It seems that we've built quite a capable ad machine. I wonder what it would look like if we built something for news. Certainly there would be less of this nonsense going on.
Like, kudos to those standing up to Appin, but the fact that facing down a bully is necessary at all is a design failure that I'd like to work to rectify.
Like Wikileaks?
Assange may have started out with pure intentions, but as he ran out of money, the only funding became available from the Kremlin. The cover for funding him was his show on RT, the Kremlin-funded English-language television station.
You might recall that Assange bragged about a huge dump of info about Putin and other Russian leaders/oligarchs that was soon to be dropped. It never did. It was either entirely BS from the start to provide cover, or existed but was withheld to keep happy his new sponsors.
You also may recall that the Wikileaks dumps of info stolen by Russian hackers on Hillary Clinton was miraculously released within hours of Trump's "I grabbed her by the pussy" tapes. A classic Russian disinformation move to distract the media, which was quite successful.
That's just glancing at a few highlights. By the time Wikileaks became significant, it was a straight-up Russian operation. It would have been a far better life decision for Assange to simply quit when he ran out of funds, than to sell out. Sad
Wikileaks was perhaps most significant in 2010/2011 (the Manning Iraq / Afghan War leaks)... but you're right, at the very least, looks like he had been a tool (in both senses of the word) of the Kremlin pretty close to that moment already :
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/apr/17/world-tomorrow...
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia...
I would argue that the capitol raid fanatics are anarchists as well, under the cover of being republican voters. They don't mind the open power abuse by the Kremlin as well.
The core issue I have with the power play on the internet is that it leads to isolationist behaviors on both sides, which in return stalls democratic approaches to finding a compromise in between both opinions.
I am not sure if it is the fault of the internet and if this was better before, but the expectation was definitely that it helps bring people more together, not apart. All the various information, one click away. It takes really effort, to ignore all that and entrench in your bubble.
> #29: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more, no less.
-- The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
It's also basic PR. Hell, watching "The Thick of It" is enough to teach you that when a bad story comes out, try to use a different story as a distraction. That hardly requires Kremlin support.
And yes, their apprentices on both sides of the oceans are learning well.