US, UK, Russia Lead on 'Fake Accounts'? How Novel.
According to the Financial Times, Russia, the US, and the UK are leading nations for providing low-cost fake online accounts. The paper cites SMS verification as the fueling mechanism for 'global influence and manipulation campaigns.' While they focus on the how, they curiously gloss over the long history of intelligence agencies from these very nations engaging in precisely such campaigns,
predating the internet by decades. Remember Operation Mockingbird? Or the UK's Information Research Department? This isn't innovation; it's just digital outsourcing. Highlighting "influence and manipulation campaigns" from these specific actors without acknowledging their own historical mastery of propaganda (as evidenced by documents from the Church Committee or declassified State Department
files) is like reporting on the weather and forgetting the climate. It's a convenient framing that points fingers abroad while sanitizing domestic actors who have funded psychological operations and media manipulation since before most Financial Times readers were born. How many 'influencers' are actually just state-sponsored digital operatives?