I find it odd that Americans aren't angrier about Russia running disinfo bot networks for over a decade now, building up to almost everything in the current cultural moment.

Also odd that the tech behind this isn't more talked about. I lost the source but there was something about bot networks that could argue both sides of a topic to feign the illusion of a real debate - and this predated ChatGPT by many years.

Big platforms like Google or X have only mildly experimented with heavenbanning and discourse manipulation at scale. These Russian networks have had at least a decades' worth of experience with it.

Somehow, in reducing all political opponents to bots, the discourse does seem to forget that there's often someone behind the bots, a tangible nation-state of a target.

Sure, but until then I'm reasonably certain that the people I have discussed this with were not bots.