It's clear upon inspection that the media narrative about an influx of Russian or otherwise foreign bots influencing politics in America is built on flimsy data and enormous leaps of logic. Further, the narrative empowers conspiracy theorists to make essentially whatever claims they want about anyone. The bots that do exist are drops of water in the ocean of social media, but I believe that the effect of constant front-page news stirring up fear about foreign influence can have far-reaching negative effects on any democracy.

There are jailed dissenters around the world, with harsher sentences for lesser crimes, wasting in silence. We shouldn’t forget them and we shouldn’t forget the message Pussy Riot was trying to spread. However, we should let rebellion and reform grow organically from within a country and then foster and support it with an outsider’s perspective; we shouldn’t place ourselves and our lives and our Twitter feeds directly into someone else’s story and someone else’s struggle. If it’s not about you, don’t make it about you.

This entire debacle should be a reminder to the world why a secular society isn't just a lark or some unbearable burden on religious people who want to nose around in their employees' sex lives. A subset of religious people will always claim that their faith requires them to silence dissent and impose their values on others through government force, but we cannot be afraid to stand up to them, no matter how loudly they squall about having their feelings hurt. The Pussy Riot travesty is the logical end result of giving special legal consideration and privileges to religion.

‘Alexey Kouznetsov is a 30-something Russian web developer. Kuznetsov has been designing websites since at least 2002, and on his portfolio site, he markets himself with this modest tagline: “If… you want your pages to be more impressive and dynamic than before, contact the author of this site to order elaboration, introduction and development of new graphic effects on your pages.”’

“Three American siblings attend an experimental school in Moscow where instruction is only in Russian and classes are videotaped to improve teaching.”

The story of Chat Roulette's teenage creator. Where will it lead?