Winning the information war: Back to the core values

Nine things we should re-consider before we lose.

I don’t know exactly, how in detail our configuration of information defence strategy should look like, but I offer you some pre-conditional thoughts :

1. If we can legally define physical aggression and cyber aggression, we can also define cognitive aggression in the information space as well.

2. The information environment is a public good. We can’t protect its quality from an attack if we leave it in the private black-box mode.

3. Because most of our lives ( the executive, administrative, and financial decisions) will proceed online in the post-Covid era, we need to move basic constitutional metrics into this environment. The online environment must allow the same performance of power control and human rights protection , including the distribution of information, as the offline environment.

4. Distribution and redistribution of information plus the sculpting of a private “information-behavioural mix” is not a private domain, but a matter of public interest. Therefore, the state and public institutions cannot be left out of creating or controlling algorithms for these distributions. It is unacceptable that advertising shapes the “composition and quality of civic information” in the online world instead of the constitution.

5. An algorithm optimizing for private profit does not fall into the notion of public interest.

6. Oligopolies (now the information ones) fundamentally violate the principles of modern capitalism and democracy.

7. Armies and intel must be given a chance to defend their citizens where they are threatened – that is, in the information environment.

9. The information environment is not considered an exclusive private property and is not covered by special rights if this private property becomes an open market of ongoing strategic weapons trade.

And last but not least:

9. Personal data ( health, mental health and financial health) shall not be traded freely, because in fact, they represent a strategic successor of the enriched uranium.