It is true that much of what circled during the campain was patently false... but there are also times (quite often) when what the MSM says, or at least the first-level implications of that they're saying and omitting, is also patently false. Yet, the entire theory relies not upon actually "hacking" or rigging an election, but instead spreading misinformation (all the way from blatantly false and ridiculous over to questionable to true, depending on the perspective) that people don't take the time to verify.

https://babylonbee.com/news/cnn-repor...

That so many people don't fact-check (especially when it is so easy to do in this day and age) is laziness, I agree. But one correction is this: these actors are not disseminating information but lies. I don't have a problem with people exposing the truth (like the Democrat's emails showing they rigged the election against Bernie Sanders) or advertising their products but it needs to be above-board. I do have a problem with smear and propaganda campaigns.

PS - I'd love to get a link to the article you mention.

Why does "collusion to influence" (the election) or "collusion to influence" (American policy) cause such a stir? The way they're doing all these things is literally by disseminating information and relying on the readers' laziness and failure to fact-check, correct? Yes, the truthfulness may be questionable, but isn't all of this manufactured? The wielders of power are ALWAYS waging a war of information (pushing acceptance of information that is unverifiable, encouraging people to not question things, "believe what we tell you") to make sure their own power remains secure, or more accurately, that they have the ability to make all decisions necessary "for the public good."
With the fracking -- it's the same thing. There's a segment of American society that thinks it's horrible and wants it stopped. Russian interests want it stopped too, though for a different reason, so they'll back whatever activist will get their goals done.
It's nice to have the curtain fall and know this is happening, but why does it matter? What's everyone's obsession with this?

EDIT: to clarify re "war of information"

EDIT: and SERIOUSLY, saying any entity "conspired to influence" the election? Isn't that what every person involved in politics is doing the entire election cycle? There was a BabylonBee satire article highlighting this recently (something like "millions of Trump fans conspire to influence the election and prevent Hillary from being president")

Not likely...sounds more like the left and the environ-mental-ist fake news, to me.