landscape.
The most recent example occurred this past Friday, when supporters of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad targeted the Reuters news agency.
Thomson Reuters said the blogging platform of the Reuters News website was compromised on Friday and a false posting purporting to carry an interview with a Syrian rebel leader was illegally posted on a Reuters' journalist's blog.
"Reuters.com was a target of a hack on Friday," the company said in a statement. "Our blogging platform was compromised and fabricated blog posts were falsely attributed to several Reuters journalists."
One of the false posts purported to be an interview with Riad al-Asaad, the head of the Free Syrian Army.
"Reuters did not carry out such an interview and the posting has been deleted," the Reuters statement said.