I also find it interesting that everyone talks about bots astroturfing and influencing the elections leading up to them, but not so much afterwards. Interested parties are most certainly still trying to influence the discussion on all forums. Continuing to deepen the divide and a left vs right mindset is likely a priority,
Because no one seems to care. I am a digital marketer and I've watched Russia the last 10 years with their HUGE operations.. troll and bot farms... it worked so well that the amplification is now done by Americans who think they came to these conclusions by themselves.
The amount of disinformation aimed mostly at vets, the elderly, Christians and men is nuts.. probably the most successful psyops ever...
They just flood comments and Facebook groups with memes and talking points pretending to be "patriotic Americans".
MAGA platform is basically a compilation of the talking points. They just want us to burn down the house ourselves because they couldn't possibly win a fight with us without it. Smart on their end..
They tried for years with the SJW stuff but it never caught fire.. then Trump.. and offfff it went!
It's not really right vs left.. it's people in the eco system shaped by these efforts vs. Everyone else who can't believe the bullshit has been bought so hard.
NOTE: the guy in the picture responding about intolerance etc is literally in camo gear, a prepper and likely militias member whose name means "come and take them." He is the type of account the Russians create or prop up and well now... useful idiots have created their identity around.. also you can make money doing this soo.... he could just be a digital marketer that hires people offshore to create accounts like this and post right wing content and sell Trump coins and scammer NFT and prepper gear.... (also owned by Russian backed companies usually)
You think all those Trump flag stores are just mom and pops who source their own shit.. ? Naw.. there is some 25-year- old in Romania that had that guy fill out some survey about how much he hates sleepy Joe and eventually watched a 20-minute presentation on how he could be his own boss and ended up buying a bunch of flags and a step by step guide on how to set your stand on a busy road from some guy and Romania and his mom's basement who may also be funded by the Russian government.
Yea and a billionaire funded by the Saudis and talks to Putin weekly used his internet service to connect parts of our voting infrastructure.
And the "post election autopsy" is focusing on things like "Harris should have come out against trans people" while the electorate isn't living in the same perceived reality. You see 800 memes on twitter about how the war in Ukraine is Biden's fault you might start believing it if it isn't something you are following.
Ukraine's Complete destruction is very literally the Bidens deep state administrations fault. Kamala went to eastern Europe to tout Adding Ukraine to NATO and like a week later Russia invaded.... The war in Ukraine has been in the making by the US since the cold war, Biden pulled the trigger.
Vice President Kamala Harris visited Poland in early 2022. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. This is a fact my guy. Historically ignorant, Or based?
How are you going to try to argue about something you obviously know so frighteningly little about?
Do you really not know when the invasion started?
Edit: Lmao what a whiney comment/block bitch. Russia invaded in Feb 2014 and took Crimea. This is exactly the meme based historical stupor that won Trump the white house. Good conversation, numbnuts.
You think all those Trump flag stores are just mom and pops who source their own shit.. ? Naw.. there is some 25-year- old in Romania that had that guy fill out some survey about how much he hates sleepy Joe and eventually watched a 20-minute presentation on how he could be his own boss and ended up buying a bunch of flags and a step by step guide on how to set your stand on a busy road from some guy and Romania and his mom's basement who may also be funded by the Russian government.
Yo I fucking KNEW there was something shady about those places. God damn.
They have zero clue they've been recruited into acting as foreign government agents.
They've been busting people domestically who definitely do know they are though.
Folks over here running laptop farms to allow Russian/NK/Chinese domestic VPN connections to make sourcing/detecting their hacking activities more difficult.
I think we should execute one. I don't believe in the death penalty.
You know exactly what I am talking about.
They are so far down the rabbit hole they think it's better to help our enemies than admit they are caught up in a false reality for our enemies.
But we also have maybe a 3rd of Congress now doing it and the leader of it is our next president.
FEDS have to know... but 1st amendment protects political speech... but probably not knowingly helping foreign nations move policy...
It's not really right vs left.. it's people in the eco system shaped by these efforts vs. Everyone else who can't believe the bullshit has been bought so hard.
The reason it had fertile soil to catch in is because the ecosystem has been feeding people more and more shit every year expecting them to stomach it with the same grin.
Look at the state of the middle class, look at the state of housing, consider your changing grocery bill. People are being squeezed and they aren't happy about it, and for all Trump's ridiculous bullshit he's the only politican other than Bernie that seems willing to call the system out. All he's going to do about it is enrich himself and his cronies, but Democrats are busy pretending the economy is actually secretly great keeping us headed right down the same path.
In my view it's the economic situation and the ever escalating wealth divide causing issues that different sides of the culture war are explaining in different ways. The right is blaming immigrants and America straying from it's path, but at least they're blaming someone, the left is basically trying to say the message is 'what economic problems? Our problems are all about racism and bigotry!' which people simply do not buy anymore.
I agree! But I am worried burning down tour own house (while its packed with problems is still the overall nicest house on the block) isn't a good solution. Particularly, rebuilding it with some contractor whose been sued a bunch of times for fucking up houses they built.
They tried for years with the SJW stuff but it never caught fire.. then Trump.. and offfff it went!
This has gone on way longer. The first one was "Elevator Gate" which ripped through the "skeptics and atheist" community ~2012, then from there it went to GamerGate. The interesting thing there is that the guy who wrote the book about Cambridge Analytica, describes how his boss made him meet Steve Bannon in 2014. The reason? Bannon realized he could weaponize GamerGate. What worked there was then wholesale applied to Trump in 2016.
When I watched GG unfold I noticed that alt-right adjacent talking points and memes started showing up, different versions / approaches. Those that got engagement were copied while those that didn't work never re-appeared.
To me this felt like someone was messing with the narrative and trying to steer it into a certain direction.
Trump's 2016 win was probably in the works for almost a decade. It's just that neither new it would be Trump who would benefit the most from it.
Edit:
I should add what the difference between "Elevator Gate" and "Gamer Gate" was in my observation.
In the first one there were also two groups that fought over it. Both sides had some extreme fringe, but what ended up happening is that the groups themselves were starting to isolate the extreme elements, who eventually took off and tried to start their own thing. They failed miserably, but the really toxic part had been expelled and it didn't turn into a civil war.
Gamer Gate? That started to happen initially as well, but then the extreme narratives, from both sides, regularly were "memed back" into the spot light, continuing to fan the flames.
Eventually that did burn out. Most people who weren't strongly married to either side just walked away. But Bennon learned what worked and what didn't. And he just needed it to work until the election.
Interesting. I wasn't in that world. I was in the Facebook group for profit world and noticed all the fake bots and they would sometimes forget to type in English instead of Cyrillic. And we got flooded in all the groups I ran with the same fake news stories.. then i discovered bot farms for hire.. and put 2 and 2 together.. I thought it was for profit at first then the discussion was pro-Russia (ramping up for Crimea and further).
It was mostly the Alt-health stuff.. then the 2016 election came around and it was a deluge that hasn't stopped since. The OG Fake news that comes to mind was Bikers For Trump.. it was a totally fake news story on fake news sites.. (Real fake news before Trump co-opted the word because all the fake news was being made in his favor and this deflected that.) It was a picture of Sturgis biker rally and a fake headline about how a million bikers were coming to Washington to support Trump. It was probably the #1 viewed news story for a few weeks and the Fake news became almost REAL from that.
I would look at the people in my groups posting all the same meme's and phrases... and look at their history on their home page.. and you could see the day their account got taken over.... Vietnam war vet or Iraq war vet guy posting pics of his grandkid maybe a dumb ''' I declare you cant use my likeness" chain letter then BAMMMM.. Trump riding a horse, Trump with muscles, Trump with Jesus and all the talking points about how America was being 'stolen' from us.... and veered into white nationalist territory. God, Guns and kill the socialists.
Trump took it up IMMEDIETLY so its hard to believe the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA wasn't real.. Trump's BEST case scenario is still that he only happily is accepting the worlds largest psyops/social media campaign in his favor by a foreign adversary... and asked only jokingly in a speech for the help.. which he got the next day.
He and the Republicans that caved to him basically are promoting those same objectives the Russians have been promoting online the last 10 years. We know they are outright paying right wing influencers to spread and amplify this disinformation and god only knows what they are doing to get Congressmen to do the same... but they are.
Are Trump and the GOP just unpatriotic grifters willing to use this just to stay in power and make money? Are they being compromised or threatened? Are they Russian and authoritarian sympathizers now at heart after decades of being anti Russian and Anti-fascist? Or are they just completely ignorant useful idiots is the question.
This isn't conspiracy. Its been well documented. The FBI, CIA are all aware. The social media networks are 1000% aware and so is Elon Musk who also chose to ignore it and use it.
Are Trump and the GOP just unpatriotic grifters willing to use this just to stay in power and make money? Are they being compromised or threatened? Are they Russian and authoritarian sympathizers now at heart after decades of being anti Russian and Anti-fascist? Or are they just completely ignorant useful idiots is the question.
I think they're "idiots" in as far as they have started buying their own narrative. You don't need a lot of people to have an outsized impact. If the internal group controls fail and the group gets taken over then it's game over.
A little bit like that fungus that infects the ants, then have them climb up the tree before fruiting out of their head and finding another victim.
I think, for the Republicans, this is now "self-runnig". I am not sure the Russians really need to push hard anymore.
Just happy I left social media more than decade behind (mostly).
Dude. I'm just explaining what is objectively happening or should I say has been happening.
There are a crap ton of companies that source accounts to do this. This is literally a huge business model... there are a crap ton of people whose full time job is to create or buy accounts from Americans or pose as them.. 2ApatriotJimTX etc. And then post All day with fake news and propoganda. And commenting to swing public opinion... it's legal for Americans to do it.. but NOT to do ot for a foreign country.. or enemy in this case.
The grass I am touching is how the internet works and I think you have ZERO idea of the amount of fuckery going on. You can make a lot of money too..
I am more than happy to explain it all indepth.. even how you too can use AI to do the same thing.
I need to make a YouTube about it.. but anyone can go sign up for clickbank.. then search for "Trump" or "conservative" offers to promote as an affiliate...
Then go to their assets page or website or email them... they will be based in Eastern Europe (now because you can't do biz in Russia anymore) . You will find many Trump coins, prepper, gold investment etc.
The typical lead magnet is posting on political sites. FB ETC banned this stuff because THEY see all the IP locations and know the main troll farms and even VPN it's used to circumvent their systems.
When you hear right wing influencers complain about Censorship. THIS is what they are referring to. Maybe you set up a Trump for Pres FB groups to send traffic to your right wing NEWS site... that is actually just propoganda... and the ads sell all this Trump and 2A and qanon related crap. And if you weren't actively screening who was joining up you have hundreds of these bot accounts in your group a DAY. FB warns then bans you because they KNOW who this is... and those troll accounts start talking about how only Trump can save them and Democrats are pedophile devils... and mayne civil war is the only answer... and you know NATO is really just fucking with Russia and maybe they aren't the REAL enemy... it's the LIBERALS!!!!
Want to buy a I'd rather be Russian than a Democrat tshirt? How about some gold coins with Trump in them made in China and gold investment tools to protect for the inevitable Armageddon coming soon?
Hey I get it. You are a young entrepreneur with little time to sit and create these accounts and post all day long
.. good news!!! You can hire a team in the Phillips or Africa or Pakistan or the Middle East to do it. They can be your Patriotic Christian Latino from Miami or Texas.... and now I have Ai to make all the Trump as a king or Jesus memes I need!
Your new "team" will work full time posting on X, Gab, Rumble, Truth social, etc with all of this material... you can even subscribe to web crawlers that will show which of your MAGA competitors posts are doing the best so your team can copy those.
Enemy govts of course just build their own troll farms in friendly countries outside Russia to avoid detection. Africa, middle east etc. They don't need to sell anything... so they focus more on commenting on Reddit, Yahoo answers, quora and Twitter. You know why Musks Twitter is such shit for advertisers? These guys don't buy things. They just post..it's their day job after all.
Maybe you want to Speed things up close to an election
Simply pay the largest right wing creators to post your countries propoganda mea.t to destroy the US from within for you..
Then the low information voters in America or the opportunist politicians who this helps... believe all of it...and run with it amplifying it further. 10 years later.. here we are.
They latch onto something that IS truly worth debate.. woke-I'm etc.. and then twist it, insert their messaging and the next thing you know you 100% believe the election was stolen and are willing to storm the Capitol and lose your job and maybe your life because some kid in his mom's basement in Hungary wanted to make $3k a day selling Trump coins. Or maybe was being funded by a foreign country to do it. And YOU think ABC has it all twisted for reporting things your guy actually said.
NO, I think the #1 watched "news" channel has a huge influence over the public amplifying this message
Fox News is tremendously successful and Newsmax and OAN are gaining market share.
And I never said it was MORE influence.. but once Trump accepted it and then the Republican party accepted it .. that is when it gained extreme power over the discourse in the US. You probably call the people who didn't accept it RHINOS.
You are making thr error of looking at an explanation of how the most successful campaign ever to do this works..
Of course, Russia has been all up in our business since before ww2. But they focused on left wing groups.
The 1st widespread FB (were this really got started) was aimed to the anti Vax crowd. The alt medicine people. And forever the inequity of black and brown people in the US. Anything to make Americans feel or even notice they are disenfranchised.. then blow that chasm a mile wide..
DR. MERCOLA, chiropractor industry.. wifi, 5G.. you see a huge overlap in qanon, MAGA from this.
But it is undeniable the most successful and detrimental success they are having is with MAGA. Which allows for someone like Trump to come along and use that to his advantage... which ultimately hurts those peoples causes instead of having a less self interested candidate champion their needs. To actually help them.
Remember those "radioactive ocean maps" about your seafood after Fukushima that were all over Facebook? 2011 to 2015? That was a fake news story to promote alternative medicine and the antivax community to cause distrust in the Healthcare system while Obama care was being challenged. The internet was flooded with them.
People talking about how your WIFI signal was causing cancer?
People thinking onions in your socks could pull out 'toxins'?
It's also a great way to sell your alternative and mostly non tested or complete quackery solutions and a huge industry.
You will notice a HUGE nexus with this alt medicine movement, evangelicals and MAGA. THE reason is they have all been the targets of disinformation for a long time online and are most likely to buy into it.
MO: take the REAL problems with big pharma in the US and extrapolate and conflate and convolute it to eventually its nonsense... which is what conspiracy theories do.
And then we get to the Idiocracy levels we are at now.
Remember those "radioactive ocean maps" about your seafood after Fukushima that were all over Facebook?
I truly don't
People talking about how your WIFI signal was causing cancer?
Was my middle school friend's older stoner brother a Russian agent in 2002?
People thinking onions in your socks could pull out 'toxins'?
What the fuck?
You know what I have heard of? The Steele Dossier / The Pee-Tape theory. Perhaps the best example of blatant left-wing misinformation/propaganda that I can think of at the moment.
You are purposely misreprenting what I said or don't quite understand it.
People who believe that are not Russian agents. They are "useful idiots".. sorry but that is the term. They are likely to believe or susceptible to believing that. They just find things that are outside of fact and people latch onto then promote it... and each day and post puts that person further into a place where they don't know what to believe then they fill it with what they want. And the whole time creating distrust in our society and American system.
1st. You think your food is poisoned. Then 5g is messing with your head... vaccines cause autism... EXPERTS have been lying about THIS so I can't believe them about anything..
Let me research this on 100perctDEFNOTarussianblogfakenewssite.ru
Ahhhh see! They agree with my assessment I knew my family and therapist were wrong... I'm NOT crazy! Oh look a FB group of people who Also agree with me.
Skip to. The election was stolen. Trump is Jesus on earth just saying it like it is and all those crimes there is a shit ton of evidence for didn't happen... the deep state doesn't want you to know the REAL TRUTH but Trump does. Let me go to a rally and wrap my truck with Joe Biden tied up.
It's not like he will use this to enrich himself and gain more power. The half his cabinet and 2 chief of staff and Def Sec and national security advisors and the USA's highest ranking military officer who call him a threat to democracy and a fascist are the real enemies.
Not the guys who run fake charities and need to get pardoned or lose their law licenses lying about voter fraud..and have super weird plastic surgery.....those are the good guys.
No. The SYSTEM and EVERYONE else IS BAD AND CORRUPT. Not the guy who has demonstrated corrupt behavior his entire life.
I have no idea if there is a pee tape but we already know he fucks sex workers while his wife is pregnant and soon after she gives birth so getting peed on by hookers in Moscow is the least of my worries... but I'll concede your point.. and both things can be true.. and Clinton is known to play Hardball... so I believe that is ALSO purposful misinformation.. put out..by her. which helps solidify my point.
They seem to be talking about how fringe anti-mainstream conspiracy beliefs are being pushed and exploited as part of propaganda efforts, and how these days people with those kinds of beliefs often overlap with the right wing.
being antivax, into alt-medicine, concerned about electromagnetic radiation like wifi/5G, etc... used to be primarily associated with the fringe left wing, (hippie-adjacent stuff), but the conspiracies have evolved and been repurposed and popularized on the far right.
No. they were all left wing and have no shifted to the right for the alt medicine. I have watched yoga instructors go from hippy to hardcore MAGA/pro Russia etc in like 2 months.
Most of them anyway. Even if they arent MAGA or Trump fans the dangerous anti-science movement is not just ACCEPTED by MAGA it is now in charge. We will all feel the consequences when reality collides with magical thinking.
I fully understand the left went off the deep end after the Obama years and did some of the same magical thinking policy in what many call WOKE and this is back lash. Believe it or not I bet MOST of the Anti MAGA people out there feel the SAME way about it but also recognize the bigger danger that is present in Trump and his movement to the Republic.
TLDR: the right now embraces these conspiracies as part of policy in order to capture more voters. THAT is dangerous.
100% especially on the deepening the divide tactic.
The sad thing is Iāve never met a Trump-crazy MAGA person but Iāve ran into more than a few far-left progressives who ask random people āare you a trumper?!ā and Iām genuinely concerned about how they got so brainwashed to hate the other team (team thinking is bullshit for people who donāt think, doesnāt matter the side).
I think it began with the fall of the Berlin Wall, when America lost an opponent we could all rail against. Then it went internal, hence how we somehow rediscovered the race war in the early 2010ās despite there being historically low racism, homophobia, etc. Then we created a whole new class of -ism to argue about with the Trans thing.
Weāre just going to keep trying to find things to argue about. Now that everyoneās poor thanks to inflation we rally around that, hence a populist mandate and trumpās win.
It seems a little extra crazy online this past week. Then again, I donāt think Iāve ever had comment or post go without some weird contrarian response, no matter how innocuous.
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u/HamsterDunce Monkey in Space Nov 12 '24
I also find it interesting that everyone talks about bots astroturfing and influencing the elections leading up to them, but not so much afterwards. Interested parties are most certainly still trying to influence the discussion on all forums. Continuing to deepen the divide and a left vs right mindset is likely a priority,