Consider the revelations in the Austrian election
If you're a political party, and you don't have a series of Facebook pages and other social media smear campaigns, you're not even in the game.
A scandal in Austria politics on the weekend highlights how the game is being played in 2017.
The ruling Social Democratic Party is facing a challenge from 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz of the center-right People's Party.
What did they do? They set up two Facebook page, the first was called "The truth about Sebastian Kurz" as part of a broader unit on negative campaigning.
The pages featured memes, xenophobic anti-migrant and anti-refugee posts along with conspiracy theories linking him to George Soros.
That sounds familiar.
The second was more clever, it was called "We for Sebastian Kurz" and was designed to create controversy around Kurz and muddle his positions.
After first denying any links, the ruling Social Democrats fired a party executive and have now pledged to investigate themselves.
I think most people agree this kind of thing is wrong, whether it's orchestrated by opponents, by Russians or anyone who is not transparent. But hoping it will go away or that it's ineffective is naïve.
The consequences for democracy, culture and cohesion are dire. Soon the whole world will be a ranting conspiracy.
