In the eyes of many observers, Elon Musk's theatrical release of internal documents revealed nothing more than the banal details of responsible professionals dealing with content-moderation challenges in extraordinary circumstances. From that perspective, the online uproar that followed their release is mystifying. Why would it trigger calls for nullifying the Constitution or claims that it is one of the biggest stories in the history of media? For those left scratching their heads, "The Citizen's Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare" a new book co-authored by Donald Trump's former national security advisor, Mike Flynn, offers a distillation of the worldview driving the most extreme responses. Flynn's book offers a particular lens on the fight over control of digital platforms— a conspiratorial view in which decisions about the flow of information on social media sites are central to a bitter, existential struggle against global tyranny. A former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn participated in Trump's failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election, endorsing the invocation of martial law. His book is a modern spin on fears about a one-world government fomenting a Communist revolution — differing little at heart from the worldview documented by historian Richard Hofstadter in "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" more than a half-century ago. What's new is the focus on social media platforms and the integration of "5G Warfare," a hazily defined term that has gained currency among military theorists to describe contemporary conflicts in which tactics like lawfare, social media influence operations and cyberattacks play a more prominent role than bullets and bombs. Flynn argues that social media platforms aren't just entertainment, or ways to connect people, but powerful weapons that are being used against the public by state and non-state actors alike. "For the first time in history, there is a global PSYOP agenda to consolidate power using digital platforms to affect everyone on macro and micro levels," the book contends, "As it happens, everyone is addicted to digital dopamine, and their next fix is just a click away." The idea that contemporary conflicts have taken on a form that can be described as "fifth-generation warfare" is a serious, though controversial, idea in military theory. Flynn, along with a significant number of like-minded Americans, have imported the concept to the domestic sphere, shifting the focus away from overseas actors like Russia and China, and instead setting their sights on perceived adversaries in Silicon Valley and Washington. The book encourages Americans to view themselves as embroiled in a largely domestic fifth generation warfare-type conflict with what it calls "the Uniparty," a term famously employed by Steve Bannon, which more or less means the West's center-left establishment. It also draws implicit comparisons between Nazi book-burning campaigns and online censorship. Within this framework, Twitter's policing of content and users takes on a more sinister cast. When the Twitter Files details contacts between the FBI and social media platforms in the run-up to the 2020 election, for instance, you could see it as normal caution about disinformation threats. From the perspective of Flynn and his fellow travelers, it looks like something far worse: evidence of collusion between government and industry to manipulate American citizens. This all might sound farfetched to readers with a mostly mainstream media diet. But there are parts where Flynn's argument converges more neatly with conventional American policy thinking, such as its distrust of foreign tech platforms. "We are Nero, and the fiddle is the latest twerk video on TikTok," Flynn writes. Yesterday, the Senate unanimously voted to ban the Chinese app from government devices, and earlier this week, Marco Rubio and House members from both parties introduced legislation to ban it from the U.S. entirely. Both the book and the fallout from the Twitter Files both suggest that savage fights over the direction of social media platforms are not cooling down. For those worried that these conflicts could spin further out of control, the book offers at least one piece of advice that all parts of the political spectrum might be able to get behind: Unplug. "Go hang out with your friends and family," it advises, "and purposely do the same with new people you meet."
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