I honestly do believe there are accounts out there whose main purpose is to make us all hate each other more and more. I don't know if they're russian or whatever, but it's not crazy to think a foreign power would be happier with us all at each other's throats than banded together.
The Russian bot farms are real (as are other countries' similar projects), it just sucks that it's co-opted to dismiss any criticism as being state-funded propaganda. It obviously doesn't help that they utilize the same language and highlight the same problems as actual leftist do (for obvious reasons, they don't have to lie).
I have to say, US has perfected the propaganda machine, they don't even have to do state-sponsored shit (even though they still do it) since all the "free and open" media just parrots their shit willingly since it benefits their owners.
It is crazy. There's also the herd mentality. When enough people see troll posts cracking a joke and getting a bunch of likes, they'll repeat it. Eventually the trolls barely even have to work because real people join in and start saying the same shit the trolls are.
The Russians, Israel, saudis, China. A ton of countries literally do have paid trolls/bots online. They’re usually pretty easy to spot. I’m not inclined to believe this person is one of those based on a single tweet, but come on.
I think Russian bots are basically fake news - a marginal non-issue. During RussiaGate the US media/intelligence agencies tried their hardest to find evidence of Russian influence and they found one billionaire's side-project with a comically low level of activity.
You have to think relative GDP/population size/level of interest. A bot net or troll farm costs money and if suspicious activity is detected it's easy for Twitter or whoever to shut it all down.
Russian PR operations are focused on influencing Russians and neighboring countries and maaaybe EU states. E.g. if a million Germans get pro-Russian opinions, there's a chance German politics will shift a little, because Germany's position on Russia is ambivalent in the first place.
But the US has a huge population AND it invented PR. So you have to invest way too much to sway a sizeable chunk of people AND every major company has their own PR operation sending their own bots and trolls in support of their policies, not to mention the political parties and SUPERPACs swimming in money all fighting to Correct The Record. And these are all Americans who understand other Americans intuitively - they speak the same language and continuously research what makes people tick.
How does a foreign group insert its own voice into a room where there's already a thousand voices shouting? Israel succeeds at it because there's millions of Israeli Americans, American Jews, and American Israelis - people who live between the two countries and can speak to both countries, and even more so because the US elites are aligned with Israeli elites - they already speak using similar narratives.
I doubt Saudi Arabia has much in the way of an influence operation - they hire PR firms, but their relationship to the US is through elites talking to other elites.
The idea that Russians can out-manipulate American manipulators who are bigger and more experienced at manipulating Americans is laughable.
China may have a better go at it, because of American-Chinese business relations and a large number of Chinese Americans, but without elite alignment the narratives are all off.
"Fuck off I don't believe in that nonsense" but it's liberals accusing people of being Russian bots and "So true!!!" when it's The Jews.
I honestly do believe there are accounts out there whose main purpose is to make us all hate each other more and more. I don't know if they're russian or whatever, but it's not crazy to think a foreign power would be happier with us all at each other's throats than banded together.
The Russian bot farms are real (as are other countries' similar projects), it just sucks that it's co-opted to dismiss any criticism as being state-funded propaganda. It obviously doesn't help that they utilize the same language and highlight the same problems as actual leftist do (for obvious reasons, they don't have to lie).
I have to say, US has perfected the propaganda machine, they don't even have to do state-sponsored shit (even though they still do it) since all the "free and open" media just parrots their shit willingly since it benefits their owners.
It is crazy. There's also the herd mentality. When enough people see troll posts cracking a joke and getting a bunch of likes, they'll repeat it. Eventually the trolls barely even have to work because real people join in and start saying the same shit the trolls are.
The Russians, Israel, saudis, China. A ton of countries literally do have paid trolls/bots online. They’re usually pretty easy to spot. I’m not inclined to believe this person is one of those based on a single tweet, but come on.
I think Russian bots are basically fake news - a marginal non-issue. During RussiaGate the US media/intelligence agencies tried their hardest to find evidence of Russian influence and they found one billionaire's side-project with a comically low level of activity.
You have to think relative GDP/population size/level of interest. A bot net or troll farm costs money and if suspicious activity is detected it's easy for Twitter or whoever to shut it all down.
Russian PR operations are focused on influencing Russians and neighboring countries and maaaybe EU states. E.g. if a million Germans get pro-Russian opinions, there's a chance German politics will shift a little, because Germany's position on Russia is ambivalent in the first place.
But the US has a huge population AND it invented PR. So you have to invest way too much to sway a sizeable chunk of people AND every major company has their own PR operation sending their own bots and trolls in support of their policies, not to mention the political parties and SUPERPACs swimming in money all fighting to Correct The Record. And these are all Americans who understand other Americans intuitively - they speak the same language and continuously research what makes people tick.
How does a foreign group insert its own voice into a room where there's already a thousand voices shouting? Israel succeeds at it because there's millions of Israeli Americans, American Jews, and American Israelis - people who live between the two countries and can speak to both countries, and even more so because the US elites are aligned with Israeli elites - they already speak using similar narratives.
I doubt Saudi Arabia has much in the way of an influence operation - they hire PR firms, but their relationship to the US is through elites talking to other elites.
The idea that Russians can out-manipulate American manipulators who are bigger and more experienced at manipulating Americans is laughable.
China may have a better go at it, because of American-Chinese business relations and a large number of Chinese Americans, but without elite alignment the narratives are all off.