Just crazy what is happening
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2024
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I haven't read enough about this, but if this was 1000 accounts convincing a million people to vote for a guy, how is that different from anyone else campaigning? Except if it violates public campaign financing law and you had an unfair advantage from a foreign adversary in what should otherwise be a transparent level playing field...and even then things are never completely level and transparent.
Because a foreign power influencing an election is fundamentally different than a domestic campaign. The foreign power has their own interests, which are potentially at odds with the interests of the electorate.
Ostensibly, if you campaign in country A and are a citizen of country A, then you're "in the same boat" as the electorate. Of course, with economic stratification this becomes increasingly less true (fast food worker may live in same country as $$$ donor, but they are effectively living under different policies).
I understand, but you have to be extremely specific about how you frame foreign/domestic distinction, because these guys are prying from every angle to turn an open society's vulnerabilities and contradictions against itself. We need a broad-spectrum solution to this (one is cognitive vaccination through education, but it is too late for adults) and until we do, democracies are going to be on their back foot against the global oligarchy, because offense is much more effective than defense against this.
The specific case you seem to be making is if state actors deliberately aim a campaign at your voters. But what if it is only their multinationals, oligarchs, corruption and dirty money, what if it is interest groups, or what if it is "NGOs", or "the markets" and hedge funds, or cultural products, or what if it is simply large groups of netizens of a friendly state who talk up a specific candidate?
Maybe it is clear when russia does it, but they fumbled it this time with Romania, because they were so effective that it became obvious. In most cases it will not be this obvious and they will use multiple of the methods described above. All I am saying is that once they get inside voters' heads, it's hard to go and say that it is illegitimate because the people were influenced by effective propaganda.
PS: I still am not sure what happened here, there seem to also have been cyberattacks and leaking of credentials to make the election insecure, but the messaging is mixed because in the middle of this there are references to tiktok. I assume it is something similar to voter register data being leaked, which helps laser-target disinformation. I just hope this doesn't turn against us when we want to vote out someone and can't because foreign interference made the voters do it.