what is real?
I woke up on Saturday morning to find most of the internet was incandescent with rage about the US attacking Venezuela, capturing their president and his wife and taking them to the US for trial.
On Reddit there was the same outrage, but someone pointed to the Venezuela subReddit where Venezuelan Redditors were seemingly celebrating the removal of a hated dictator. There were posts describing the harsh conditions they had lived under - which they were hoping would change with the subsequent change in regime - and criticising any non-Venezuelan who spoke out against the actions of the US, basically saying 'until you understand what this guy did to us, you have no right to feel outraged'.
I got to thinking about what was real in this scenario, more to the point who was telling the truth about the situation. It's pretty easy to knock up some sock puppet accounts, it's also well known that a whole swathe of fake users can be created to AstroTurf a subject.
Were these Venezuelan Redditors' celebrations just a load of US sock puppets trying to turn internet nerds' perception from outrage to acceptance of the US's seemingly illegal actions?
Were they actual Venezuelans living through a brutal fascist regime who were simply celebrating the removal of their oppressor?
It's difficult to know. That's the problem with today's social media; it's no longer a platform for everyday people to share ideas and ting, it's now primarily a tool for states to sway public perception and affect political change through covert operations.
Look at Brexit. Brexit would never have happened without social media; without Cambridge Analytical targeting voters; without troll farms relentlessly pushing anti-EU rhetoric on Facebook and Twitter; without millions of pounds funnelled into the Brexit Party from places unknown. Brexit severely weakened the EU and totally fucked over the United Kingdom, 10 years later those Sunlit Uplands we were promised seem no nearer than when that 52-48 vote dropped.
So what is real? Is anything on the internet real? Am I an idiot for trusting what I read online?
Definitely yes to that last point.