Social media’s reckoning may have arrived

In 2014, Buzzfeed News reported on the Internet Research Agency, a “troll farm” based in Russia that waged an organized propaganda campaign across social media. According to internal emails, operatives were instructed to run multiple Facebook, Twitter and blog accounts, bombard comment sections and build fake audiences to shape American political discourse. It’s a method employed by Russia that dates back to at least the 2008 presidential campaign. Yet nearly two decades later, the U.S. is still debating the scope and geographical breadth of our foreign troll problem. All the while, fraudulent accounts have continued to flourish.

In 2022, when Elon Musk purchased Twitter, the news-heavy platform he’s since rebranded as X, the multi-billionaire immediately reinstated accounts banned for ha