The Ukraine conflict has been very eye opening for me after being cognizant of the run up to the Iraq War. Iraq was full pro-war from the MSM, but social media hadn't been invented yet. One would've hoped that the plethora of voices and sources that could be accessed on modern social media platforms would make manufacturing consent harder to do, but it seems like the Ukraine stuff is even more all-encompassing.
askchapo
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Social media's ability to amplify dissent and make consent manufacturing harder peaked around 2010-2015 imo. That was sort of a golden age where the tech was there, but the people who really run the show - not the spooks just running the plumbing, the information Tzars- didn't realize their traditional outlets had collapsed in the way that they had.
US intelligence has been all over the web for for years, but Trump really rang the alarm for the spooks. Regardless of their politics, he was not supposed to win, and they could not handle one instance where they did not bend reality to their will (even if they benefitted). It drove them insane, and made a lot of people imo realize that the internet had to be "tamed" and turned into a replacement for Cable TV/Radio/Newspapers to keep the consent factory open.
I remember getting into debates with LiveJournal friends because I opposed the Iraq invasion. My biggest regret was feeling like LiveJournal represented anything significant.
I think about how I'll feel about myself in 20 years.