Conspiracy Theory : Russia polluting forums to make people more racist & homophobic?

[Deleted member 44129]

I have long had a theory to which I have no evidence, and yet it seems so mind numbingly easy to do that I think it's likely it DID happen....

What if Putin/Russia have basically planted people on forums frequented by young people over the last decade - gaming forums, movie forums, 4chan & stuff like that - and just made sure that they casually make prejudiced comments "for the lols" in an attempt to normalise it. "Whoops, dropped a ni**er joke! Just for the lolz!" . It seems that you could influence a LOT of people with a very small team and on a small budget, so that should you ever be lucky enough to plant some cunt in the Whitehouse, you've got way more young people on board than you would have done.

It just seems so easy to do that it probably could have happened.

Am I mad?

 

[How About No]

i think this is against the TOS

but also I read this as
Russia polluting farms to make people more racist & homophobic?

 

[LukeOP]

They were caught in the previous place Astro turfing a few years back.

 

[You Are Viewtiful]

It's not a conspiracy 'theory'. That Russia has troll farms is well known and well documented. Facebook and Twitter are in hot water exactly because they allowed organizations with ties to the Russian government to run ads on their websites that manipulated people and widened racial and political divisions in the country.

 

[marrec]

You're mad if you think that Russia would have to insert racism or bigotry into contemporary internet culture.

It's proven that Russia is inserting bad actors into online discussions to try and drive division among the western democracies, but these operations have only begun relatively recently and are of a relatively small scale. Racists and bigots have always taken refuge in the anonymity of the internet and organizations that represent racism and bigotry have used first underground groups and later anonymous internet BBSs and forums to recruit and radicalize vulnerable individuals.

 

[Randomly Generated]

Most of it is just people being terrible, but yes Russia astroturfs places.

 

[MikeProtagonist]

I mean, it's very easy to incite people being assholes online and then you can let actual assholes recruit them to whatever nefarious political purpose, which damages democracy or at least challenges it, so that democracies need to focus on their own problems rather than challenge whatever non-democratic thing your own country is doing like, I dunno, annexation or killing off dissidents or persecuting minorities.

Like, so easy that someone should have thought of it already.

 

[imbarkus]

Might want to look into who is producing the porn these days, and what it is communicating, too.

 

[Deleted member 16657]

Not even a theory at this point.

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990946/twitter-russian-trolls-bots-election-tampering

 

[Potterson]

It's not really crazy theory. I'm Polish and we sometimes see - on Facebook for example - people bitching at EU or "Western lifestyle" and using grammar that is quite unusual and weird, like they are trying to translate some words in a weird way from Russian... People are starting to notice.

 

[marrec]

I suppose what I'm saying is that it would be foolish and naive to believe that Russia is some outsized driving force that has had anything but a small and extremely recent influence in the rise of and propagation of racism and bigotry.

If you see someone being racist on the internet, it's 99.9% just a racist asshole and not a Russian troll.

 

[Colonel Getafe]

Not a conspiracy, it's policy.

People have absolutely no idea how easy it is to game philosophy and opinions. It is as simple as getting you to buy one pair of jeans over another.

 

[whatsinaname]

I have long had a theory to which I have no evidence, and yet it seems so mind numbingly easy to do that I think it's likely it DID happen....

What if Putin/Russia have basically planted people on forums frequented by young people over the last decade - gaming forums, movie forums, 4chan & stuff like that - and just made sure that they casually make prejudiced comments "for the lols" in an attempt to normalise it. "Whoops, dropped a ni**er joke! Just for the lolz!" . It seems that you could influence a LOT of people with a very small team and on a small budget, so that should you ever be lucky enough to plant some cunt in the Whitehouse, you've got way more young people on board than you would have done.

It just seems so easy to do that it probably could have happened.

Am I mad?

Click to shrink...

That's how Reddits the_donald thrived. And it isn't just a conspiracy theory.

From Wikipedia:

Russian propaganda
In February 2018 Inquisitr reported on an analysis that revealed that /r/The_Donald had thousands of posts to it that originated from Russian propagandists, making it one of the biggest hubs of Russian-based propaganda on the internet.[108] Soon after, The Daily Beast obtained documents from the Russian-backed online "troll farm" Internet Research Agency that confirmed that the organization deployed its agitators on subreddits including /r/The_Donald and /r/HillaryForPrison in the run-up to the 2016 election.[109]

In early March 2018 congressional investigators revealed that they plan to question Reddit and Tumblr as part of their investigation into the Russian interference surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election with Representative Adam Schiff urging Reddit and other major online platforms to make more data available about the extent of Russia's online propaganda efforts.[110] Huffman later admitted that Reddit was aware that the site was a target of Russian propagandists, and users of the website criticized Reddit for concealing Russian activity on the website and for not working fast enough to ban extremist communities.[111] When asked why the /r/The_Donald community was not banned from the website, Huffman replied that "Banning them probably won't accomplish what you want. However, letting them fall apart from their own dysfunction probably will."

Click to shrink...

 

[Pantaghana]

You're mad if you think that Russia would have to insert racism or bigotry into contemporary internet culture.

It's proven that Russia is inserting bad actors into online discussions to try and drive division among the western democracies, but these operations have only begun relatively recently and are of a relatively small scale. Racists and bigots have always taken refuge in the anonymity of the internet and organizations that represent racism and bigotry have used first underground groups and later anonymous internet BBSs and forums to recruit and radicalize vulnerable individuals.

Click to shrink...

They didn't have to insert something that was already there, that much is true, but they are actively amplifying it.

 

[Deleted member 44129]

"Astroturfing".

Oh, it's so commonly accepted that there is a name for it. OK.

 

[marrec]

They didn't have to insert something that was already there, that much is true, but they are actively amplifying it.

Click to shrink...

While also actively amplifying the anti-racists. Their goal isn't to make racism more prevalent, they want to amplify division and sow discord.

 

[thefit]

You aren't crazy. They have been astroturfing for a while and have been busted before on other places. It's all part of their influence game.

 

[chironex]

"Astroturfing".

Oh, it's so commonly accepted that there is a name for it. OK.

Click to shrink...

That term has been around since the 80s - astroturf = fake grass = a fake "grass roots" campaign.

 

[Min]

It's not just Russian agents. You have American white supremist groups recruiting and normalizing behavior in online forums, especially video game forums.

 

[fick]

I think the breadth of Russian psy ops (for lack of a better all-inclusive term) is gonna be wild once it's fully uncovered.

It's been a pet theory of mine for a while that all the ultra insane-left type stuff you see on tumblr has been boosted heavily by Russia. Think all the "straight people are evil" type stuff. The type of rhetoric that makes normal liberals roll their eyes, and makes the right cackle with glee.

It'd be fascinating if it weren't happening to us

 

[Inuhanyou]

russia isnt fucking responsible for all your life issues OP. People are just naturally responsive to radicalization, especially in America.

Even if we were to entertain russian astroturfing of American internet racism, they are like 1% compared to actual domestic astroturfing of actual racist groups, of which there are countless in the domestic landscape.

 

[Doggg]

They found it worthwhile to infiltrate furry communities. So certainly they'd be interested in more mainstream, far-reaching communities, too.

 

[Deleted member 44129]

russia isnt fucking responsible for all your life issues OP. People are just naturally responsive to radicalization, especially in America.

Click to shrink...

MY life issues? WTF you talking about?

 

[Deleted member 31133]

I don't think this is a conspiracy.

There was a report yesterday by the Guardian investigating the right-wing dick head Tommy Robinson.

I leave it below to read, but here is a quote regarding the Russian propaganda. It's not just Russia either, but there is a world wide network of far-right agents spreading hate.

His imprisonment on contempt of court charges prompted a vigorous international Twitter campaign, with 2.2m tweets being posted using the hashtag #freetommy between May and October.

An analysis conducted for the Guardian by the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that more than 40% of the tweets came from the US, 30% from the UK and other significant volumes from Canada, the Netherlands and nine other countries.

A separate study of about 600 Twitter accounts, believed to be directly tied to the Russian government or closely aligned with its propaganda, found significant numbers had tweeted prolifically in Robinson's defence

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....07/tommy-robinson-global-support-brexit-march

 

[Inuhanyou]

MY life issues? WTF you talking about?

Click to shrink...

I'm saying, this sentiment of Russia being responsible for anything and everything in particular is just silly compared to the amount of actual garbage that is influencing people domestically, be it far right groups, corporate mouthpieces like the internet far right "skeptic community" and the actual media in Fox news, CRTV, ANN and others. But because it is a narrative, the Russian goverment has become by proxy somehow the big cold war era boogeyman influencing all of America's thoughts and actions. And i'm really sick of it.

Russia run by corrupt oligarchs and and a governmental authority that cracks down on free speech, and i dont doubt there is a very small percentage of Russian/chinese bots on twitter or facebook as i would expect from foreign nations, but America's fucked up sentiments are 99% its own making. Its not the fault of some secret governmental Russia plot, its not the fault of aliens, its not the fault of North Koreans. Look at the actual sources of the issues, and engage those.

 

[WedgeX]

Yeah it's not a theory, OP. They were caught creating accounts in tons of local community message boards to pollute discussion. And pretty sure the old place had a rash of them.

It's been known since 2015, although some people live in denial.

Comment quotas and message board trolling are just some of the aspects of the campaign. Employees are required to post a minimum of 135 comments per 12-hour shift, and comments must be 200 characters or longer. If they reach these quotas, they are paid a salary of 40,000 rubles (around US$700) a month for their services. The employees do not work remotely, and come to the office building in St. Petersburg in person for their shifts.

"There are about 40 rooms with about 20 people sitting in each, and each person has their assignments," he said. "They write and write all day, and it's no laughing matter––you can get fired for laughing."

The team Burkhard worked for targeted comment forums on municipal city and village sites in Russia. He described working in teams of three, writing pre-planned arguments amongst themselves on forums in order to bring a "feeling of authenticity" to their comments.

Click to shrink...

There are other departments at the Internet Research center as well, including one that makes memes and another that targets LiveJournal, one of the most popular sites in Russia. There are also foreign departments, including a team that targets Ukrainian sites and another group that targets US news publications like CNN and BBC.

The effects of a staff of more than 600 people making hundreds of online comments a day can be seen across the internet. In 2014, The Guardian complained of what it called an "orchestrated campaign" of pro-Russia comments on its stories about Ukraine. Burkhard said the topics of comments the employees make range from praising the policies of President Vladimir Putin to criticizing President Obama's behavior, but the conflict in Ukraine is a major push.

Click to shrink...

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...nal-trolls-help-russia-with-online-propaganda

 

[Deleted member 862]

Yeah it happens but don't assume every little thing is the Russians or some conspiracy, that's giving them far too much credit. A lot of people are just assholes and social media platforms have put their opinions on a level playing field.

 

[RedMercury]

It's proven that Russia is inserting bad actors into online discussions to try and drive division among the western democracies, but these operations have only begun relatively recently and are of a relatively small scale. Racists and bigots have always taken refuge in the anonymity of the internet and organizations that represent racism and bigotry have used first underground groups and later anonymous internet BBSs and forums to recruit and radicalize vulnerable individuals.

Click to shrink...

I guess it's cold in hell because I agree with you on this, the scale of their operations are way overblown, and they are a virtual non-factor in well-moderated spaces or anywhere that the views they would be pushing would stand out. Facebook and twitter are easy targets because there is so much noise and it's easy to make multiple accounts and go undetected. In most spaces it makes little sense for them to be there if they will be shouted down or found out or stick out like a sore thumb.

Here is some more reading on where most of the spam is coming from, it's one town in macedonia: https://money.cnn.com/interactive/media/the-macedonia-story/

 

[trikster40]

Nice try, God of Phwoar. Now we know you're Russian, pitching the truth as a conspiracy theory so we don't believe it's actually happening. Nice try!

 

[Deleted member 8197]

Russians have been prepping this forum since inception. Authoritarianism isn't their ultimate endgame, luxury gay space communism is, and we shall all be first on the rocket into that glorious future.

 

[Inuhanyou]

And another thing, even in the things i have noted from the Russian conspiracy angle, pretty much everything i have seen of articles is just bots parroting the actual divisions in America. So in reality, even what's there is not libel, or slander or false info. Its putting out what's already there in discussions. So if we actually look at the source of the divisions and the issues, inevitably, the same conclusion is made. That America's current issues are of its own making, and to solve those issues, looking inward is what is necessary.

 

[shintoki]

It's already confirmed.

Second, they don't bring anything new to the table. Shit has been here this entire time. They are just help bringing it to the surface

 

[Digital Dinosaur]

One angle to consider is that Russian troll farms aren't necessary for this to have been a real thing.

It's basic social engineering - people have always done it on their own. I witnessed it on early internet newsgroups in the 90s. A marked trend for people to push an attitude or narrative in order to change the character of a social space.

In point of fact I recall some people admitting in emails that they would make overly hostile posts on a BBS in the hopes that other people would begin to think negatively of their targets and join in, thus making the community "their own". The internet has always made bad actors feel greatly empowered. Posting words and seeing them published for the world makes you feel like you can affect things at scale.

 

[sapien85]

It's not a theory, there was evidence found that they specifically played up divisions in American society on the internet and the biggest divisions are racial, gender and sexuality based.

 

[Kurdel]

I am sure they were ecstatic too see gamers were already trash

 

[Deleted member 9838]

The tonality and exaggeration of how some these facts are presented really pushes this into conspiracy theory territory and it does the facts no favors.

Yes they have Russian troll farms spreading pro Russian propaganda. There is a headquarters in SPB and it is no secret on the streets. No it isnt some decade long plan to corrupt the youth. Their rhetoric is easily traceable back to 2014 Olympics and has always been pro Russian propaganda on political youtube videos relating to them. It only started to focus more on domestic American politics during the election.

Sorry but the racism in America is because of America....

 

[AcademicSaucer]

Goverments and corporations astroturf all over the internet yes

 

[HazySaiyan]

The internet doesn't need Russia to be racist or homophobic

 

[Lentic]

People give Russia way too much credit for online trolling. They definitely have a hand in it, but it's mostly just stoking the flames from the sidelines. People are going to be shitty regardless. I worry much more about the influence they have over powerful figures/companies. That seems to be a much scarier thing.

Also, it drives me crazy when someone says "Russian bot". It's far more likely they have tons of people working day and night.

 

[BerserkGamer95]

The conspiracy theory is the elites wants more people to anti Russia so they can start world war with them.

 

[haziq]

I like how some of the posts in this thread are all like "RUSSIA ISN'T RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING YOU KNOW PEOPLE ARE JUST RACIST THE RUSSIAN ASTROTURFING IS SMALL & INSIGNIFICANT"

So small & insignificant that they influenced the outcome of an election, lol.

 

[DukeTogo1300]

Not the only approach to this theory out there either.

WaPo from April 2017:
Guns and religion: How American conservatives grew closer to Putin's Russia

 

[Lmo2017]

Russian troll farms are a known thing, not a conspiracy. They helped create the environment for these trash bags to run free.

 

[marrec]

I like how some of the posts in this thread are all like "RUSSIA ISN'T RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING YOU KNOW PEOPLE ARE JUST RACIST THE RUSSIAN ASTROTURFING IS SMALL & INSIGNIFICANT"

So small & insignificant that they influenced the outcome of an election, lol.

Click to shrink...

Influence is peddled at various levels of social order and governance. The relative level of "influence" that Russia had on the election can only be measured in the context of their hacking operations and the controlled leaking of that hacked information through Wikileaks. The actual "astroturfing" is well documented and small in scale, it may have influenced some, but wasn't able to swing the actual election.

Make no mistake, Trump won 2016 not because of some vast conspiracy that controlled the minds of racists in America, he won because of a poor campaign run by his opponent and a simmering ressentiment within white rural culture.

So when you say "Russian troll farms had an influence on the outcome of the election" you are not factually wrong, you just aren't providing the entire breadth of accurate information.

 

[Conciliator]

It is both the case that this is absolutely true, and also that they didn't need to plant anything, only exploit sentiments already there.

 

[entremet]

They were caught in the previous place Astro turfing a few years back.

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Russian bots were found in massive social networks like FB, Twitter, and Reddit. Forums are old hat in terms of influence, they're going after the bigger sites and that has been proven already.

 

[Deleted member 2752]

Might want to look into who is producing the porn these days, and what it is communicating, too.

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What's this about?

 

[Ramala]

Remember when Putin claimed homosexuality was a ploy by America to weaken Russia? Good times.

 

[TyrantGuardian]

As much as this is probably a thing, there are also plenty of genuine idiots out there making those same posts. It's hard to swallow that these people exist, but we also shouldn't pretend like they don't. Call them out and deplatform them, bot or otherwise.

 

[Pedrito]

Anyone who went to highschool, played online games with voice chat on, spoke to their uncle or just spent 5 minutes on the Internet would know that you don't need Russia for that. That being said, the russian troll farm is probably behind some of the memes that these already awful people are delighted to share.