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I didn't qualify my comment because I was just shit talking but seeing you're passionate about the subject let me further share some of my opinions.

I actually do believe that a place like lemmy could be used as testing grounds before bigger campaigns. I know this because I saw the first instances of Russian propaganda and Russian trolls in LiveLeak back in 2008. I see now a lot of the same strategies and talking points that they were employing a decade and a half ago. It feels as if liveleak was a sandbox where they honed a lot of their strategies before taking it to a wider audience.

That being said, I saw people crying about astroturfing on Lemmy because they were salty about something, when their clearly wasn't anything going on. Also, having dealt with it for decades I think it's pretty easy to pick up when trolls are present manipulating narratives. It's like seeing a bad actor in a play, you just knownthey are acting. And also, even as a sandbox I don't think there are armies of trolls dedicated to Lemmy. I can see maybe a handful of actors maybe coordinating. Hasbarah, who is clearly very active on Reddit, doesn't seem to have done much here on lemmy which would be fertile grounds for them. Same with the 50 Cent Army and Russian trolls.