When P.W. Singer set out to write a book about military use of social media in 2013, he couldn’t have known exactly what kind of rabbit hole he was entering.
The half-decade that followed would see social media power the rise of the Islamic State, elevate white nationalist movements and serve as a tool for a foreign actor seeking to undermine an American presidential election. In LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, Singer and co-author Emerson Brooking fit phenomena like these into a broader narrative about the fast-evolving nexus of propaganda, digital marketing and psychological warfare.
