{"id":21389,"date":"2020-07-18T05:45:32","date_gmt":"2020-07-18T05:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=21389"},"modified":"2020-07-24T13:53:54","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T13:53:54","slug":"twitter-hack-exposes-broader-threat-to-democracy-and-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/twitter-hack-exposes-broader-threat-to-democracy-and-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter hack exposes broader threat to democracy and society"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laura DeNardis<\/a>, American University School of Communication<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In case 2020 wasn\u2019t dystopian enough, hackers on July 15 hijacked the Twitter accounts<\/a> of former President Barack Obama, presidential hopeful Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian and Apple, among others. Each hijacked account posted a similar fake message. The high-profile individual or company wanted to philanthropically give back to the community during COVID-19 and would double any donations made to a bitcoin wallet, identical messages said. The donations followed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The hack on the surface may appear to be a run-of-the-mill financial scam. But the breach has chilling implications for democracy.<\/p>\n

Serious political implications<\/h2>\n

As a scholar of internet governance and infrastructure, I see the underlying cybercrimes of this incident, such as hacking accounts and financial fraud, as far less concerning than the society-wide political implications. Social media \u2013 and Twitter in particular \u2013 is now the public sphere. Using a hijacked account, it would be simple to wreak economic damage, start a national security crisis or create a social panic.<\/p>\n

Consider some of the potential threats to society posed by the takeover of technology infrastructure.<\/p>\n