> Also, such claims are almost always made by outsiders, who know least about the 'culture' and at the same time are prone, being humans, to make broad, powerfu

> Also, such claims are almost always made by outsiders, who know least about the 'culture' and at the same time are prone, being humans, to make broad, powerful claims about extremes in 'the other', who are slightly alien and thus might do anything. True. The problem with insiders judging the culture is that they might be blind to it. But it’s best to not get caught up in narratives about “culture” and other such idealistic things. > Edit: I'm very familiar with the stereotype of Russian hackers, but stereotypes are very misleading. There are Russian government disinformation campaigns, where we do have specific claims and lots of evidence, but that seems like a different issue. There was a very strong interest in Russian government disinformation campaigns because Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election. And I don’t doubt that there is evidence of election interference. But the amount of money that was behind that seems like a pittance considering the big election advertisement industry.[1] None should be surprised that you will find shady and underhanded things done by the more clandestine arms of some government. But we should be wary of people using that well-of-course-they-are as an outsized scapegoat to explain a big event like a federal election. [1] Are run of the mill smear campaigns to be classified as “disinformation” or just regular ads?