80 upvotes, 58 direct replies (showing 25)
View submission: Suspected Campaign from Russia on Reddit
Looking at those accounts, it's pretty obvious they're the same, they all post very similar political content in the same style all over the place.
What's confusing me is that there's no supposed rhyme or reason to the content they posted. It goes in all political directions, pro-US, anti-US, pro-EU, anti-EU, etc. And it's not even extreme views, either.
What the hell is the point of all this?
Comment by Auntfanny at 06/12/2019 at 22:13 UTC
94 upvotes, 14 direct replies
You should watch the documentary Hypernormalisation (it’s now on YouTube). They play both sides and the point is so you don’t know what’s true anymore or just give up caring.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/12/2019 at 22:21 UTC
19 upvotes, 6 direct replies
The point is subversion. That means you take someone who already has a wacky idea and you pull them even further in that direction. Eventually you turn an average dummy into a raging moron. The point is to always push them further and cause division. They don't care about sides, they care about division, which is what subversion is about. Poisoning a country from within, using people's already established proclivities. We are very naive in the West to this tactic, that's why it works so well. If you find yourself becoming a bit extreme and seeing others around you as the enemy subversion is working and you won't every know it b/c you'll say to yourself "but I was already thinking that before I became a raving lunatic". You were drinking the beer but over time became addicted to vodka.
Comment by BrittainTheCommie at 06/12/2019 at 22:16 UTC*
26 upvotes, 6 direct replies
Confusion.
It's intended to disinform and overwhelm people so they a) don't know what to believe and b) eventually tune everything out.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/12/2019 at 23:12 UTC
3 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I think it's more psychological. Whether the Russians invest $100,000, 1 million dollars or 10 million dollars in Facebook ads, it doesn't matter. They're not making much of a dent in terms of the number of people they're persuading on any one specific issue. The headline is the same: *Breaking: Russia is buying ads on Facebook to manipulate you*." Same goes for Reddit. 100 reddit accounts that barely gain traction aren't doing much, but the psychological effect of the headline is what matters. And it clearly works. Just look on reddit. Especially subs like /r/Politics. Everyone who disagrees with you is now a Russian troll. It turns the Russians into this all powerful boogeyman.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/12/2019 at 22:24 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Russia would much rather have the US in civil strife than the US united in friendship with Russia, because a friendly US still has more power than Russia and the gate swings both ways, so someone else (China, India, Germany...) could do the same thing Russia did. However a disunified country is weak, so they sow chaos and disorder.
Comment by GeneralBrae at 06/12/2019 at 22:17 UTC
6 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It was a similar story with the 2016 US election campaign. The Russian social media activity wasn't united behind one cause, it just tried to play groups off against each other, stir up general discord and disrupt the chance of legitimate political discussion
Comment by Fluffymufinz at 06/12/2019 at 23:45 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Short version is this. Russia can never become a true super power. They have no resources to trade. They will forever be a developing nation.
Their only hope of becoming a super power is to bring actual super powers to their level.
Comment by ComradeTrump666 at 06/12/2019 at 23:39 UTC
4 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Its part of their Foundations of Geopolitics Strategy[1] to create havoc of misinformation and discourse againsts political parties and to destabilize countries.
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
Comment by lefty295 at 06/12/2019 at 22:31 UTC*
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
The "point" is to push any angle possible and get people at each other's throats. Civil war is the goal, it seems pretty obvious. They want civil unrest in the world.
edit: changed "US" to "world"
Comment by grrrrreat at 06/12/2019 at 22:56 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
the firehose my mang
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
also, i assume the randomness throws of clear automated ways of finding these people.
also, i assume, russia as an automated turk system that just gets random people into these forums to try and get karma/momentum, so their pov doesnt matter as long as it gets upvoted.
lastly, they did this with the_donald in 2016 so consistently that reddit modified their algorithm to compensate.
reddit has been a harborer of these media managers. its on par with the egregious disney linked star wars subreddits. but alas, russians dont pay the bills and disney does.
Comment by iforgotmyidagain at 07/12/2019 at 00:10 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Two things. First is the obvious division. The more divided our society is, the less we have the energy and consensus to be involved in world affairs, which leads to the second point.
Their second goal is to have an isolationist America. Doesn't matter what it is: NATO/Five Eyes/ANZUS/our alliance with Japan/Korea/NAFTA/WTO/TPP, the less we are involved in world affairs the more of the world our enemies can control.
Since I only speak Chinese, not Russian, I can only give you my anecdote regarding China. Since the 2016 election, I see less lies and spins in China's report/propaganda about America. It's more of a direct approach now: look at America, democracy is a joke. I also saw how China went from panic mood when Obama transformed TPP into a trade agreement designated to exclude China to all jubilant when Sanders put it into vegetative state then Trump pulled the plug.
We don't know which account is located in Moscow which is in Beijing. This is the internet and we can't even know what people really think when face to face. What we do know however is what our enemies want. They don't want us to give aid to countries that are struggling because then they can buy or force their way in: look how much of Africa is now practically China's colony. They don't want us to protect our allies: look at Ukraine. They don't want us to have strong trade relations with the rest of the world: look at Belt and Road Initiative. If we are doing what our enemies want us to do then we become our own enemies.
Remember this in 2020. In primaries think less what we want based on our individual political beliefs, think more what we want collectively as a nation, think more what we can compromise. If your candidate doesn't have a chance winning the nomination call him/her to drop out. In general election vote for the Democratic candidate even if you hate him/her.
Comment by youreadusernamestoo at 06/12/2019 at 23:12 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Devide and conquer. They don't want you to believe X. They want a broken nation that is weak and easy to manipulate and both sides will soon radicalize. There are cracks in every country, the bots just throw a little extra salt in the wound to push them over the edge. Don't forget that Putin is literally KGB and they have some smart fuckers working around the clock to make game plans.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/12/2019 at 22:54 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Sew disinformation and create divisions within a country's people. A lot of Russia's operations during the 2016 elections involved black lives matter material. It's not because they care about social issues it's because they want to divide us.
Comment by GPIO at 06/12/2019 at 22:47 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Simple. Cause people to argue with each other. They don't care about the outcome. They just want to divide. Obviously they still do some old fashion "donating" as well to buy politicians, or in the case of the UK, entire parties.
Comment by TheInactiveWall at 07/12/2019 at 00:10 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The point is to create discourse. Make the Americans hate the Europeans. Make the Brits hate EU. Make other Brits love EU. Make Europeans love Trump. Make Trump lovers love Britain. Etc. You create 500000 different subgroups in the online ecosystem of people that all have their own opinion, who then fight among each other and do the dirty work for you.
Think about unity as a barn surrounded by trees. You can light the trees on fire and people will not say the barn is on fire, so they shouldn't cry. But then the flames from the trees spread to the barn, and now all the cows are dead.
Comment by PretendKangaroo at 07/12/2019 at 00:19 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Posting absurd shit on each side sows obvious dissent. I see a lot of over the top comments supporting socialism over the last few months that don't seem genuine. It makes stupid people on each side latch on to ideas that they don't realize are people just acting in bad faith. I'm a pretty middle of the road liberal in the US but I bet it happens a lot in trump subs too. It reinforces bad behavior and also makes each side see the comments and think the other side is bat shit crazy.
Comment by usernumber36 at 07/12/2019 at 00:48 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
to drum up political opinionation and therefore create disagreements.
The original suspect thread is one where they're trying to put the UK public against the US because they know medical care is a thing the US fails at and the UK succeeds at. Making it look like the UK was going to give up their medical care because of dealings with trump would make Americans hate trump more (furthering THAT divide) and the UK hate their own government more.
Comment by I_dementia87 at 06/12/2019 at 22:44 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's the cyber war that's beginning to end. Imho this is the first step to all out war why not attack while we are all at each others throats?. My advice is to leave social media and even consider leaving reddit should it come to this front.i have personally realized and even watched first hand how people can become manipulated by these posts to a point of madness so it can also be classified as a major psyop campaign as well.
Comment by grubas at 06/12/2019 at 23:42 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
They try to amp up both sides to destroy any possibility of a middle ground.
If you get people on both side in their own reality and hating moderates you've turned it into chaos.
For America think about "Trump is the greatest President" vs "Trump is the worst traitor" people. You'll never get a middle ground.
Comment by CrumbsAndCarrots at 06/12/2019 at 23:36 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
That’s kinda how they do it on twitter too. Some “Resist” account with thousands of followers will follow you, the. You’ll follow them. They retweet all the regular resist things.. then suddenly they say that maybe Trump isn’t so bad after all. And they start tweeting Tulsi shit and pro Assad things.
Comment by gwinerreniwg at 06/12/2019 at 23:43 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Accounts have to be farmed to look legit. It's useful for them to build "realistic" looking profiles that don't necessarily push one agenda or another - to turn them into "sleeper" agents that can later be activated as legit personas. Latent dark puppet accounts waiting for a future hand.
Comment by RTPNick at 06/12/2019 at 22:34 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
To spread descension among US voting population. The theory being get you to read enough of it, that when they suggest not voting or voting for a particular candidate of their liking you unwittingly will. That's just my opinion. I'm sure there are more experts on the matter.
Comment by nullum_meam at 06/12/2019 at 22:22 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
its about division...during the height of disinformation here in the us we had russian influence posting pro and anti succession propaganda here in texas...they actually managed to throw pro and anti rally's here
Comment by ShadowRam at 07/12/2019 at 00:47 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
same as last time.
AI learning, getting instant feedback via the voting system.
Hot controversial topics get upvoted/downvoted and causes arguments and discourse.
Comment by Pilebsa at 06/12/2019 at 23:55 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What the hell is the point of all this?
They go in different directions until they're tasked to go in a specific direction.
Isn't this basically what spies do?