Other than Russia/China/<Villain of the week> there are many other actors who have incentives to meddle in the society, e.g.
- The US government
- Large Businesses
Example from the article:
"Reopenmississippi.com was registered on April 16 to In Pursuit of LLC, an Arlington, Va.-based conservative group with a number of former employees who currently work at the White House or in cabinet agencies (link: https://projects.propublica.org/trump-town/organizations/in-...). A 2016 story from USA Today says In Pursuit Of LLC is a for-profit communications agency launched by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch."
- T-shirt sellers?
"A number of other sites — such as reopennc.com — seem to exist merely to sell t-shirts, decals and yard signs with such slogans as “Know Your Rights,” “Live Free or Die,” and “Facts not Fear.” WHOIS records show the same Florida resident who registered this North Carolina site also registered one for New York — reopenny.com — just a few minutes later."
At this point it is so easy to anonymously set up these websites and protest groups that a bored high-school student can do it.
Instead of putting blame on this or that country, efforts should be focused on creating some kind of a online reputation system so that any content posted would contain a signature that ties it to the author. If the signature is missing then you know the source is likely untrustworthy. Pros: no need for censorship. anyone can still post anything online. Cons: users need to be educated about this feature. It has to be supported by major browsers as a first-party component.
Otherwise we see more ridiculous initiatives like this from GitLab where they ban hiring engineers from Russia on certain positions: "WIP: Support Engineer Job family country-of-residence block" (https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/5555).
EDIT: fixed typos