One fascinating thing about being Very Online in the past 10-20 years is watching the messages of astroturfing campaigns slowly leak into public sentiment. I'm sure the same thing happens with other forms of media, primarily cable television. But as an example, with the whole 50 Cent Army, a few people have heard convincing arguments from them and turned into unwitting (or otherwise) propagators of the same rhetoric.

> But as an example, with the whole 50 Cent Army, a few people have heard convincing arguments from them and turned into unwitting (or otherwise) propagators of the same rhetoric.

The 50 Cent Army posts pro-Chinese propaganda on Chinese websites. Do we have any evidence that the 50 Cent Army posts on English websites? I can't imagine it being that difficult to produce given that we traced Russian propaganda. Forgive my snark, but it sounds like you are unwitting propagating rhetoric that designed to dismiss anything that defends China.

If you're interested in what the 50 cent army actually does, Harvard published a paper about it. It turns out that China rarely actually engages in argument, but rather tries to distract people, so they think about other things.

https://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf

Carl Jung: “People don't have ideas. Ideas have people.”

That dude was right on. The concept that's helped me the most in my personal growth has been that of the Jungian shadow.