Hey there and welcome to Unlimited Hangout on your host Whitney Webb.

For longer than you might think, information warfare has been a major concern of the U.S.

National Security State. In recent decades, one of the key battlegrounds in this information

war has not just been the internet itself, but more specifically social media networks.

Social media in the modern era has become the equivalent of the town square, and these

platforms have come to dominate much of the socialization and communication in Western

society and beyond. Yet unbeknownst to most users of social media, there are longstanding

efforts by social media companies, as well as the National Security State to influence

social media users in a variety of unsettling ways, ranging from emotional manipulation

to the propagation of specific narratives that benefit big tech, and more often, there

are benefactors. A major theme in my work for several years has been how big tech in

the National Security State have essentially fused. Indeed, most big tech companies today

double as military and or intelligence contractors, and many of these big tech giants have origin

stories that are directly linked to those same military and intelligence agencies. In

the case of social media, this fusion has also been taking place in ways that are both

dangerous and insidious, especially now thanks to recent advances in artificial intelligence.

One of the few writers who has been doing great work on this topic for some time is today's

guest, Alan McLeod. Alan is a senior staff writer, Edmund Press News, as well as the author

of two books, including propaganda in the information age, still manufacturing consent. He is

contributed to sites such as The Guardian, The Grisa, and Jacobin, and has also published

several academic articles. Several of his recent investigations have worked to expose the

increasing fusion of big tech in the National Security States of the US and Israel, including

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