Technology in war

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Russia invaded Ukraine a few days ago. Even though it seems far away from here, I still feel sad about this situation. But I recently thought more about what if China invade Vietnam, which happened so often in the past and it was even a hot topic in Vietnam just a 3 or 4 years ago, and the role that technology plays.

One big reason why so many countries stood against Russia this time, even a country like Switzerland which always tried to stay neutral previously, is that there is much much more information on the Internet about the war and came directly from people inside warzones. Ukrainian people showed the world what was happening there, sometimes in real time, and other people reacted and amplified that. This created higher and higher pressure on governments and businesses to act.

I hope this would show leaders around the world how connected the world is now, and probably much more in the future, and how people can have more voice and can be heard from afar, and how that can change the course of the war. And I hope China will seriously take that into account.

It also showed social media can bring that power to people and amplify it, which I still believe is true. I believe they bring net good to the world, which is why I still work for Meta. I do not see people criticize Meta or Twitter this time.