Russia Is Hacking Your News Feed

Now that most of our information -- and the information that news organizations use as raw material -- is delivered by technology platforms such as social networks, what we know about the world is potentially hackable. Propagandists no longer have to convince professional news organizations to spread their stories; they just have to embed them into social media news feeds. Employees of the Russian propaganda machine, in particular, seem to be focused on finding ways to game the modern news delivery system. And though their techniques aren't yet perfect, they're making significant progress.

In a recent post on Medium.com, John Borthwick and Gilad Lotan of Betaworks, the New York City-based startup studio, detailed two cases in which hackers -- apparently originating from Russia in both instances -- attempted to mess with the flow of news in the West. One of the two operations succeeded and the other failed.