An op-ed by the president of the right-wing human rights group Freedom House, published in the New York Times Monday (12/11/17)—later boosted by New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker—warned of the menace of "commentators, trolls, bots, false news sites and propaganda," and their negative effects on democracy. Missing from its analysis was any account of how the government that funds its organization (86 percent of Freedom House's budget comes from the US government, primarily the State Department and USAID) uses social media to stir unrest and undermine governments worldwide.

What the reader was left with was a very selective, curated impression that online social media manipulation is something done exclusively by brown and black people and those dastardly Slavs. The column condemns "surreptitious techniques pioneered in Moscow and Beijing to use the internet to drown out dissent and undermine free elections," going on to cite online skullduggery in the Philippines, Kenya, Turkey, Mexico and Iran.