Thanks for the comment, food for thought!
> Historically more than half the budget and employees of the IRA is dedicated to Russian speaking internet users and have been involved in way more elaborate schemes directed at Russian electors. They've physically impersonated journalists and gone to the door of anti-government activists for example. The Russian government also has a tighter media machine to encircle their propaganda targets by coordinating their attacks using TV, press and internet assets directly aligned with the state.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this were true. Russia's government viewed from a distance does seem like the kind of entity engaged in this kind of 'persuasion' and operations, even through third party 'private' entities.
> In the USA sockpuppetting and astroturfing by political entities is usually discovered due to healthy democratic tensions where both camps get to freely express themselves when they discover them.
I think there's danger in this kind of statement. If one truly believes one's country to have a healthy way of resolving such operations because the balance of powers is so great, that person is prime for getting manipulated as they are letting their guard down.
> Finally the example here is less about a political operative trying to trick the American constituents than giving the FCC a pretext (or biased analysis) to say their policy was popular.
I agree, however if you ask me this gives an even smaller group of people control of the majority than if the target would be directly influencing the average American constituent. I'm not sure if I understood the idea clearly, but it seems a lot more dangerous for an entity to just be able to justify its own actions in order to influence laws in a nation, than to have to go through the hurdle of influencing the masses.