[marco_yolo]

In the 1930s socialism was still a rather new experiment and the Soviet Union was a shining example of its success to most of the socialist and leftist elites. In fact the Soviet Comintern planted seeds for communist and socialist movements around the world. They were responsible for fueling many revolutions and civil wars around the world at a time where US foreign policy was isolationist and dealing with the Great Depression. One such tactic was to embed sympathetic agents into major publications like the New York Times and win public favor through propaganda and other disinformation. Walter Duranty was a journalist who won Pulitzers for his flowery depictions of the Soviet Union. So fast forward today nothing has changed and even though we are aware of it nothing will change. If anything the reach of bad actors is far superior than ever before. Reddit, Twitter, Facebook is full of disinfo targeted at both the left and right and also coming from official sources. It not just crazy anonymous accounts. Sadly, this will never change and I am not sure there is any antidote for these human flaws.

[dotancohen]

  > the reach of bad actors

Are you implying that "to embed sympathetic agents into major publications" is the work of a bad actor? If so, are you aware that nearly all major news sources today are pushing agendas?

Here's a tip: filter out any news organization that publish stories on "look at these suffering children" in regards to any conflict or current event. That's not news, that's agenda-pushing. There's a bunch of additional filters you can use, but when you're done you're left with a bunch of ill-informed blogs, speculation, and if you're lucky a few eye-witness accounts of a single event out of dozens of events which make up the conflict.