The Atlantic

The Battle for American Minds

Russia’s 2016 election interference was only the beginning. New tactics and deep fakes are probably coming soon.
Source: Joshua Roberts / Reuters

Congress’s annual worldwide-threat hearings are usually scary affairs, during which intelligence-agency leaders run down all the dangers confronting the United States. This year’s January assessment was especially worrisome, because the minds of American citizens were listed as key battlegrounds for geopolitical conflict for the first time. “China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea increasingly use cyber operations to threaten both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. Coats went on to suggest that Russia’s 2016 election interference is only the beginning,

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