Peter Pomerantsev - This Is Not Propaganda (Faber & Faber, 2019) ****

Peter Pomerantsev is the son of Russian dissidents who fled the Soviet Union and who later worked for the British intelligence service and radio. He is himself a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics and an expert in social media manipulation for political purposes.

In this astonishing book, he shows how both democratic and dictatorial forces use social media to wage their wars. He travels around the world to talk to people who have actually used these covert techniques, and who are surprisingly proud of what they are able to achieve, even if it is mass-scale deception. Russia is quite prominent, but also the Balkans, the Philippines under Duterte, North Korea and Latin America. He equally travels through time, recounting comparable stories of oppression that his parents suffered in the Soviet Union.

For anyone who believes in democracy and the power of freedom, the facts described by Pomerantsev are shocking and highly disturbing. It is a part of society that remains unchallenged by politicians because they can benefit from it, regardless of which side they're on.

A book like this one should be re-written as educational material for everyone. Its current form is highly convincing for educated readers, but the people who should understand the reality of what's happening in media warfare do not usually read books.