Ohio

Like amplify the false rumor a random Facebook mom in Ohio started?

You're pointing at a thing our own politicians and billionaires are currently doing and going "What if Russia did it too".
Understanding that the media amplifies particular stories to promote a perspective that is in their interest and against your own doesn't require the addition of a foreign power, that just muddies the issue.
- Why not both.jpg
- Those politicians and billionaires who have very, shall we say, friendly thoughts about Russia?
  Now, why do you think that is?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections
- Don't know why you're getting down voted. Bots and media manipulation are a thing, Russia and many governments are almost certainly doing it on different scales. But you make a good point that our own governments are doing it do, and even before social media stories were prompted or hushed up for reasons other than newsworthiness or public interest. That's not a conspiracy theory, that's basic media history of the last century.
- The tone is all wrong.

Man, the kids were really prophetic with their slang. I'm from Michigan, so I've always been biased against Ohio, but goddamn if they don't give reasons to be.

Real. What the fuck is there to do in Ohio other than drugs.
Cedar point doesn't count. As a Michigander I do not recognize Ohio's claim over Toledo.
- Leave
Hell, I'm IN Ohio and I agree. Outside of a few places, the majority of Ohio sucks.
- The closest I've ever been to a bar fight was while checking in to a hotel in Ohio.

Create an anti-vaxx movement?

It also took one person to start the whole couch fucking thing.

That one was more fun
- And a lot fewer people have threatened to bomb schools and hospitals because of it.
In both cases, it wasn't the original message that kicked off the firestorm, it was a deliberate strategy put forward by billion-dollar presidential campaigns.
Nobody knew about the "eating my neighbor's cat" post even after the debate. It took weeks to track down what Laura Loomer had whispered into Trump's ear. Nobody considered the "Hillbilly Elegy had a chapter where Vance fucks a couch" tweet important until celebrities and politicians began retweeting it as a means of disgracing a weird conservative sex pest.
If there's a rumor started by a smear campaign run out of an office in Moscow (and they're even halfway competent in their execution) you're likely only going to hear about it once it becomes the focus of some rhetorical exchange-of-fire on a top tier domestic social media celebrity or in a Senatorial debate. Even then, you won't get to hear where it originated from until the polls have long since closed, in much the same way nobody got the details on the Comey indictment of Hilary or the Georgia election-steal attempt by Trump until it was too late.
It isn't "one person" starting a rumor. Its an industry that feeds on rumors and is constantly regurgitating them to get your attention.
- even after the debate. It took weeks to track down...
  It hasn't been a full week since the debate.

imagine what an ex-KGB agent with unlimited resources can do.

Oh, there's no need to imagine: I'm on the internet right now. I'm probably staring at this kind of state-actor bullshit on a daily basis without even knowing it.

Sometimes it's easier to recognise than other times.
Fifty-fifty.
But my history has at least one.

What they do is retweet moms in Ohio

I mean, they don't just retweet them, they twist the narrative, write legitimate looking articles on legitimate looking websites that people can quote, and subtly propose civil unrest, as that's their ultimate goal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_disinformation_website_campaigns_in_Russia
It's moms in Ohio all the way down.

Just like everything in the Trump era, that KGB agent would fail miserably because why would something so ridiculous work? The most significant lasting legacy of Maga-politics will be the death of comedy, because who would write something so extreme? No one would believe it