Absolutely! China, Saudi and others are also major players in that game, each with their own angle, and often with overlapping interests, particularly in under

Absolutely! China, Saudi and others are also major players in that game, each with their own angle, and often with overlapping interests, particularly in undermining democracy and making it safe for (often criminal) autocracies, by weakening the democratic institutions and/or warping them into services for their personal protection/gain. I focused on Russia simply because that foe alone is a massive topic unto itself, and is currently most relevant (tho Jeff Bezos might first highlight the Saudis... but that is actually an example of overlap with Saudi and RUS interests). So, yes, it is a problem at the root of social media and indeed search services too. I expect that at first, they never considered that threat model (just as airline security had never considered the threat model of hijacking an airplane to turn it into a missile prior to 2001). But they are also remarkably naive & slow to recognize the threat model and astonishingly feeble in their response to an existential threat.