I ran across a Sam Harris podcast recently where his guest, Renee Diresta dug into the Russian collusion from a technical perspective.
Link to her web site.
I was listening while doing other things so I likely missed pieces, but she presented evidence she found of feeling/behavior modification through social media by foreign actors. One of the examples she used was of an organisation that would post test threads on social media, then monitor audience response. They would cycle this post/analyze/revamp/re-post for maximum effect, gaining them a top level/popular post/thread/meme, etc... They know from doing this what approaches work best to get content into your newsfeed.
Here is a link to that podcast if you would like to listen.
I also listened to most of his podcast with Jaron Lanier who was very blunt that giant tech companies are absolutely manipulating the less discerning of their audiences using behavior modification. I've heard many times that when it comes to the internet, if its free, you are the product. He is quite adamant that this is wrong, it is not you that are the product, its the information about you that can be used to steer you into doing something you did not intend that is the product. I'll say up front that he sounds like a self entitled limp wrist-ed lithpy liberal, but the technical aspects of his statements are worth considering.
Here is that podcast.
I've completely lost faith in every news source available currently. The witch hunt this weekend over the Catholic school boys vs the Indian vs the Israelite muslims(?) at the Lincoln Memorial drove the final nail in that coffin for me. No wonder the masses are teaming and frothing at the mouth, they are unknowingly being driven by their confirmation bias to a place beyond reason and discourse.
Is there a way out of this cycle? Will we ever be a country united or will we always be a set of tightly knit, isolated groups based on skin color or ideology.