It does get discussed freely in some circles.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/08/darpa-social-n...
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/mar/30/us-military-ac...Snowden exposed/mentioned https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intellig...
Plus you have Assange.
I can tell you the spooks have been operating online and monitoring people online since the internet started to get popular in the 80's & 90's, just like they have been using other technology like phone calls, postal services, financial transactions, medical records, school records, etc etc in the offline world and they will target you as a kid to manipulate you in a pre-emptive military fashion, but you and your parents will not always know this.
LINX was used to disrupt communication in the 90's, but you dont always know at the time what is going on, but the spooks have some patterns of their own which most wont pick up on and thats their give away, but its taken me decades to get close to spotting their tricks and you cant always say definitely that action was spook related at the time something goes on, so there is some truth in the saying Time always tells. Although if you look at what secrets get declassified and what doesnt, there is still alot that is not declassified because its still relevant today. The ol' honeypot is probably thousands of years old and still relevant today as a technique.
Spying & manipulation has been going on for hundreds if not thousands of years, its not a new phenomena, but it does evolve to keep up with or even lead technology.
After all do you think a DoD invention, aka the internet would not be used for spying and manipulation? LOL