Get Cozy

In the least surprising news headline in recent memory, it was revealed that many MAGA-loving Twitter accounts were in fact foreign influencers and bots whose sole purpose was to sow division in American politics, and get paid handsomely to do so.

Since the Obama years, there has been endless chatter and accusations around foreign interference in American elections. Leaving aside the hypocrisy of these concerns as Americans, there does seem to be selective rage on this topic. Whatever side is victorious ultimately doesn’t care how the winning votes were secured. The losing side, however, is inevitably apocalyptic. With each passing election, the divisions in this country seem more severe than the last. Political disagreements used to be debated, back when the Chamber was the main venue to put all the parties together. With advent of social media, most public debates amongst representatives are now shielded behind keyboards – a one way stream of thought, sent out into the ether for millions of people to pull into thousands of directions to fit whatever narrative – true or false – each individual believes.

Actual debates in Congress still are part of the American politic. But if you listen lately, you will see each speaker is mostly addressing social media posts that fomented the outrage of the day. The days of “point-counterpoint”, “question and answer”, and dare I say, “compromise”, seem like quaint relics of the past. In a 51%-49% country, Left or Right, where you would think compromise is imperative, we instead see a zero-sum game of only winners and losers.

There are no longer trusted news anchors being the harbinger of truth. There are only messengers who are tainted by whatever entity employs them, where facts, data and science can be molded into truth or lies, fully dependant on the bias within. Social media cultivates that mistrust by manipulating the news, and amplifying falsehoods with unsourced claims that feed our worst instincts. X/Twitter, Reddit, Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, and the ironically named Truth Social, are but a few platforms who allow these lies to fester.

Many of us remember the outrage whenever a foreign country would weigh in on internal American politics especially during an election year. Today, as many already feared, foreign governments and individuals easily create fake social media accounts and deploy hundreds, even thousands of them, globally. They run with the most divisive rhetoric of the day, leveraging fake stories, made-up sources, old photographs, and interviews out of context to generate as much engagement (comments) as humanly possible. A stroll through the Comments section of any political post is like wandering through a burning building. Many would wonder how anybody could say a fraction of what these commenters were saying in public. Racism, misogyny, anti semitism, threats, bullying – all gleefully posted with no fear of retribution. Musk, Zuckerberg, and their billionaire boys club, abandoned any common sense monitoring of their platforms’ content. “Free Speech” reigns. It’s a fine notion – but probably not for the families devastated by violence, suicides, shame, harassment, fueled by a frothing social media community – now confirmed to be mostly foreign agents and bots.

Engagement on social media has become a lucrative venture for many. After all, you can be a complete moron – but if your violent, or sexual, or harassing videos can generate likes and comments, you will get paid. Smarter people, with far more sinister motivations, can also capitalize on this business model. In other words, Elon Musk was/is paying foreign agents for their interference in our elections. The person just awarded a $1T pay package by his Board, was entrusted to tell the American taxpayer how their public dollars should be spent, while personally rewarding foreign influencers to sway our politics.

Give your head a shake.

Where is the outrage now? The 2024 election came down to a few thousand votes in key swing state districts. Musk was already paying for people to vote via fake surveys, he donated over $250M of his own money in the last 60 days of the election to Trump, and now we find out his company was paying foreign agents to post false rhetoric that drove independent voters away from Kamala Harris to Trump and his MAGA acolytes.

I ask again, where is the outrage?