Super Secretive Russian Disinfo Operation Discovered Dating Back To 2014 (zdnet.com) 102
Social media research group Graphika published today a 120-page report unmasking a new Russian information operation of which very little has been known so far. ZDNet reports: Codenamed Secondary Infektion, the group is different from the Internet Research Agency (IRA), the Sankt Petersburg company (troll farm) that has interfered in the US 2016 presidential election. Graphika says this new and separate group has been operating since 2014 and has been relying on fake news articles, fake leaks, and forged documents to generate political scandals in countries across Europe and North America. The research team says it first learned of the group from reports published by Reddit and Facebook last year, along with previous research done by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.
According to Graphika's analysis, most of the group's content has followed nine primary themes:
- Ukraine as a failed state or unreliable partner
- The United States and NATO as aggressive and interfering in other countries
- Europe as weak and divided
- Critics of the Russian government as morally corrupt, alcoholic, or otherwise mentally unstable
- Muslims as aggressive invaders
- The Russian government as the victim of Western hypocrisy or plots
- Western elections as rigged and candidates who criticized the Kremlin as unelectable
- Turkey as an aggressive and destabilizing state
- World sporting bodies and competitions as unfair, unprofessional, and Russophobic
Graphika says that most of this content has been aimed at attacking classic Russian political rivals like Ukraine, the US, Poland, and Germany, but also other countries where Russian influence came under attack, at one point or another. [...] Researchers said the group managed to keep its identity secret because they paid very close attention to operational security (OpSec). Graphika says Secondary Infektion agents employed single-use burner accounts for almost everything they posted online, abandoning each account in less than an hour after promoting their content. With its identity still a secret, the group is expected to continue operating and sowing conflict between Russia's rivals.
According to Graphika's analysis, most of the group's content has followed nine primary themes:
- Ukraine as a failed state or unreliable partner
- The United States and NATO as aggressive and interfering in other countries
- Europe as weak and divided
- Critics of the Russian government as morally corrupt, alcoholic, or otherwise mentally unstable
- Muslims as aggressive invaders
- The Russian government as the victim of Western hypocrisy or plots
- Western elections as rigged and candidates who criticized the Kremlin as unelectable
- Turkey as an aggressive and destabilizing state
- World sporting bodies and competitions as unfair, unprofessional, and Russophobic
Graphika says that most of this content has been aimed at attacking classic Russian political rivals like Ukraine, the US, Poland, and Germany, but also other countries where Russian influence came under attack, at one point or another. [...] Researchers said the group managed to keep its identity secret because they paid very close attention to operational security (OpSec). Graphika says Secondary Infektion agents employed single-use burner accounts for almost everything they posted online, abandoning each account in less than an hour after promoting their content. With its identity still a secret, the group is expected to continue operating and sowing conflict between Russia's rivals.
Heh (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure the discussion about this here will be sober and unemotional.
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It's all lies!
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The first two and the last two don't seem an unreasonable take on the situation, although they almost certainly exaggerated both.
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Actually, I stopped to think about it, I found it an interesting internet numbers thing, you know 2,500 articles over five years on blogs. I realised that four or five Russian teenagers who read and write English, you know real geeks/nerds, they could produce that number of articles from their Mom's basement's. Very secretive, not so much the reality, as invisible not secret invisible either, just the internet one, lost amongst millions kind. No one paying any real attention to their efforts, not wanting to
Secret espionage agency (Score:2)
And you know how a real espionage agency works?
That fact that you don't believe he could be working in an espionage agency,
just shows you how good his espionage agency employer is good at keeping secrets~
Just saying~
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The articles are just one small part of the operation. You see people around here linking to dubious blog posts to back up their dubious claims, well that's what these are for too.
The Russians have spend tens of millions on this, probably a lot more. The Internet Research Agency is known to employ thousands of people so hundreds of millions would be a reasonable budget for an organization that size.
They don't need tens of thousands of blog posts, what they need are millions of fake social media posts linkin
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Everything is more convincing if it caters to some convictions the listener already had.
Sure, but that doesn't mean the information isn't true.
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"...the Russian government as morally corrupt, alcoholic, or otherwise mentally unstable..."
FTFY
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The part nobody has realized yet is that it's all a stupid diversion to hide their real goal; perpetually stalking and harassing me, personally.
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You spilled coffee again. There's a hole in your left sock. The ham in your fridge is overdue.
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The battery in the bedroom smoke detector is almost out; better replace it.
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Is there a newsletter?
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I'm sure the discussion about this here will be sober and unemotional.
No doubt, because...
The research team says it first learned of the group from reports published by Reddit and Facebook last year, along with previous research done by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.
...tax dollars well spent.
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Obviously the sites where these people are operating are going to have better insight into them from their internal logs and hidden data points than an outside observer so naturally will detect threats earlier.
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The best propoganda is when there is some truth (Score:3)
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Stop giving them the ammunition.
Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition,
Praise the Lord, we're on a mighty mission
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and the events in the USA and around the world recently have only played into the narrative they need. Rioting and looting played out on TV with selective commentary says the west is decadent however that is far from the case but those few are spoiling it for the rest. Stop giving them the ammunition.
Correct. Rags like RT are having a field day.
While at it, the best possible influence campaign is not a disinformation campaign. It is an exaggeration campaign. It is much easier to emphasize, exaggerate and pull things out of perspective if they are already there.
Out of that list three are not that far off:
Ukraine as a failed state or unreliable partner
The United States and NATO as aggressive and interfering in other countries
World sporting bodies and competitions as unfair, unprofessional, and Russophobic
Ukraine - a country where the President declares military law which allows him to resupply the army without going through a normal tender process and does that via his mates who smuggle in Russian mi
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Should we make their crimes about race, or should we just condemn people who commit violent acts regardless of skin tone?
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Well, first we need to start by just figuring out which ones are acting voluntarily and which ones were paid in advance.
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What about the ones paid weekly and doing it voluntarily?
There are so many videos of cops in uniform smashing their own cars, stores...
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Burn police cars, loot stores, smash shit up, rage against various machines, and get paid for it?!
I'm going to track down my former high school guidance counselor, Mr. Deltoid. He has some 'splaining to do.
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Burn police cars, loot stores, smash shit up, rage against various machines, and get paid for it?!
YES. [archive.org]
#cutthecheck
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You just went from pointing out crimes based on race, to asking if we should make crimes about race.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
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This. Sure, it used to be clubs printing pamphlets, just more efficient now... And people probably are probably more gullible now too, that helps.
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Lets be honest, in the internet age, 2,500 articles sound a lot in printing press days but in the internet over six years, buried under lets say, 2,500,000 minimum articles scattered all over the internet, less than nothing. How about if Russians compiled the total number of US articles that lied about Russian I would bet that number would be way over 25,000.
Sorry but 2,500 articles over six years is a really lame and pathetic propaganda effort. Especially when you are talking fucking blogs, how many blogs
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You can't simply count the total number of articles out there and claim it's nothing. If you google the targeted subjects, how many articles are there for those? They're not going to be writing an equal number of articles on basket weaving. Also, placement matters, as does the language. How many eyeballs did these articles attract?
I heard a rumor (Score:2)
"very little has been known so far." is a euphemism for "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious."
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Very insightful, and yet you missed the linked pdf with the detailed investigation
Maybe you misunderstood the term 'known so far' which was speaking in the past. I know, I know, English what a crappy language
Here are the sections that you managed to ignore:
Table of contents
. Secondary Infektion at a Glance
. Executive Summary
. Lessons Learned and Questions Unanswered
. The Operation's Main Themes
. Crossing Campaigns
. The Countries
. The Techniques
. The Effort and the Impact
. Early Experiments with Personas
. Vi
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Here's the one you managed to ignore: Ferris Bueller's Day Off [imdb.com].
Disinformation? (Score:4, Informative)
Propaganda sure, but can you really call it disinformation...
- Ukraine as a failed state or unreliable partner
- The United States and NATO as aggressive and interfering in other countries
- Europe as weak and divided
- Critics of the Russian government as morally corrupt, alcoholic, or otherwise mentally unstable
- Muslims as aggressive invaders
- The Russian government as the victim of Western hypocrisy or plots
- Western elections as rigged and candidates who criticized the Kremlin as unelectable
- Turkey as an aggressive and destabilizing state
- World sporting bodies and competitions as unfair, unprofessional, and Russophobic
when half of these are true. :)
Re:Disinformation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Judging only from your reply, I'd say it could certainly be called effective.
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Telling the truth generally is effective. Ohh noes Russian social media indicates what English speaking Russians are feeling and expressing on the internet.
At least when the USA does it, they don't try to hide their propaganda outfits, the publicly declare, units of the US military, elements of the CIA and NSA, all publicly declared, not their posts though, they fucking hide that. Ohh yeah they publicly declare they propaganda operations but keep their input to the internet secret, like you always do with l
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very persistent Ivan, extra potato soup for you
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For one it's a very common tactic to sandwich lies in between trues to make make the lies more palpable and believable.
Then it also depends on what exactly you say whether your particular statements are true or not.
For example I do also believe that Turkey has been an aggressive and destabilizing state under Erdogan.
And I think there's evidence for that seeing as how he and his party treat political opposition, the witch hunts he
Sounds about right for the stuff concerning the EU (Score:3)
Based on recent events those don't sound exactly far off:
"Europe as weak and divided" sums up the handling of the corona crisis and the actions of the Brussels EU in general which rules in its own interest instead of the the citizens', oh yea and that little Brexit thing
"Muslims as aggressive invaders" France has an ethnic mini war between North Africans/Arabs and Chechens at the moment, and Germany's police is losing control to various foreign clans
"Turkey as an aggressive and destabilizing state" Turkey has been using migrants as a weapon against Greece and the EU where they literally attacked the EU border
Re:Sounds about right for the stuff concerning the (Score:4, Informative)
"Europe as weak and divided" sums up the handling of the corona crisis and the actions of the Brussels EU in general which rules in its own interest instead of the the citizens', oh yea and that little Brexit thing
Oh my f... god. This really shows how half truths can be super effective propaganda. Just to give one simple fact. There are more deaths per day now in the UK alone than in the entirety of the EU. Of course the EU's handling of Coronavirus was less than ideal. I think ideal handling happened in New Zealand, Taiwan (slight over-reaction, but justified since done at times of lesser knowledge) and Vietnam only.
There was less than sufficient reaction to Italy; there was somewhat too slow reaction, though it's now turning out that the EU was likely infected before the virus was even identified, there were problems. Overall, however, the EU has had the biggest problem in the world (far worse, early on, than the USA) and has moved from worst in the world to best in the world. The German testing and treatment capabilities are second to none. People are being shipped from all over the EU to take advantage of them when needed. These are completely independent countries which have managed to work together. That's an amazing achievement for a continent that, less than a century ago was the main source of war in the world. Compare that with the USA where the states within one country have been unable to come up with a coherent strategy and it looks as if the country will be incapable of going coronavirus free at least until a vaccine comes up.
If you aren't a Russian propaganda agent then you should go and look if your main source of information aren't based on their ideas.
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I am not sure who first came up with it (my best guess would be some of the more staunch nationalists from within the EU states themselves), but it's fairly common among many who do not like the EU, which can be anyone who sees the EU as a competitor to their own interests.
Hence alone from that you wouldn't be able to infer the origin of that narrative.
Of course Russian state funded media finds such narratives to be benefici
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That's quite ironic because I believe you are under-reporting from Newnight on BBC on 3rd June ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jr6j/newsnight-03062020 [bbc.co.uk] from 0:1:59 onwards)
The commentator goes on to say
"But it is important to add a few words of caution. There is a two-week lag between the UK and Franc
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These people aren't in France to invade it
Tell that to the people who life there while these people fight over who gets to control the territory. That's what this conflict is about: control over territory.
That's just a non specific lie, it's not even clear what it's referring to. It's something you just made up in your head with no bearing on reality.
Unfortunately not. This happens in many big German cities and regularly makes the news. Just last month a policewoman had to move because she got constant threats against her, her family and
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"Muslims as aggressive invaders" France has an ethnic mini war between North Africans/Arabs and Chechens at the moment, and Germany's police is losing control to various foreign clans
To be honest, that isn't new. Most of those clans came to Germany during the 60s and 70s.
Well... (Score:2)
- Ukraine as a failed state or unreliable partner
Ukraine would be doing better but for Russia
- The United States and NATO as aggressive and interfering in other countries
True, stating the obvious. Interesting that NATO kind of makes bursts of asserting itself
- Europe as weak and divided
True. Again obvious.
- Critics of the Russian government as morally corrupt, alcoholic, or otherwise mentally unstable
Like any country that criticizes another is described.
- Muslims as aggressive invaders
Mostly true. They are
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Lemme tell ya, it's a heckuva lot easier approach to propagandizing the proles than makin' shit up.
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This seems to be 'take all the people having pro-russian viewpoints together and assume there is a massive extremely secret coordinating organization behind them'.
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This seems to be 'take all the people having pro-russian viewpoints together and assume there is a massive extremely secret coordinating organization behind them'.
The article itself you mean? Sure, that might be all they've done. Basically found a russian forum and decided it's a grand conspiracy. Even if there was a conspiracy to push the points tho, the points themselves aren't (for the most part) unreasonable, though even the most reasonable issues can be blown way out of proportion for political purposes.
(see current events...)
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I was talking about the pdf report itself. The points of view listed are either points of view I can agree with or which I consider people can actually believe in but the report sees them as proof of a campaign. That by itself is enough to classify the authors as providing the results which the clients wants to see and which will make them a lot of money. It's utter crap and deeply toxic. It is also the standard which is now used everywhere. They also show a number of fake documents which are circulated as
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Turkey is going loose cannon. Largely because they want to commit genocide on the Kurds.
there, fixed it for you
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- Europe as weak and divided True. Again obvious
A perfect example of a half truth that only the weak minded are taken in by. Do you consider Asia to be "weak and divided" because India doesn't agree with China? No, of course not, those are separate sovereign countries with separate interests and ways of working. You can't expect that just because Inda wants something China will agree.
The EU has limited competence - primarily trade and other issues such as human rights that directly flow from and are related to trade. Within that area it has shown gr
All lies (Score:2)
Here's how you know this shit is all a lie: MSM & Liberals have spent the last 4 years declaring every politician they don't like is an evil Russian Putin Puppet, and everyone posting a comment they don't like is a Russian bot. That moron-tier position has way way WAY more traction than the opposite. So if this supposed evil Russia conspiracy has been spending the last 6 on pro-Russia propaganda, literally no one anywhere noticed it.
PS: Maybe there's a lot of whispering about Europe being weak and divid
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What if I told you that tons of people have noticed it but they simply can't remember doing so?
the big issue is... (Score:3)
most of those supposedly "fake information" they peddle turn out to be true ;-)
So - the guys new knowledge hired? (Score:2)
you know..the ex NSA sheisters trying to sell a social media monitoring product to the feds to protect against election interference.
you know.. the ones that paid IRA to run memes and jokes not related to the election.
you know.. the ones that used this advertising as PROOF that Russia was interfering with the election and "sowing discord".
you know.. the same new knowledge owner that got banned from facebook after they tracked later activity interfering with a state election to..
come on... don't be so stupid
No, wait! WAIT! Look here! No, here! (Score:4, Insightful)
Russians! It's Russians! Russians, I tell you! None of these things are real, it's all Russians! Russians! Russsssiiaaaanssss!
It's not our own failing leadership. It's not our own elites using scorched earth tactics on our own nations. Don't pay attention to any of the themes you see here, none of that stuff is important. Because it's made up by... Russians! You should think about Russians! THINK ABOUT RUSSIANS, and please don't think about all the crap your own leaders are doing to you...
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If you want to describe the actual situation your parody is going to have to be a lot more over the top than it is now.
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Sounds something a Russian would say ;)
But seriously, no one with half a brain who talks about this stuff also thinks that there are no problems in the world besides Russians. The point is that the Russians (and Chinese and North Koreas and Israel and who knows how many others) exaggerate and stir things up to create chaos and try to frame a narrative that presents there side as morally superior or, in the case of Russia, see, things here are at least not as bad as out there.
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Sure, but first of all, that happened always; it is not new to our era. We would be far less vulnerable to it if our leaders weren't attempting to destabilize every social structure they can think of. And secondly, if there's one country that likes to meddle, it's the US [wikipedia.org], so your moral high ground resembles a Dutch hill [youtube.com].
And that's the cold hard truth, comrade.
In the olden days (Score:2)
Didn't they used to install / recruit spies at universities, and get them into civil service roles?
Once you've managed something like that, you could probably pump out all sorts of research that causes unrest.
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The Chinese are the primary actors in that role now with their Confucius Institutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
fish in a barrel (Score:2)
Their efforts are certainly not hindered by the fact that half of those "themes" are largely true and only need some exaggeration or repeated exposure.
That's a great example of propaganda - don't spout out plain lies, but take the truth and bend it to your purposes, exaggerating as needed and - importantly - don't where not. That way if someone fact-checks, you can point to the truth in your words, gain some good reputation and appear as less partisan.
Sadly, all of these things are true (Score:2)
- Ukraine as a failed state or unreliable partner
- The United States and NATO as aggressive and interfering in other countries
- Europe as weak and divided
You don't need to be a consumer of Kremlin propaganda to recognize this. Ukraine is probably the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe.
The United States is not agressive and does not interfere in other countries, besides destroying Iraq on false promises, setting it up for a bloody 17 year long civil war and the rise of ISIS. The Nobel Peace Prize win
Moreover, Iran and Venezuela (Score:2)
The USA is not interfering and aggressively attempting regime change in Iran and Venezuela through a policy of overt economic warfare and military intimidation against those countries. However, the Russians continue spearing such misinfoation.
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Aggressively?
As in actually dropping bombs etc?
The US most certainly involved in regime change in Venezuela but has failed miserably so far... and Iran... ever since the US and Brits overthrew Iran's first democratically elected government and installed a dictator who was subsequently removed by a popular uprising has been involved in destabilisation ever since.
If you think the "Russians" are spreading what's going on - I can't help but think you are not familiar with independent journalists who have been r
A laundry list (Score:3)
It looks like a list of all the things slashdot trolls have been ranting about for years.
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Trolls of Sockpuppets? ;)
As a longtime slashdot reader we used to get tech related news. Since it was bought we seem to be getting US State Department talking points about as often ;)
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Trolls of Sockpuppets? ;)
A clan of trolls practicing sockpuppetry?
The 1980's called ... (Score:2)
Can't be that secretive (Score:2)
I remember back in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine hearing similar themes from the Russian trolls on the Yahoo boards. They were easy to spot when all they kept spouting was, "It was a coup!", "Elections were held (in Crimea)", "Ukraine is part of Russia", "Do you want to start World War III?" (that one always amused me because it came in reference to Europe and the U.S. supplying arms to Ukraine to defend itself from the invasion), and so on.
After a while the folks didn't even bother to try and hide wh
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Sorry but it WAS a US lead Coup.
https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
https://www.strategic-culture.... [strategic-culture.org]
I have to wonder what your motivations are for coming here and posting misinformation.
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Sorry but it WAS a US lead Coup.
https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
https://www.strategic-culture.... [strategic-culture.org]
I have to wonder what your motivations are for coming here and posting misinformation.
I have to wonder what your motivation is for posting crap. This is the real reason [nytimes.com] the people of Ukraine overthrew their corrupt government. Yanukovych ordered the Berkut security forces to open fire on the demonstrators, after which he fled into the arms of Putin along with many of the Berkut forces.
The people of Ukraine explicitly stated they wanted closer relations with the West. Yanukovych and his Kremlin sycophants rejected that when Putin tried to bribe them. The people said enough is enough and di
Classically Russian (Score:2)
Honestly, if this is what their efforts are going toward, it would show that the Russian tendency toward heavy-handedness, lack of understanding of Western cultures (particularly the US) hasn't changed from the famously unsubtle KGB days.
Don't get me wrong, basic tradecraft and spying they're pretty good at. But trying to do what amounts to memetic advertising and sound authentic or be the slightest bit unpredictable? Well, Russians have never been famous for their imagination.
They're just fighting back (Score:1)
Effective. (Score:2)
For thousands of years, aspiring power mongers have been pitting people against people, tribes against tribes, and nations against nations. This tactic is nothing new - only its digital casings are new.
If we want to truly nullify this situation, all concerned parties should come up with a strategy for de-escalating tensions, and promoting empathy amongst participants with differing views.
That means teaching liberals and conservatives to be less dogmatic, "us vs. them" in their interactions.
Of course, it do
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liberals must bear more of the burden of effort in promoting healthy discourse amongst conservatives.
When did you time travel from, before universities became cultist indoctrination centers like Evergreen college?
I mean, you do realize that modern leftists are trying to form their own caliphates in major cities, are tearing down historical statues and calling for the abolishment of police, and claiming "silence is violence" if you don't bend the knee to them? That wearing the wrong political attire while smirking gets you branded a hateful racist?
Do you even know what year it is?
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Do you even know what year it is?
No, what year is it?
NATO aggressor and interfering in other countries (Score:1)
Well, they're not wrong!
Good grief (Score:2)
The IRA was just a click bait operation nothing more. Unless you believe those Buff Bernie memes were going to bring the United States...
OH NO! Another $78k of worthless FB ads (Score:1)
for people to ignore or never even see with adblockers turned on?! What will we do?!
Use a grain of salt on fake news (Score:1)
Easy job for the "disinfo" campaign ... (Score:2)
... when most of those things are established facts in the entire world except the US. :)
Although partially quite silly. Loke saying Ukraine is a failed state, when A) they (and the US) caused that in the first place, and B) Russia can just as well be considered a failed state.
All in all, this is mostly just Russia using the many epic failures and trip-ups the headless drunk chicken USA has nicely prepared for them. :)
Still, nefarious goals by Russia, we probably all fully agree. But this "news" is just as
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The downmodding of this post demonstrates my general thesis: Anyone who disagrees with the official orthodoxy that the russians are the evil schemers trying to sow division and discontent and break the beautiful american enterprise , will be treated as a russian bot.Oh yeah but because we are nuanced they can also be useful idiots who are being manipulated.
The level of groupthink here is off the scale. It's a competition for who can be the most extreme groupthinker.
You can no longer disagree, you have to be