Good question.

I sometimes think about the fact that JFK fired Alan Dulles, the guy in charge of assassinating world leaders, months before he was assassinated, and that Dulles was then on the investigative committee into his death. Now, does that prove Dulles was behind the assassination? No. But it does make me go "Hmm." But it is worth noting that if that was what happened, I certainly wouldn't have the means at my disposal to prove it. I wasn't on the investigative committee, after all.

Now, I might choose to believe that's what happened, or that there was a possibility that that's what happened. You might not. That's fine. But what would be less fine would be if I declared anyone who doubted my conjecture and wanted concrete proof to be a redfash who blindly believes anything the US government says and should be banned and excluded from conversation.

Yeah, more likely the actors on Lemmy are just useful idiots parroting propaganda points they've heard elsewhere.

Time

Basically none on the part of the handlers. Often this arrangement is handled by a private firm that doesn't necessarily have to be Russian or Chinese, I have heard of one operating in Australia. The posters themselves are spending a lot of time, but they're the ones selling it.

Money

Again, they're not exactly paying these guys a living wage, and even if they were, it's peanut crumbs for state-level actors.

Effort

A lot of people say that Lemmy is not worth the effort to demoralize because it's too small, I say the effort is too small to not be worth the investment. I would even say that Lemmy users are self-selected for radicalization in some ways, broadly speaking they are fed up with corporate social media and corporatism in general.

It's also a somewhat important step to have a place they can speak unfiltered amongst themselves, no matter how small the clubhouse is. That's where the real funky shit happens.

unless we grow, in which case they get shunted into like 1% corner hole of the community somewhere that everybody points and laughs at.

Though that requires growing first lmao.