This seems very much in the wheelhouse of clandestine agencies like the CIA and the FSB. Use front companies to modify the perceptions of reality by doing things like shifting the Overton window of currently discussed topics, preparing custom datasets for future LLM training that bake in desired assumptions, manipulating or publishing public opinion polls and prediction markets.

You can see this in real time in our modern 'mainstream media', even MSNOW, the supposedly 'left-leaning' 'anti-foxnews' sounds more like a regan era republican than it's actual desired audience. If you turn on cnn it's just constantly drumbeating iran war/support for israel, etc.

Hardly need to add "Modern" on this statement. Hell - Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" is nearly 40 years old at this point (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent)

If anything - I actually think we're at a spot where the mask is slipping a bit, because the US was slow to adapt its media distortion to the internet, and the financial interests in the US are stretching even farther away from general sentiment.

So the notice is because they've fumbled, and now are beating the drum extra hard to try to make up ground.

A classic Yes, Prime Minister: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks

People just randomly get excited and make up shit online. See Median Strategies aka Rahil Prakash just making up polls and publishing them this month. Then declaring it was a social experiment and shutting down his website. After affecting prediction markets in some minor ways.

How does that theory explain,

* So many people using the same nonsense talking points at the same time. Did they coincidentally make up the same lies? With no anchor in objective reality, why would they converge on the same talking points?

* The sophistication of the talking points: IME they are often very well-crafted - seemingly professionally crafted - public communication. They effectively frame the debate, shift attention (often attacking the messenger), use powerful emotional impact to bypass reasoned discussion, and acheive the main goal of disinformation - paralyze discussion. Did people invest the time and effort to craft these talking points on their own, and do it so effectively?

It's not exclusively random people doing random stuff, but it also doesn't require a large, well funded, conspiracy. People see a fake poll that confirms their preferences and then proceed to propagate the message.

Also, consider who controls what propogates and what nobody sees.

Social media operators are like news (newspaper, tv news) editors, deciding what gets covered and how, and what doesn't. But they operate on a far larger scale, more powerful scale, and very few realize they do it.

Haha, you think the CIA and FSB loves doing this stuff? Companies love doing this kind of stuff way more than your government employee shmucks. It is way more prevalent in private sector than you could ever imagine

It's both.

The older I get and the more old stuff I sieve through, the more I feel I grew up in an environment shaped by short-term persuasions, all added up like different archaeological layers. Every single ideal, value, word, and so on, just marketing that hit my parents, or propaganda that hit my grandparents. Which is why the Confucian rectification of names is appealing.

What is "Confucian rectification of names"? Thank you.

Like freezing requirements. Definitions of words change over time to suit a winning faction. This was especially dramatic in the last century or so. So for the Analects, it's something like making sure words mean what they meant when the land was run well.

"If names are not right then speech does not accord with things; if speech is not in accord with things, then affairs cannot be successful; when affairs are not successful, li and music do not flourish; when li and music do not flourish, then sanctions and punishments miss their mark; when sanctions and punishments miss their mark, the people have no place to set their hands and feet.

Therefore, when a junzi gives things names, they may be properly spoken of, and what is said may be properly enacted. With regard to speech, the junzi permits no carelessness.”