It is the unholy union of a new unregulated form of communication, social media, and unregulated privatized intelligence companies, such as Palantir and Cambrdige Analytica.
Ironically China implemented the GFW because they correctly predicted this exact scenario being used to destabilize themselves.
You can't subject people who were illiterate subsistence farmers who never left their home town 50 years ago to highly processed foreign propaganda and expect good outcomes.
Funnily this (only its local not foreign propaganda) is kind of what's happening in India. The BJP (party in power) is leaning very heavily on propaganda towards the uneducated masses to boost their image.
