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Pro CCP 'spamouflage' network pivoting to focus on US election
- whatshisface 3y agoThese memes portray our elections as thousands of times more dynamic and interesting than they actually are...
- bigcat12345678 3y agoThose are AI generated as well
- kurthr 3y agoThe letters form words, and the words form statements, but the statements express gibberish... however, that is com-meme-place online.
- haswell 3y agoPerception is reality in many cases. I have family who got sucked into Q-related stuff, and this kind of over-the-top ominous imagery is all over the telegram channels they are addicted to. Many people in these circles take it very seriously, and Jan 6 is a bit of a counterpoint to the lack of interesting-ness, IMO. It shows what can happen when people buy in fully, and I think it’s best to see these memes not as a representation of what is, but a representation of what some people are trying to bring about.
- redwood 3y agoI'm so sorry to hear it, it's honestly so hard to imagine what that's like
- mikeyouse 3y agoSeveral of my family members too - mostly normal people who through terrible cable news and social media are utterly brainwashed about Q, pedophile rings, “illegals” voting for Biden, communist plots to indoctrinate their grandkids… none of their actual kids talk to them any more, they’re just hateful mean-spirited unhappy jerks now. I wish nothing but pain and misery on anyone who knows better but willingly purveys this shit to score political points.
- llm_trw 3y ago[flagged]
- Angostura 3y agoI clicked on the hyperlinked word 'spamoflage', repeatedly. I never found a satisfactory description of what the term was meant to mean, renderinhg the article pretty incomprehensible
- mediumdeviation 3y agoIt's the name of the network/group, the links are to articles about their previous activities. The article reads fine to me.
- kurthr 3y agoHere are the definitions offered by clicking on 'spamouflage': "Cross-Platform Spam Network Targeted Hong Kong Protests" "used hijacked and fake accounts to amplify video content"
- tyleo 3y agoThis seems self-explanatory. “Camouflage Spam Network”
- geor9e 3y agoIt's not a word, it's a proper noun. It's like "Panda Banker". Cybercrime groups often don't choose the name, so security researchers coin one to talk about them in articles. Here's an explainer I found "Spamouflage, also known as Spamouflage Dragon, or DragonBridge, is a Chinese propaganda network that has been fully active on social media platforms since 2017-18. Spamouflage refers to deceptive practices that attempt to hide or blend spammy content within legitimate or inconspicuous contexts. It’s like spam wearing a disguise, trying to sneak past filters or appear less suspicious."
- Mphetbug 3y ago[flagged]
- dylan604 3y agoIt is somewhat of an humorous thing. For decades the US has interfered with other countries' election trying to have the person the US felt was better for them to be in charge. Now, other countries are saavy enough to do it back, but the effort is much more effective because of the 24/7 firehose of information that is the internet. The lock-in echo chamber effect of social platforms took that effectiveness knob and turned it to 11. The US used to fly planes to drop leaflets over population centers, so there was the expense of creating/printing the leaflets, the expense of flying them into place, the risk of invading foreign airspace, blah blah. Now, it's some keyboard warriors sitting in an office using a exponentially more efficient delivery system. What goes around, comes around
- whatshisface 3y agoI doubt there's any evidence it's effective, only evidence that a lot of people with "analytics platforms" found a way to get paid to browse Twitter. (Oh no! China's posting memes on the internet!)
- dylan604 3y agoThe fact that there are so many people re-posting/sharing and joining telegram groups pretty much shows how it's effective. The fact that some of the "proof" from some of these hard core believers is directly the content from these spammers also shows its effectiveness. I think there's plenty of evidence that counters your claim.
- whatshisface 3y agoIf social media engagement corresponded to real changes, Kony would be behind bars. :-) That's why "twitter metrics" are such a perfect closed system; they're already optimized for engagement so of course their content engages the people observing the metrics.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y agoNaïve perspective. Those as campaigns you see are probably designed by some expensive tech company that hires people with good resumes and bad skills to fleece their customers. Maybe I’m wrong and you’re caught in the dragnet of good campaigns that somehow can’t figure out targeting despite all the creepy tools at their disposal.
- neom 3y agoI wonder if other governments could even execute these types of campaigns on the Chinese internet. My sense is if I went on Sina Weibo and started posting weird stuff about politics the account would get shut down quite quickly.
- nomel 3y agoIt's hard to maintain authoritarian rule without effective control.
- lnxg33k1 3y agoI suspect that in order to mangle with election one should have elections in the first place, so I guess that its not possible for other governments to do the same on the Chinese internet
- echelon 3y agoAmerica used to win in such circumstances based on the power of its media exports. Hollywood. The music industry. American ideals advertised though the lens of culture. Now we're beginning to approach fungible with domestic content production in every market. And the US domestic market is now often funded by international interests. China-backed films highlight the intelligence and cunning of Chinese citizens, which often provide critical advice or technology to the dumb action-oriented Americans [1]. When's the last time China was an adversary in a film? Or that the henchmen or Bond villain was Chinese? It's always gotta be an Arabic, Persian, North Korean, or Russian villain. [1] Independence Day, The Trench, etc. etc.
- dullcrisp 3y agoYeah way to lose the race war, Hollywood.
- nirui 3y ago> America used to win in such circumstances It looked like that you're treating Hollywood-style cultural export as competition, and your conclusion is "America is losing control because of the involvements from China-backed films", believing the evidence is clear given how rare China was shown as "an adversary in a film"? If what you said were pure true, that "US domestic market is now often funded by international interests" is the reason for current reality, which in turn implies that "US domestic market" is a complete sellout, then why Hollywood won't accept investments from the Persians, and then introduce some Persian superheros that sometimes randomly goes "Allahu Akbar"? The are huge money in this, why the US domestic market won't make it happen? Maybe you're looking at the wrong direction. Maybe Hollywood (and US culture) is losing it's shine because by now, thanks to the Internet and medias (Vox, Vice, John Oliver etc), people starts to see the reality that America, behind all it's sparkling glares, also has quite a few flaws. Maybe China don't often get picked as an adversary simply because Americans just subjectively don't hate Chinese THAT much. Here's my perspective as a Chinese: the exporting of cultural is more of a test than competition. It's a tool that communicates the cultural aspect of the exporter, to see if the importer welcomes it. It's a good tool if you want to infer the inner compatibility of the two parties, but it does very little beyond that. Just to knock you out of your "winning" mindset: the movie Saving Private Ryan maybe resonate very well amongst Americans, after all, it's an true American hero doing American hero things. But in Chinese people's eyes (the eyes of the rest of the world, really) the movie just don't feel the same. Everyone got their own heros back home, you know? Funny enough, after watching the firm, I asked some of my friends whether or not they will save their soldier colleagues under similar situation showed in the firm, many of them answered solidly "Yes". To clarify, they were not thinking about saving Mr Ryan, instead, they were thinking about saving CHINESE soldiers Mr Zhao, Mr Qian, Mr Sun and/or Mr Li, maybe even under direct gun fire from Mr Ryan. That's something you might want to think about the next time you bring up your theories on the "victory" of America media exports ;-)
- nextworddev 3y agoWe are letting TikTok operate and we are complaining about this?
- dc_ist 3y agoAre Facebook and Twitter any less culpable?
- tjpnz 3y agoWhen compared to the CCP, no?
- nonethewiser 3y agoWell yeah obviously
- cladopa 3y ago[flagged]
- ben_jones 3y ago> both will have similar policies outside The foreign, domestic, and economic policies of both potential presidents are different. Are you really arguing that they have negligible differences?
- latency-guy2 3y agoIn what ways are the positions of Biden's and Trump's admin dealings with China, different?
- pixl97 3y agoI mean the leader of the Russian government wants Americans to elect they guy that's saying he'll get rid of a number of constitutional protections, so there is that.
- acdha 3y ago> both will have similar policies outside. This is hard to reconcile with real events: for example, Russia has a huge upside to replacing the guy supporting their humiliation in Ukraine with the guy who trying to break up NATO on their behalf – the opposite of “similar”! As for China, one candidate has been consistent in seeing the US as a needed counter to their power, the other has flipped a few times but most recently declined to answer whether he’d protect Taiwan and expressed his dismay over Taiwan having outcompeted in the semiconductor market – I know which of the two a competent opponent would be on being able to outwit, and I bet they’d offer great financing terms for his biggest hotel yet, too.
- latency-guy2 3y agoTrump and Biden's admins are very close together in what their opinions are on China. See Biden maintaining Trump's tariffs, which I remember a lot of Democrats proclaiming would be disastrous for the US economy when it was being instated. Trump also had no problem saying what his thoughts before, during, and after his presidency, on the topic of China and trade deals. These things are all documented quite well, some are even laws, you may remember some of them, though you might pretend not to. Tech related, you might pretend not to remember why Hauwei is restricted from use in official capacity (GovTech). You might also pretend not to remember when China was declared a currency manipulator, furthered by even stronger tariffs (what is in place today). Another thing you may pretend not to remember is Trump's admin restricting US firms from investing into Chinese companies. You might even remember what Trump famously called what sent a lot of the world into a multi-year lockdown. With history fresh in my own mind, I think that you should be held to the same standard as myself, I think you're dishonest, and I think you revel in it.
- armchairhacker 3y ago> However, the bulk of the content appears aimed at creating a sense of dismay over the state of America without any clear partisan bent ... this content clearly also feeds into the attempt to create a sense of dissatisfaction with the state of the country among voters, as well as potentially engendering a sense of chaos in the US amongst international audiences. It's sad to see so much provocation and doomerism on the news and social media, ironically among people who want the US to improve. I'm not saying it's as blatant or harmful as CCP propaganda, but I'm certain it's very bad for the country.
- infotainment 3y agoIt’s depressing how effective this rhetoric is across the political spectrum.
- dr_kiszonka 3y agoI think it might be so effective because the whole political spectrum in the US is ultimately projected onto two parties (and their presidential candidates). I am not a political scientist but if the US democracy were more pluralist in terms of the number of political parties, then it would perhaps be harder to manipulate voters using the "civil war" messaging.
- kurthr 3y agoBecause Israel (Netanyahu), or France (Le Pen), Italy (Berlusconi), Germany (Weidel), England (Johnson) weren't using civil war messaging? This seems pretty global.
- dr_kiszonka 3y agoI was referring to external influences in democracies with few parties, like the US and the UK.
- latency-guy2 3y ago> civil war messaging? I'm very certain every political party likes to pretend every election is a civil war. Very odd selection you've chosen there.
- lwansbrough 3y agoAlmost time for us to spin up our SOTA LLMs and text-to-video models and show these goobers how it's really done. :)
- TheCaptain4815 3y ago[flagged]
- duxup 3y ago> I mean, the sitting President got banned from almost every platform almost simultaneously… and yet we’re still discussing Chinese and Russian meme farms? I don’t see why not…
- stouset 3y ago> … the sitting President got banned from almost every platform almost simultaneously The sitting President incited a rebellion in an attempt to overturn election results in which he did not succeed.
- nonethewiser 3y ago[flagged]
- acdha 3y agoThat he put considerable effort into overturning the election is established beyond doubt: he repeatedly attempted to pressure various officials in states he lost, the DOJ, and the Vice President not to perform their sworn duties. His legal team filed many spurious lawsuits towards the same end and tried to concoct strategies for involving Supreme Court justices they thought owed him a favorable ruling. None of that is compatible with the oath of office he swore. The only question is whether his actions around January 6th rise to the level of “insurrection”. He’ll claim telling his followers to match to the Capitol with instructions like "take back our country" and "fight like hell" was purely figurative, but given that there was no legal reason for them to even be there (the tallying isn’t a public survey, just officially recording what’s already happened) it’s hard to say his intention was anything but the illegal act it sounds like, and saying that wasn’t an attempted insurrection seems like you’re simply arguing that it doesn’t count if you are [fortunately] incompetent.
- 3y ago
- synergy20 3y agoUS could plot similar things back, yes it's harder but it is not impossible. only then a peace deal can be made, politics should never be a one sided effort.
- Animats 3y ago"However, the bulk of the content appears aimed at creating a sense of dismay over the state of America without any clear partisan bent." This is a key point. The objective of modern Russian propaganda is to sow confusion and reap inaction. See McMaster's "Battlegrounds" book.[1] The winning strategy for Russia in eastern Europe is a non-united United States, and if possible a non-united European Union. Classical propaganda is heavy drum-beating for how great your side is. That goes back to at least Cicero, increased when newspapers came along, and really got going during WWII. That stuff rapidly gets boring, and is usually aimed, at least in part, at stroking the backs of your own political leaders. Increasing the noise level so that no one can believe anything isn't a new idea. British "black" propaganda during WWII used it quite a bit. "Rumor-mongering" was once a thing.[2] But it didn't scale. It's picked up in recent years partly because it's much more effective when combined with ad targeting. This is a problem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._McMaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._McMaster [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vaupcu2qqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vaupcu2qqI
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- walrus01 3y agoSee also, the part from 2:22:53 onwards: Vladislav Surkov and propaganda methods of making people distrust everything and sow strife and confusion. https://youtu.be/Gr7T07WfIhM?t=8567 https://youtu.be/Gr7T07WfIhM?t=8567 https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=vladislav+surkov https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=vladislav...
- Razengan 3y ago> The winning strategy for Russia in eastern Europe is a non-united United States, and if possible a non-united European Union. > Classical propaganda is heavy drum-beating for how great your side is. Isn't that a form of "classical propaganda" in itself? "We are perfect. There is nothing wrong with us. Only our enemies say we have problems." or "All our problems are caused by THEM" or "If you don't like America you MUST be a commie!" (one of the worst slurs in post-WW2 USA)
- celdon25 3y ago> However, the bulk of the content appears aimed at creating a sense of dismay over the state of America without any clear partisan bent. It focuses on issues like urban decay, the fentanyl crisis, dirty drinking water, police brutality, gun violence and crumbling infrastructure. These are not election-specific narratives and have been a significant feature of Spamouflage’s content over several years. While not explicitly linked to the election, however, this content clearly also feeds into the attempt to create a sense of dissatisfaction with the state of the country among voters, as well as potentially engendering a sense of chaos in the US amongst international audiences. This is not exactly news, and there are plenty of American videos exposing these issues for years now. Maybe Congress should be spending that inflation printed money fixing them so that we don’t have to wait for a new president to get to work.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y agoYou aren’t responding to / speaking to this article at all. You are responding to the hypothetical propaganda that it’s talking about. That doesn’t feel on topic at all. The point is that they aren’t election-specific issues.
- celdon25 3y ago> The point is that they aren’t election-specific issues. According to you and the mainstream media, yes, but not the voters. The point is that if you don’t want other countries to tell us how much we suck, we can maybe stop sucking. And our own propaganda machine is doing a great job of getting in the way of that, all the way down to the kids on reddit telling you you’re a bad person if you don’t vote a certain way. I won’t be voting for the incumbent for reasons that are supposedly not “election issues”.
- aragonite 3y agoDon't know why they redacted the Twitter handles in the screenshots if they believe these to be bots/propagandists. In any case, you can easily find the accounts by searching for the tweeted texts. It's very unlikely that these are regular Twitter accounts. But I see little reason to think this is part of a camouflaged "CCP propaganda operation" to influence the US election. You need to at least make an attempt to masquerade as a "fellow American" to qualify as election interference, but many of these accounts have handles/names that are literally pinyin, or have Chinese profile pics, or regularly retweet/like tweets in Chinese. It's also not clear to me just what claim the report is making. It says Spamouflage "is already pivoting to focus on [the election]". Then later it says "the bulk of the content appears aimed at creating a sense of dismay over the state of America without any clear partisan bent... These [the issues focused on] are not election-specific narratives and have been a significant feature of Spamouflage's content over several years." So Spamouflage is at once pivoting to focus on the election and mostly talking about issues that aren't election-specific; and it's at once trying to improperly influence the election outcome and doing so in a way 'without any clear partisan bent'...
- orev 3y agoInfluencing an election can take the form of sowing confusion and apathy, instead of driving people to a specific candidate. This leads to people not voting or otherwise participating, which cedes the political landscape to the extremes, who then go on to destabilize the country. It can be done without broaching election-specific topics.
- dralley 3y agoHere's a less immediately obvious, but still pretty damn obvious Russian troll account https://twitter.com/blackintheempir https://twitter.com/blackintheempir https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FtKeFiYWIAgQLfw.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FtKeFiYWIAgQLfw.jpg
- aragonite 3y agoHmm, I was inclined to agree with you at first based on the screenshot & the first 20 or so tweets I read, but he does appear to be a real American! https://youtu.be/MNPiTsaH1ak?t=23 https://youtu.be/MNPiTsaH1ak?t=23