Even in the old days, if your operation was caught, you could always claim that it was an enemy false flag. (And if it was your false flag and you were caught, you could always claim that it was an enemy provocation.)

This seems reasonable, but it runs into a little problem. If you engage in political discussion anywhere on the internet, the first thing you'll find is that people, if they have formed an opinion, have exactly 0 interest in changing their mind. If you already hold a genuine and internally formed view on e.g. the Israel - Palestine conflict, then even if somebody sat you (or me) in front of 24/7 propaganda for the other side, they'd be unlikely to ever change either of our minds.

Propaganda only seems to work in two situations. The first is on topics people know nothing about. Each time the US invades some places most people couldn't even find on a map, support for it rises in accordance with the propaganda. But as people learn more, and gradually form their own values, that support tends to rapidly decline. And there are also long-term consequences, because people will remember being lied to. My views on the US war machine and geopolitics in general seem unlikely, at this point, to ever change. And they were largely formed due to the Iraq War. Irrefutable [1] and Undeniable [2] are two 21 year old articles I still go back to on occasion.

The other situation is when it's true. During the Cold War we spread endless propaganda about things like having stocked store shelves. This is doubly effective in the same way that lying propaganda is doubly ineffective. Because not only does it create a desired perception, but once people gradually find out it's really true, it also tends to turn them against their own government who invariably misrepresents such situations. Again, people don't like being lied to.

[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...

[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-u...

People also seem to discount the effects of internet operations by enemy states. For example, in 2022, the FBI blamed the state of North Korea for a string of hacks on US health systems. The "meatspace" equivalent would've been North Korean operatives infiltrating dozens of hospitals and destroying records or supplies. If that had happened, there would've been a bigger response from the government than "Mind your physical security, hospitals." But it's the internet, so who cares (besides the people immediately affected)?