Or perhaps you are easily manipulated by the media.

I've been called Russian on various forums several times. I am actually British and have never even been to Russia. My crime was to point out the flimsy nature of so many of the allegations regarding Russian involvement in, well, pretty much everything.

There are lots of people in the world right now who psychologically can't accept the fact that Trump and Brexit won and have descended into a sort of group hysteria as a result.

This idea that the Russian government spends its time/money trying to influence US politics by posting to Hacker News of all places should fail any basic test of common sense and logic. But it's so tempting to believe in this conspiracy theory, because then difficult questions like "why did Trump win" and "why do people hate Hillary so much" and "are there Trump supporters in my own circle of friends and family" can all be ignored. It's not really America, it's actually some vast subtle manipulation by a foreign government! And if anyone questions the unreliability of US intelligence, that's just more proof that it's really happening!

And even if it is still just about content, it's a lot easier to spread BS than it is to refute it.

> This idea that the Russian government spends its time/money trying to influence US politics by posting to Hacker News of all places should fail any basic test of common sense and logic. But it's so tempting to believe in this conspiracy theory, because then difficult questions like "why did Trump win" and "why do people hate Hillary so much" and "are there Trump supporters in my own circle of friends and family" can all be ignored. It's not really America, it's actually some vast subtle manipulation by a foreign government! And if anyone questions the unreliability of US intelligence, that's just more proof that it's really happening!

I am not totally disconnected from people who support Trump, unlike the stereotypical liberal coastal megalopolis dweller. But it seems pretty clear at this point that Russia has, and is continuing to, sow dissent in America. Not by hacking election machines or anything clearly aggressive, but by thousands of twitter, disquss, and facebook troll accounts. I do not ignore any "difficult" questions because of it.

Actually no, that's not pretty clear.

For one, where's the evidence that spamming Twitter can affect anything politically at all, in any country? The entire belief that elections are decided by robo-Twitter accounts revolves around the idea that a lifetime of experiences, beliefs, news consumption and discussions with friends/family goes out the window the moment someone opens Twitter and reads 140 characters.

I don't think this is a real phenomenon. I don't believe in it because it's such an obvious and minor riff on a more general theme that is always so pervasive in politics; the idea that people who disagree with you politically aren't "really" disagreeing, they're just brainwashed and not thinking for themselves.

If you look at European politics, before the current wave of Russia hysteria the EU and its fans liked to explain Euroscepticism as something driven by tabloid newspapers. To quote Martin Schulz (head of the EU Parliament), "UK tabloids have performed mass brainwashing" which "force fed their readers with intolerance". In other words, stupid people read simplistic messages and automatically start to agree with them - that's why they don't vote for things the educated elites like.

That's an almost identical rationale to the idea that people didn't vote the right way in the USA because there was "mass brainwashing" that "force fed them intolerance", except now it's Twitter instead of newspapers and the evil Russians instead of tabloid journalists. But the premise is the same: bad people are brainwashing the ignorant masses.

The plot twist is that I am not Russian (people speaking multiple languages though are suspicious, gotta agree there). Even a better twist, I have more reason to hate Russians (as a country, never personally) than any most of the posters here. But you know, KGB agents hiding in the bushes, and all.

I try to look at content and don't care much who the poster might be. Because everyone has motive even if it's just boredom or attention.

It is very easy to spot them, especially on platforms like Twitter where they spread obvious, blatant lies. No one is immune, especially with disinformation campaigns being waged by domestic parties, corporate interests, PR firms.

It has always been a reality that the internet attracts misinformation and conspiracy, even more so in the past than now. And yet, we continue to evolve from a technology that doesn't allow for us to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Or we shouldn't be.

We shouldn't be threatened by foreign posters claiming this or that. If legitimate problems are brought up they should be acknowledged in a free society. If lies are brought up they should be ignored or addressed. But this OMG Russian Posters Everywherez is disturbing. It signals fear and weakness. It's more disturbing than the actual existence of Russian posters. Let them post. Listen to what they say if you care. It should not be a real threat if we are right. If we are not right we should get right.

However if what is being said is true maybe the bigger problem is not _who_ is saying what but rather that this truth exists to be said and maybe we should do something about that rather than ascribing motives which may or may not be accurate.