The level of effort devoted to manipulating our opinions is unprecedented. Granted, a lot of this has to do with the fact that most of the "free" online services we use aren't free at all. They are trading our ability to make measured opinions for advertisers' money, and some of these "advertisers" are foreign governments. With all of these attempts to manipulate us into doing things we otherwise don't want to do — many of which are surprisingly successful — there is one question we should be asking of any inflammatory story: Why?