There are also useful idiots.
See: Republican nominee
Very true.
I don’t think most people even consider that an opinion, to not vote…
Then most people would be unaware of the vast history of non-voting in anarchist and revolutionary socialist movements.
It is a valid opinion even if you don’t agree with it. Here’s an accessible write-up.
Maybe it’ll work out this time! Lol
The very simple fact is : if you find yourself on the same side as Russian bots and don’t find it so disturbing that you immediately change your position, you can’t claim any high moral ground use that to lecture other people. You are effectively a Russian bot.
Except the Russian misinformation strategy is literally to take both sides on all issues, it’s just about amplifying existing misinformation/discontent/division, which is more effective than only pushing one angle.
Most Russian bots are pretty straightforward.
You don’t need advanced social strategies to influence dumb people.
if you find yourself on the same side as Russian bots and don’t find it so disturbing that you immediately change your position
As mentioned by another commenter, the actual strategy of the real Russian government is to sow division by advocating a bunch of positions, so a particular position being presented by Russian trolls absolutely does not warrant immediately changing my position. Your position is not special in that regard.
But more generally, I’m not going to change my position on anything solely because someone awful agrees with it.
And even more generally, I don’t care about unifying people under the political agenda of any existing government or political party. I want to see people unified about organizing themselves. To that end, letting one of the existing political parties, including yours, dictate our political will to us goes against the goal of people organizing themselves.
you can’t claim any high moral ground use that to lecture other people.
I do not claim nor need the moral high ground to present my opinions. Same goes for everyone else.
So basically what you are saying is : Russian bots aren’t all that bad 🤣
Russian bots aren’t all that bad
Yes, in two senses:
- I don’t lose sleep at night knowing that these bots exist (or those of any other government). They shouldn’t exist for the simple reason that public institutions shouldn’t be in the business of deceiving people, but unfortunately, deceiving the public is a bunch of what the State actually fucking does “for” “us”. I especially don’t think the Russian government cares to run bots/trolls on our little corner of the internet when bigger targets exist.
- Vacuously, I don’t disagree with literally everything that the Russian bots say because they can be found saying just about anything.
I cannot stress enough that I do NOT approve of state-sponsored botting or trolling of public spaces in general. However, when you see Pro-Russian or Pro-whatever opinions on the Internet, you are probably reading the words of a “useful idiot” or non-State troll.
This reality is a lot scarier than if the opinions were all just from some Russian troll farm, because now we have to interrogate the reality that these people have different and complex reasons for why they ended up with those opinions. It means that the task of persuasion is a lot more complicated than just shielding people from bots and trolls.
You wrote down a reason why Russian bots are bad and one that is not really true. Russian bots aren’t saying just about anything. Not to mention most people wouldn’t mind if a self proclaimed Russian bot started to push for vanilla ice cream over chocolate agenda. They would “not lose sleep” over it, but then some still go out and buy some vanilla. Even if they don’t believe in marketing.
It doesn’t really matter if they are a bot or a useful idiot if they are doing the same job.
I agree so much because as we all know you owe the Democrat Party your vote no matter what they do or how many children they murder through their Israeli proxies in Gaza
Also, Democrats can never fail, they can only be failed
Brilliant comment, I’m dead serious.
I’m jealous of their chairs. My botfarm doesn’t have anything like it in the contract. On the other hand, it doesn’t insist on shaving yourself like a butt, so there’re some upsides to it too.
If you realize a level of corruption in russia it simplify the picture. All these bot factories story is just about that greedy people in russia convinced putin (a man, who “do not use internet” from his own words) that they can “control” the voting in US. But the actual goal is not to control anything but just putting money from russian state budget to a private pocket imo.
The liberal veneer of civility goes away in the moment you criticize their idols.they cant fathom somebody that doesn’t like mr joe “saviour of the world” biden or mrs kamala “sent here by god himself” harris since they live in political ecochambers, so the only possibile explanation is that Russia pays a bunch of people to post normal people’s opinions online (most people are not hardliner diehard democrats)
