[arthurfirst]

Bang on.

> It's not about persuading you from "russian bot farms." Which I think is a ridiculous and unnecessarily reductive viewpoint.

Not an accidental 'viewpoint'. A deliberate framing to exactly exclude what you pointed out from the discourse. Sure therer are dummies who actually believe it, but they are not serious humans.

If the supposedly evil russians or their bots are the enemy then people pay much less attention to the real problems at home.

[graeme]

They really do run Russian bot farms though. It isn't a secret. Some of their planning reports have leaked.

There are people whose job it is day in day out to influence Western opinion. You can see their work under any comment about Ukraine on twitter, they're pretty easy to recognize but they flood the zone.

[insane_dreamer]

Sure, they exist (wouldn't be credible if they didn't). But it's a red herring.

[arthurfirst]

> There are people whose job it is day in day out to influence Western opinion

CNN/CIA/NBC/ABC/FBI? etc?

[Capricorn2481]

Some day you're going to need to learn that people can not trust these groups and still be aware that Russia is knee deep in manipulating our governance. Dismissing everyone that doesn't bury their head in the sand as brainwashed is old hat.

Why you list every news group except Fox, which dwarfs all those networks, is a self report.

[arthurfirst]

By all means do include FOX in that list of shame -- my mistake! No better. you are correct.

It's a game all empires/sides are playing. In russia we are the boogeyman -- everyone needs one! it helps to stifle dissent.

I reacted a bit to the OP when focusing on only one side.

[bee_rider]

We can have Russian bot problems and domestic bot problems simultaneously.

[pessimizer]

We can also have bugs crawling under your skin trying to control your mind.

[bee_rider]

Are you saying it is equally unlikely that there are mind controls, and that Russia uses bots for propaganda? I’d expect most countries do by now, and Russia isn’t uniquely un-tech-savvy.