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Manipulation is indeed happening on mainstream social media platforms to such an extent that this is now very endangering all remaining democracies.

In the Fediverse, however, this has hardly been a problem so far, as none of the participating platforms has a reach that is even remotely relevant. Of course, this network is also vulnerable, even quite significantly due to its decentralized architecture, but I have not noticed any such attempts here so far (except for a few really pathetic users who wanted to give their opinions more weight with various fake accounts).

Nevertheless, what you say is a serious problem, but I don't think it plays a major role in this network for now.

I think it's just the usual, completely absurd US "patriotism." Unfortunately that is still a thing, even under Trump. There are simply a lot of people who believe that it is a sign of excellence when their home country wins the gold medal in Olympic hockey -for some reason people see this as their personal success and act accordingly on social media.