In September 2016, The Independent wrote that shitposting is an apolitical "tool that can be put to a variety of effects".[12] But posts such as these appeared long before the 2016 US presidential election. Engineering & Technology magazine wrote that "shitposting, whether from the left or right, is perilously close to delivering an online metastasis of Orwell's Two-minute Hate [sic]".[13]