Fake News and its Place in Hybrid Warfare

Abstract

Clarifying the terminology of fake news is important to distinguish it from other forms of deception. But where is its place in hybrid warfare? In my publication, I give domestic, Hungarian, international and US-China examples of this. It is also important to discuss what kind of resilience, i.e. defensive solutions, are possible against fake news and what responsibility the individual actors, i.e. players, have in this. In the social media space, the spread of the message and narrative is amplified by a network of embedded pseudo-profiles on high-reach ‘bots’, so that the platform’s algorithm recognises it as a hot topic and amplifies its spread even further. In other words, a hotbed of information operations and cyber warfare. Thus, a significant part of fake news can be traced back to a competition between interest group narratives based on pseudo-scientific material and misleading news. This creates opinion bubbles, which are fuelled by social platforms, because they feed personal convictions and, through them, the formation of camps of people with the same narrative, where almost everyone speaks for their own camp, specifically appealing to feelings, whether political, national or religious. I am looking at fake news and online deception as tools of hybrid warfare, and of influence and deception.