[jensen123]

Interesting. This makes me wonder about how many blog/forum posts in the Western world that are written by PR agencies. Not working for governments, of course, but for corporations and NGOs.

[lisivka]

It depends on how much you are willing to pay. Russians buys whole TV channels.

[Kristine1975]

>Not working for governments, of course,

Why not for governments?

[jensen123]

In the Western world, there seem to be this prevalent ideal that the people should control the government and not the other way around. If a Western government hired people to influence politics like this, wouldn't there be a backlash?

[Kristine1975]

Where's the backlash against this: https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

Or this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbara

[sievebrain]

There was a huge backlash caused by the Snowden revelations and JTRIG certainly got massive attention at the time.

Unfortunately there's no obvious way to stop it because politicians appear to believe spy agencies should be unaccountable and above the law.

[jensen123]

> Where's the backlash against this: https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

So, some people at the GCHQ have discussed doing these things. However, is there any evidence that they've actually done a whole lot?

> Or this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbara

I don't really consider Isreal a Western country, but in any case, that is interesting.

[ZoF]

>Not working for governments, of course

Why? That's pretty naive.

[jensen123]

Do you have any examples of Western governments doing this?

[Kristine1975]

US government as the CIA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_mockingbird

[soundwave106]

There does appear to be a couple US examples within the Wikipedia article for astroturfing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing#Politics