The smartphone as a battlefield

Andrea Canton

Dancing on TikTok, taking selfies on Instagram, and posting on Facebook. The smartphone in our pocket is one of the many fronts on which the “Third World War is being fought in pieces”, as Pope Francis said. This is not a war of drones and bombs; rather, it is a cognitive war that global powers are waging against other countries to undermine trust in institutions and society as a whole. This represents the ultimate betrayal of the internet’s creators’ utopian ideals because the internet, which was once intended to promote freedom and information, has now become a source of propaganda, with its algorithms and echo chambers. While the main social media platforms are banned in China and Russia, in the West the aim is to muddy the waters. When everything seems fake and ‘no one can be trusted’, society becomes more fragile, divided, and susceptible to manipulation... (continue)

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