Quote Originally Posted by FreelancePoliceman View Post
Yeah, and Democrats questioned the integrity of the system when Trump won, pretending that Russians somehow pull the levers of American elections, while ignoring the foreign state politicians have to swear allegiance to before being even considered for federal office in this country.
IIRC, it was over the Russians' propagandistic use of puppet social media accounts, not the actual rigging of ballot papers or the hacking of voting machines (correct me if I'm wrong).

To be honest, the former claim sounds credible. I have no doubt that political operatives are mass-posting on Twitter right now, attempting to create bitterness and rivalry, in order to entrench both sides in increasingly irreconcilable political positions. It is easy to exploit lizard-brain tribalism to push people into adopting ever more eccentric beliefs. The notion that any country with geopolitical interests — Russia, China, or even the United States — wouldn't exercise realpolitik, especially when given an opportunity to act anonymously (and with plausible deniability), badly underestimates the belligerent instincts of political leaders and intelligence agencies.

I'd go further than that. I suggest that American political agencies and private firms are themselves operating troll farms, and that a significant percentage of social media posts are written by paid agents. I even suspect that the slogan "Defund the Police" was started by trolls, professional or otherwise, and taken up uncritically by online lefties. I say that because it's an unusual slogan that's easy to misinterpret, needs to be repeatedly explained and qualified, and sounds uncannily similar to the better counter-slogan "Defend the Police". It feels deliberately crafted to be as counter-productive as possible.

Anything to do with sexual morality (especially the transgender issue) is also perfect fodder for inflaming and directing strong emotions (of both sides).

Why not add 'click farms' to that assessment. Every time I watch a conservative or conservative-adjacent Youtube video, the very next suggestion is always a Jordan Peterson video. Every time. It's quite suspicious. It's not implausible that he (or someone else on his behalf) is paying a company to manufacture clicks in order to exploit Youtube's algorithm.

I do disagree with the liberal framing of Russian meddling in at least one way: Russia's alleged exploitation of social media was still democratic (and poetic justice, depending on your view, for America's history of meddling in other countries). The fact that people choose to believe 'fake news' isn't an institutional problem; it's a cultural one.