5 ms·

> Personally, in-group / out-group mentality is the easiest to manufacture and exploit, and serves as a fantastic emotional distraction from other areas. Well

by User23 5y ago

> Personally, in-group / out-group mentality is the easiest to manufacture and exploit, and serves as a fantastic emotional distraction from other areas. Well somebody is running massive psyops on the American public then.

dqpb 5y ago
Well, it’s also Fox News’ business model.
obscurette 5y ago
We in the Baltic states near Russia are observing a massive shift of antivax, alternative medicine etc influencers, who have been exploiting this "us vs them" so successfully during last years, into Russian war propagandists.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  Not only you, Slovakia, Czech republic, Poland, Hungary and I am sure Romania, Bulgaria etc. All west flanks of Russian's wanna be new empire. To me those were clearly FSB (or related) psy-ops, pretty successful ones. 101 on how to weaken state and public discussions. Coupled with support of political parties / celebrities who very uncritically support anything pro-russian and fiercely attack anything else. Luckily, Putin managed to demolish most of it in couple of days.
HWR_14 5y ago
Well, yeah. It's pretty obvious that Russian troll farms have been running massive psyops. But beyond that, psyops that generate anger with ingroup/outgroup mentality drive eyeballs, and that means profit. There were reports about troll farms in the 2016 election, I think in Albania or the Balkans, that made a fortune making up us-vs-them stories on both sides.
- mistermann 5y ago
  > It's pretty obvious that Russian troll farms have been running massive psyop Alternatively, this narrative is a massive psyop.
  - bilbo0s 5y ago
    Everyone should be sober, dispassionate, and to the extent that it's possible, take off any ideological blinders. It's clearly more likely than not that both are true.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      I don't know why people should be dispassionate. Unbiased, sure. Dispassionate, not so much.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        Passion seems to work against reason and facts - in fact, it's key to psyop manipulation, afaik.
    - mistermann 5y ago
      > It's clearly more likely than not that both are true. Very few people seem to have the ability to realize this, on certain topics. It is a major bug in evolved consciousness.
- User23 5y ago
  The abject failure of Russian propaganda in the West during the current conflict renders the notion of Russia having any sort of more than trivial shit stirring capability implausible, if not outright risible.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    If you look at the rapid change in some points of view in the West, it shows how widespread Russian propaganda is/was. When the invasion was launched, there was a huge pro-Putin contingent in the US who said it was justified. You can also look historically at how well it worked in Russia's other wars of aggression over the past decade. The fact that it was not able to overcome the images coming out of Ukraine is kinda irrelevant.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    One failure doesn't invalidate years of work and mountains of evidence.
faeriechangling 5y ago
Some example tweets from Russian troll farms around the time of the 2018 measles outbreak https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137759/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137759/ pro-vax: #VaccinateUS You can’t fix stupidity. Let them die from measles, and I’m for #vaccination! #vaccines cause autism—Bye, you are not my friend anymore. And try to think with your brain next #VaccinateUS anti-vax: Dont get #vaccines. Iluminati are behind it. #VaccinateUS Did you know there was a secret government database of #vaccine-damaged children? #VaccinateUS I wonder what sort of bad actors were behind the divisiveness we saw over COVID. It's absurd how quickly that became such a partisan political issue when it was so self-evident that making it a partisan issue would kill people. It seems you can make any issue into a partisan issue these days, you just need to convince some suckers to believe the other side made it a partisan issue, and they'll make it into a partisan issue.
- 99_00 5y ago
  If Russia was able to create division, why are they so bad at it when it matters - now. Those examples seem low quality. The election interference from 2016 is laughable. https://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/171101163247-russia-facebook-ads-10-780x439.jpg https://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/171101163247-russ...
  - Viliam1234 5y ago
    > If Russia was able to create division, why are they so bad at it when it matters - now. Just guessing: It is easier to create division, when you manipulate both sides. It is easier to manipulate both sides, if you genuinely do not care which side wins. As an example, consider vaccination. Trolling only on the anti-vax side would be a rookie mistake. A few bad arguments get made, then they get debunked, for most people it's game over. To do it properly, you must also have your trolls on the pro-vax side. Their purpose is to provide stupid arguments in favor of vaccination, so that anyone who remembers their high-school education will go like "wait a moment, this doesn't actually make sense". They will also make such nasty attacks on their opponents, that many decent people will go like "hey, I am technically on side of vaccination, but these guys are assholes; I would rather not be associated with them publicly". -- This creates the situation where you have lots of confused young people documenting the mistakes of the pro-vax side, and pointing out their horrible behavior. Much better (from the attacker's perspective) than if one side is merely wrong. The important thing is that (to the attacker) it doesn't matter which side wins. The goal is to create conflict. If the pro-vax side wins, by doing something that will make the losing side mistrust and hate them forever, mission accomplished. A few more conflicts like this, and the society is ready for a civil war. Now when the two sides are pro-Russia and anti-Russia, would you want to be the Russian troll assigned to write anti-Russian articles? It's a lose/lose situation, because if you are too good at doing your job, instead of a bonus you might actually get a bullet, if you boss starts suspecting that you actually mean it. But your boss is even more scared of his boss, which is why he will probably assing all trolls to write pro-Russian comments. The entire troll department will play it safe, but as a result they will be much less effective.

by User23 5y ago

dqpb 5y ago

Well, it’s also Fox News’ business model.

obscurette 5y ago

We in the Baltic states near Russia are observing a massive shift of antivax, alternative medicine etc influencers, who have been exploiting this "us vs them" so successfully during last years, into Russian war propagandists.

saiya-jin 5y ago
Not only you, Slovakia, Czech republic, Poland, Hungary and I am sure Romania, Bulgaria etc. All west flanks of Russian's wanna be new empire. To me those were clearly FSB (or related) psy-ops, pretty successful ones. 101 on how to weaken state and public discussions. Coupled with support of political parties / celebrities who very uncritically support anything pro-russian and fiercely attack anything else. Luckily, Putin managed to demolish most of it in couple of days.

HWR_14 5y ago

Well, yeah. It's pretty obvious that Russian troll farms have been running massive psyops. But beyond that, psyops that generate anger with ingroup/outgroup mentality drive eyeballs, and that means profit. There were reports about troll farms in the 2016 election, I think in Albania or the Balkans, that made a fortune making up us-vs-them stories on both sides.

mistermann 5y ago
> It's pretty obvious that Russian troll farms have been running massive psyop Alternatively, this narrative is a massive psyop.
- bilbo0s 5y ago
  Everyone should be sober, dispassionate, and to the extent that it's possible, take off any ideological blinders. It's clearly more likely than not that both are true.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I don't know why people should be dispassionate. Unbiased, sure. Dispassionate, not so much.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      Passion seems to work against reason and facts - in fact, it's key to psyop manipulation, afaik.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    > It's clearly more likely than not that both are true. Very few people seem to have the ability to realize this, on certain topics. It is a major bug in evolved consciousness.
User23 5y ago
The abject failure of Russian propaganda in the West during the current conflict renders the notion of Russia having any sort of more than trivial shit stirring capability implausible, if not outright risible.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  If you look at the rapid change in some points of view in the West, it shows how widespread Russian propaganda is/was. When the invasion was launched, there was a huge pro-Putin contingent in the US who said it was justified. You can also look historically at how well it worked in Russia's other wars of aggression over the past decade. The fact that it was not able to overcome the images coming out of Ukraine is kinda irrelevant.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  One failure doesn't invalidate years of work and mountains of evidence.

faeriechangling 5y ago

Some example tweets from Russian troll farms around the time of the 2018 measles outbreak https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137759/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137759/ pro-vax: #VaccinateUS You can’t fix stupidity. Let them die from measles, and I’m for #vaccination! #vaccines cause autism—Bye, you are not my friend anymore. And try to think with your brain next #VaccinateUS anti-vax: Dont get #vaccines. Iluminati are behind it. #VaccinateUS Did you know there was a secret government database of #vaccine-damaged children? #VaccinateUS I wonder what sort of bad actors were behind the divisiveness we saw over COVID. It's absurd how quickly that became such a partisan political issue when it was so self-evident that making it a partisan issue would kill people. It seems you can make any issue into a partisan issue these days, you just need to convince some suckers to believe the other side made it a partisan issue, and they'll make it into a partisan issue.

99_00 5y ago
If Russia was able to create division, why are they so bad at it when it matters - now. Those examples seem low quality. The election interference from 2016 is laughable. https://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/171101163247-russia-facebook-ads-10-780x439.jpg https://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/171101163247-russ...
- Viliam1234 5y ago
  > If Russia was able to create division, why are they so bad at it when it matters - now. Just guessing: It is easier to create division, when you manipulate both sides. It is easier to manipulate both sides, if you genuinely do not care which side wins. As an example, consider vaccination. Trolling only on the anti-vax side would be a rookie mistake. A few bad arguments get made, then they get debunked, for most people it's game over. To do it properly, you must also have your trolls on the pro-vax side. Their purpose is to provide stupid arguments in favor of vaccination, so that anyone who remembers their high-school education will go like "wait a moment, this doesn't actually make sense". They will also make such nasty attacks on their opponents, that many decent people will go like "hey, I am technically on side of vaccination, but these guys are assholes; I would rather not be associated with them publicly". -- This creates the situation where you have lots of confused young people documenting the mistakes of the pro-vax side, and pointing out their horrible behavior. Much better (from the attacker's perspective) than if one side is merely wrong. The important thing is that (to the attacker) it doesn't matter which side wins. The goal is to create conflict. If the pro-vax side wins, by doing something that will make the losing side mistrust and hate them forever, mission accomplished. A few more conflicts like this, and the society is ready for a civil war. Now when the two sides are pro-Russia and anti-Russia, would you want to be the Russian troll assigned to write anti-Russian articles? It's a lose/lose situation, because if you are too good at doing your job, instead of a bonus you might actually get a bullet, if you boss starts suspecting that you actually mean it. But your boss is even more scared of his boss, which is why he will probably assing all trolls to write pro-Russian comments. The entire troll department will play it safe, but as a result they will be much less effective.