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Comment by fiala__ | Hacker News Reader

Subtle but powerful Russian interference on social networks and media of Western countries is a thing whether we like it or not. I'm skeptical of how much that's true for the US, but in Europe it's ubiquitous and there's a lot of hard evidence for it – I'm talking governments setting up agencies to deal with it, not Alex Jones-style hysteria.

some examples of the backlash:

https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20496508/tasr-withdraws-from-cont...

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/28/czech-republic...

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>Subtle but powerful Russian interference on social networks and media of Western countries is a thing whether we like it or not.

So is US interference in Russian politics. Russian spying on the US is also, surprise, surprise, commonplace. US spying on Russia is also, surprise, surprise, commonplace.

The US even has an agency dedicated to interference in foreign politics (the National Endowment for Democracy).

None of this is new.

The fact that an unaccounted for Russian linked $80k budget on Facebook became America's top story has more to do with Democrats grasping at justifications for losing the election that don't involve them being fucking useless.

The really funny part is that that the US became so fat and inept that based on the current "brief" Russia was more successful than the United States in fixing elections. Not using tanks, or deep cover operatives but by using Facebook, Twitter and Google. Companies with a combined market capitalization of 1.3 trillion dollars!

Think about it. How bloody out to lunch we have to be to accept that Russia a country that we claim is ran by a dictator, the country with no technology, the country where people are barely surviving managed to fix the US presidential elections?! I guess it is possible if Google, Facebook and Twitter are ran by pimple-faced teenagers out of parents basement and they were playing against a nation state but come on.

It all only makes sense when remembering that these are the same people who somehow lost an election against Donald Trump.

Governments setting up agencies is not, per se, a good evidence of a problem. See: TSA.

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