So much of social media pre-supposes that no entity would spend the kinda money to influence an issue. They didn't take a state with limited resources into account.
The "mob" are people that are probably finding little meaning in life. Their "match" is probably feeling like they have something to fight for instead of their grueling 9-5 soul sucking work to pay debt in order to enrich just a few.
It's easy for humans to also externalize pain. They might be angry for very valid reasons, but which they feel powerless to change, and that anger is still in their body, needing, indeed a match to escape. Repressed anger causes disease (cf. Gabor Mate). It's a natural instinct to act out and let out misdirected anger.
Talking about "mob" is like talking about "witches" 400 years ago(pharmaceuts) or "hysteric women" 100 years ago (women with BPD or PTSD). It's dehumanizing and misses the point, and in a few years people will look back at comments like this like we look at witch burning and the stone age practices of psychiatry a few years ago.
One of the startup growth-hackers gave us a decent talk on some basic social media manipulation
It is so easy to create entirely false narratives and / or manipulate online discussion, that at this point I would be surprised if any major group of people with access to half decent budget is not doing it.
From twitter to amazon reviews to comment sections on BBC and other websites, who knows how many are fake, the well has been poisoned.
Edit - expanded the post.
Ask yourself this: who wants you to believe that everything is astroturfing? Who does that serve?
Ironically, I think the accusations of astroturfing (whether true or not) more directly serve the meta goal of decreasing the public's ability and willingness to engage in debate, and accusations are much more amplification / outrage friendly.
So articles and discussion like this, but not "Chinese|American shill" in a thread about something else.
(For the US in fact social media astroturfing doesn't even have to be covert: as the social media belong to domestic companies, they by default promote the national party line and foreign interests - it's only bad when someone else does it).
Assuming anything on social media is "untainted" is pretty naive, it seems.
It's effectively impossible to prove (or refute), so why waste thought and text on it?
Obviously no media outlet is perfect, but yes, corporate media is subject to the influence of monied interests almost by definition. That said, with how easy it is to run ads and hire influencer shills for whatever agenda, social media seems even more malleable if you're willing to spend money. Or, put another way, the financial barrier for creating propaganda is far lower on Facebook than in traditional media.
I would not say NYT publishes propaganda. They just truly believe their own opinion based on some ideology framework but confused their opinions with solid facts. So they see anything not align with their belief as a propaganda. In other words they seem to be against propaganda.
It's a meta-dishonest which is worse than dishonest which is a form of honest dishonest because many people trust meta-dishonest journalist. There are a lot of such kind of MSM journalists. Don Lemon for example.
Same how it's ok when the US does it globally, but not when foreign powers do it.
online, offline just in general. democratic societies formed knowing this, but there is a will to power among certain people who will at any cost affordable to them will try and become the center focus of attention.
you see this in mega corporations eating up smaller companies in order to centralized power and indirectly control the market.
in the same way, actors use money to pump into traditional and social media in order to influence the masses or part of the masses to sway towards their agenda. which may or may not benefit society.
media is very powerful especially if the transmission is consistent in messaging, and broad as well. meaning coming from many angles to achieve said goal or agenda.
it can be very intoxicating once the scale tips towards the agenda, then social pressure or peer pressure to fit in takes control. it's a very odd thing to observe herd mentality from an outside perspective and almost instantly hammered down and framed as a negative thing to those who are entrenched within conditioning.
i believe transparency is the only way we can subvert mental coups, if we know who is funding what then we can consciously ask why and then maybe, just maybe we will become enlightened of an atrocity before it is too late.
Nit: UNlimited