this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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Yes, in two senses:
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.