The WDBJ Shootings:

Welcome to the Future of Information Operations

Around 6:45 am 26 August, on what was an otherwise fairly quiet newsday, a disgruntled former employee of a Virginia television station — WDBJ — shot and killed two of his former colleagues on live television and then briefly posted his own footage of the killing while he live-tweeted his grievances while police searched for him. It provoked the usual discussions about gun control, mental health screening and treatment, and race. Network news reports, Twitter feeds, and Facebook posts mentioned it in the same breath and context as Columbine, Sandyhook, and Charleston. In short, most commentators are viewing this terrible crime through the same lens as other recent terrible crimes in America.

But even more troubling than this act’s links to past events is what it shows about the future, and that future is a very grim place indeed. Ironically, it will likely be a gay minority that will provide the future blueprint for ISIS, Lashkar-e-Tabia and other radical terror organizations’ lone-wolf attacks. Propelled by the visceral nature of murder on live television, the WDBJ killer’s method, grievances, and video reached an audience he could never have hoped to otherwise — all in real time. There were almost 500,000 tweets about the shooting less than 12 hours after the fact, and that’s only the ones using #Virginia and #WDBJ.

The use of media in the service of radical organizations is not new. Che outlined the use of media in Guerilla Warfare and Robert Tabor covered Castro’s skillful use of information operations in The War of the Flea. The exploits of the Red Army Faction captured the attention of West Germany and the entire world during the 1970s as they hijacked airliners and expressed solidarity with other groups like Black September. September 11th happened live. A decade ago, during my first tour in Iraq, insurgent attackers filmed their attacks which wound up on special purpose jihadi websites, Middle Eastern news outlets, and later in the US at destinations like EBaum’s World. Since the dawn of YouTube, violent propaganda videos filmed everywhere from Iraq to Chechnya to Syria have been just a click away. Since its inception, Twitter has fought a constant — and ultimately unsuccessful — battle to keep its feeds clear of jihadi recruiters, propagandists and apologists.

So what is new about the WDBJ attack? What separates it from Che’s use of radio and newspapers, Black September’s use of television at the’72 Munich Olympics, Al Qaeda’s use of You Tube, or ISIS’ use of Twitter? What makes the onscreen murder of two local newscasters in a small town in Virginia any more influential over the long term than countless Hezbollah IED videos or Al Nusra attacks?

Immediacy.

What happened after the WDBJ attack on the killer’s Facebook and Twitter accounts was akin to having had the September 11th hijackers shoot cellphone video from the cockpit, Twin Towers looming through the windscreen. For those horrified by the gunman’s actions, the deliberate nature of the killing from the killer’s perspective contrasted with the sheer terror of the victim’s screams was the stuff of nightmare. For those out there who might find common cause with the shooter, the footage was no doubt a triumphant exclamation point on a deed already magnified so loud that it will likely be part nation’s collective conversation for weeks.

Take Columbine as an example. While it was not the nation’s first or worst school attack (that horrible distinction has belonged, quietly, for many years to the 1927 Bath School Attack) Columbine still managed to capture the nation’s consciousness in a way that still horrifies and terrifies. The publicity surrounding the attack rather than the attack itself, has made Columbine the standard by which all other school shootings are judged. Since then, it has been cited by multiple school shooters as inspiration because of that place in the zeitgeist.

Likewise, lone-wolf radicals and the far-flung groups to which they pledge allegiance are no doubt noticing the peculiar, horrified fascination America has had with the WDBJ shooter. Even though it has been removed by Facebook and Twitter, his entire tweet history about the incident appears in almost every article about the attack and the graphic videos he has posted remain hosted on various sites. More people have listened to him in death than they ever did in life.

Whereas in the past the press had to wait for the Columbine shooters’ diaries and writings to be released to discuss them, the modern shooter has his views shared with the world while his victims’ blood is still wet and the wounds in the American psyche still fresh. Even just a few weeks ago, ISIS beheading videos were delayed by days or weeks — generally after the existence of the event filmed had already been reported. Years ago, the international media had to piece together the terrifying story of the Mumbai attack from secondary sources and victim interviews. There were no tweets from the gunmen who stormed a museum in Tunis.

Next time, the attackers themselves will give us the play-by-play.

There is already psychological value in the single attacker, in the fear that anyone around could be a target — or a perpetrator. This value is only enhanced by being the attacker’s ability to live-tweet his thoughts and motives or to post video of the carnage. He will terrify some and enthrall others, just as planned. Because he can reach people directly through social media without the critical filter of a major news network, he can shape the narrative. The future will be full of “martyrs” exulting in their “martyrdom” in front of the entire world.

Under the previous paradigm, would-be terrorists with an agenda to sell or an ideology to push had to depend on major networks to air their side of the story. They had to hope newspapers published their manifestoes and that major news networks showed their propaganda videos or ideological justifications for their actions. In the US at least, this approach was often unsuccessful. While some Middle Eastern media outlets gave some voice to violent Islamic groups, the language barrier often prevented or delayed their message from reaching a US audience. Even English speaking sympathizers with manifestoes and screeds written for US audiences rarely got air time because of the major news agencies’ reluctance to give voice to radicalism. Under the post-WDBJ construct, future terrorists will grab attention with immediate, visceral, shocking footage posted without delay to Twitter or Facebook and use that attention to broadcast their views in real time — and inspire others to further violence.

The WDBJ shootings are more than just another particularly public senseless killing in America, they are a watershed moment, and not in a good way. The future terrorist has a new template for successful information operations.

So what is the way ahead?

No doubt many will call for the major news outlets to limit their coverage of future killers and will demand the networks not show or limit graphic footage, but for the reasons outlined above, that response is inadequate in today’s media environment. Still others call on social media companies to be more aggressive in their policies concerning shutting down accounts linked to violence or propaganda, but technical means are only so effective and the speed and replicative nature of the internet makes elimination of content all but impossible — to say nothing of valid concerns about censorship. The proverbial cattle have escaped, and there is no point in slamming the barn door shut now. This media environment is the world in which we live.

What can be done, however, is for governments, security agencies, and even decent private citizens to rapidly release their own information to counter the narrative, even if it is at the expense of complete accuracy. This is not to say that agencies should lie — far from it — but that they should release what they think they know, so long as it does not endanger lives or reputations, in as fast a manner as possible. Witness the speed at which the feel-good story of US Marines stopping an attacker on a Paris-bound train raced around the world.

The truth of the matter was a little different. The glory actually belonged to a National Guardsman, a US airman, an American college student, a British civilian, and at least one French citizen, but the initial story was close enough. Had the train’s attacker been successful, he would have lit up social media with a series of tweets no less incorrect than the initial reports about the Marines — but far more dangerous, because his message would have gone out encouraging others to follow in his footsteps. No doubt, quick publication and glorification of the brave people who stopped the train attack gave other would-be attackers reason to pause. The quicker a counter narrative can be launched, the better; so much the more so if the new narrative is launched directly to social media users rather than through the slow, cumbersome process of network television press conferences.

If the social media environment can be used to send the message that violence and terrorism work, it must also be used to send the message that it does not. After all, as the Paris attack showed, how effective or glorious can a method be if it can be stopped by ordinary people on vacation?