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Comment by 543g43g43 | Hacker News Reader

>Russia should have paid attention to how much more effective economic and asymmetric warfare is compared to kinetic warfare

I am 100% sure that Russian state-sponsored trolls are largely responsible for the current state of the "culture war".

Do you remember when Facebook reported how much Russian state actors had spent on disinformation spread on that platform during the Trump presidential campaign? It was of the order of $100,000. Pocket change, to turn the brains of an entire nation into argumentative mush.

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I don't. If it's virtually impossible to distinguish a Russian troll farm page from a traditional conservative/radical leftist from a home grown, private individual, then there is no problem. The impact Russian troll farms have had on the US social fabric is widely overestimated, the real harm to the social fabric is increased politicization.

>Russian troll farms .... increased politicization.

The two are linked. Those who wish to see Western culture fail, just want us at each others' throats.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3kvvz3/russian-facebook-trol...

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversatio...

>It was of the order of $100,000

That was just their advertising budget. It doesn't include their hundreds of thousands of sockpuppet accounts operated by their clickfarms.

The narrative about Russia using FB to influence elections was pushed by the Clinton campaign. No one wanted to cover it was $100K as that compromised the narrative. They pushed that propaganda for 4 years, denying the election. Then, it became virtually illegal to talk about illegitime elections.

That’s $100k for ads. I remember seeing one of the anti-Clinton image memes in one of the Senate reports on the SandersForPresident forum. Makes me sick that Russian manipulators were there, too.

$100K ads is nothing. It is an ad budget that will get exhausted in few days with broad targeting parameters. The entire issue was a nothing burger, fabricated by one side to push their agenda.

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