I sure hope so, Russia has 100% been doing it, with multiple documented „botfarms” (more like fake identity verification farms)
I think it is a consequence of actual users leaving for private groups (Discord, Telegram, Whatsapp) or small forums.
But ye surely LLMs are increasing the bot count.
Not opining on the matter specifically; just that TikTok had a very clear opinion on what I ought to think.
sweet summer child... Russia is fighting an expansionary offensive war and is full throttle instigating division in the entire Western mediascape.
Here's a small taste from a few months ago: https://www.npr.org/2023/08/29/1196117574/meta-says-chinese-...
“ Russian anti-Ukraine network spoofed Washington Post and Fox News
Separately, Meta said on Tuesday that it was continuing to take down fake accounts and ban fraudulent websites connected to a Russian influence operation aimed at eroding support for Ukraine.”
My point is obvious; that you think Russian influence operations were some one-off from years ago is a naive uneducated farce. They are over a decade long and continuous, somehow missed by all your age and studying.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
How about Japanese media then? https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/08/26/world/politics/...
Try to create a fake Facebook account. If it is not shutdown in a day or two, try to gain a significant following. Then try posting information favorable to Russia or China and test how many people actually receive it through the Facebook filters. Now try scaling this by creating many fake accounts. I can tell you with high certainty, that you and even a small army of people will not be able to reach many people or have much persuasion influence.
The second problem here is attribution. The claim is that these were Russian or Chinese accounts. Any of us savy with the internet know how easy it is to proxy our traffic through foreign IP addresses and leave the right fingerprints. If Russian or Chinese state actors created these accounts, you would have no way of knowing who or where they are.
As we saw in the Hamilton 68 hoax, the accounts that were banned were mostly Americans with dissident views rather than Russians.
Then your pass at manually creating a Facebook account as an hour long side job presenting as evidence completely sidesteps the fact that it’s not remotely the equivalent of Russian state level resources, nor is it even remotely close to just Facebook properties with their levels of inauthenticity countering. Cue X, 4chan, French politicians, YouTube, indy sites like ZeroHedge, etc.
Then your ridiculous handwave of “fake” typical of uneducated retorts to experts whose entire job and training is analyzing, determining, and reporting these issues. Ya, I remember these asinine arguments well when people like you were on HN deriding the Guccifer 2.0 DNC hack as having no evidence it was the Russian state. No surprise how that turned out. They were wrong, Guccifer 2.0 was Russia duh.
What analysis? Care to share some of your insights?
Many people probably only remember all the news from MSM about the Russian bots but never saw this reveal that it was a hoax as it was not reported much in the MSM.
> If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. [..] And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.
-- Hannah Arendt, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1978/10/26/hannah-arendt-fr...
And as Snowden tweeted January 11th:
> Institutions are burning the public's faith in them at the precise moment in history when we have developed the capacity to replace them with algorithms.
> A revolution is coming, and if you thought human judgment was bad, just wait until you see what replaces it.
I don't get why the standard should be the deception of "the other", who is also crooked.
Why not do good things one can be honest about? Instead of maintaining several identities and narratives and a constant uphill battle in quicksand of one's own making, one could just build on top of previous achievements. It would be much more effective, it would make the US rich and respected in the world. But it would make some individuals less insanely wealthy [0], so that's not an option. It's like the drunk looking for the key under the lamp post instead of where it was lost.
[0] Oxfam just reported that the 5 richest people doubled their fortune in the last 3 years while 5 billion got poorer.
>"The CIA probably realizes it doesn't need to fund rebel groups [1] or use local journalists/clergy [2] to instigate a regime change these days"
To me it sounds like instigating regime changes all over the places. The US is famous for doing so and then leaving behind multiple victims.
So you want the US to do the same? It had already "conquered" some countries. I do not think anybody likes the outcome. It looks more like a crime.
>"And another powers are not?"
I thought whataboutism is strictly Russian domain and is frowned upon (I personally have different opinion).