There’s a story doing the rounds this week about One Nation’s Facebook presence being propped up, at least in part, by overseas accounts running what amount to engagement farms. Foreign-operated pages, monetising outrage, targeting Australian political discourse. And the reaction online has been roughly split between “obviously” and “finally someone said it.”

Both reactions are correct, which is an uncomfortable place to sit.

The “obviously” crowd has a point. This isn’t new. Cambridge Analytica. The 2019 Australian federal election and the Topham Guerin meme machine. Russia’s well-documented interference in European elections. The playbook has been public for years. You don’t need a sophisticated operation to run it, either. Pick a divisive political figure, generate content that provokes strong feelings, collect ad revenue from the engagement. No ideology required. Just a spreadsheet and a low opinion of the audience.

There’s a headline doing the rounds that’s got everyone fired up: “40% of teenage boys believe women lie about domestic and sexual violence.” It’s the kind of statistic that makes you want to throw your phone across the room. But before we all collectively lose our minds, we need to talk about something that’s been bugging me for years now – the way survey questions are worded, and how those wordings get spun into inflammatory headlines.