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Comment by livinginfear | Hacker News Reader

Haven't we heard enough of this bad faith narrative already?

> "There are going to be all sorts of bad actors trying to interfere in the midterms, especially in the contested races..."

Vote the way we want you to vote. Otherwise you're being undemocratic! And Russia is to blame!

> "The fact that the average person would not associate music with Russian trolls means that they’re doing a good job."

Isn't this statement a bit Kafka-esque? The implication of this is that if you don't live in fear, somehow associating the mundane flood of meaningless content that is social media with you purposefully being misdirected by Russia, you're just ignorant.

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Spoken like someone who welcomes the help.

Propaganda is real, it does work, and it is a problem. I struggle to explain why anyone would brush it off, other than it happens to align with their own goals. An electorate that is perpetually thinking and voting with activated amygdalas is not a good thing.

For most of my life I feel like politics has worked that way though. It's human nature to respond to fear. It's why so many people spend more time talking about why we have to stop the other guy from getting in office rather than why our own guy should be there.

And it certainly happens for a reason, besides the empty promises brought by most politicians the most visceral human response comes from fear. The more fearful people are, the easier they are to manipulate in general.

If you take a step back and look at political messages designed to inspire fear, it will all become pretty visible.

> "Propaganda is real, it does work, and it is a problem."

Do the supporters of 'Liberal Democracy' never employ propaganda? I use this as an example since when the issue of foreign interference in the American democratic process is brought up it's usually in the context of the 2016 election. Trump of course representing a deviation from decades of America's foreign policy being the export of 'Liberal Democracy or else'.

> "An electorate that is perpetually thinking and voting with activated amygdalas is not a good thing."

What if people use their "activated amygdalas" and come to conclusions that you don't agree with?

I think you're losing sight of the real issue. Orgs linked to the Kremlin are known to have targeted Americans online, via bots or content farms. This is not in dispute. What was their purpose? What was their goal? Is there any benign explanation? And this kind of thing is not the same as negative attack ads. While those are unseemly and gross, they still have to conform to the rules or face legal consequences. Propaganda on social media can be made up completely, defamatory, and falsely attributed without any consequence. This is not the same as what you might read in the NYT.

I'm pretty sure your last sentence was a typo, but yeah, acting on fear is pretty much bad for everyone. And without FUD, there's no way the walking clown shoes would have been elected in 2016.

Yes, you're right. My last sentence was incorrect. I mean to say: _"What happens when people use their higher faculties, and end up making a decision that you don't agree with?"_

> Propaganda is real

Yes, it's another name for public relations. It's also a word like "oligarch" or "terrorism" that requires the person doing to be an official enemy.

> I struggle to explain why anyone would brush it off

Not blaming it when my milk goes bad isn't "brushing it off."

Propaganda is not defined by friend or foe. I get the joke about public relations.

> Not blaming it when my milk goes bad isn't "brushing it off.

Minimizing is a form of propaganda.

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