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I think these accounts may not be as political as many people think. It has been observed that foreign bot accounts often support both positions on contentious

I think these accounts may not be as political as many people think. It has been observed that foreign bot accounts often support both positions on contentious issues. Maybe they're just Russian cybercriminals chasing impulse likes and follows for the sake of building up their accounts' social currency? Once they've gotten enough real engagement that the algorithm thinks they're real people, they can pivot to something entirely unrelated to the political controversy they pushed. Change name, change style, suddenly the victim follows an account they don't remember but gives interesting advice on crypto investments. Now, I do certainly believe Russian cybercriminals do work for the government now and then in return for tolerance. But it may be less mustache-twirling chaos farming and more plain old scams.

red-iron-pine 9mo ago
> Once they've gotten enough real engagement that the algorithm thinks they're real people, they can pivot to something entirely unrelated to the political controversy they pushed. Change name, change style, suddenly the victim follows an account they don't remember but gives interesting advice on crypto investments. bingo. you need a trail of real-looking accounts. not just for posting, too, but also to link to, or retweet, or like, etc., in ways that get algorithms to put stuff on the top of a feed. there may be only one actual account pushing the marketing or propaganda, but you need 5k more to upvote or share -- and those accounts can be just random AI slop or reposts of something. take the top replies of a popular post and shorten it, then post it a day or two later. or repost the most popular generic post of last month, etc.
- mrguyorama 9mo ago
  You don't actually need real looking accounts. Almost all of this stuff is done with the most superficial and obvious accounts. You don't need any reputation at all because the sites do very little actual work to block literal nation state level information warfare campaigns (because that would cost money and reduce their metrics) You also don't need any reputation because the real humans who will be boosting your false narrative or "information" are the type that take someone else telling them "No, that's fake because <reason>" to be high quality evidence that it is "The real truth THEY don't want you to know" Like, these accounts will quite literally only be active from 9-5 Moscow time despite being "In the US", and yet that is apparently not a strong enough signal for companies to target them for review or bans?
  - vintermann 9mo ago
    "The real truth THEY don't want you to know" works best when it actually is something you don't trust people will judge as BS on their own.
mrguyorama 9mo ago
> It has been observed that foreign bot accounts often support both positions on contentious issues. Absolutely >Maybe they're just Russian cybercriminals chasing impulse likes and follows for the sake of building up their accounts' social currency? No, you've misunderstood. Pushing both sides isn't evidence that they aren't literally posting as information warfare. The Kremlin goal is not really any party wins in particular (though they have preferences), but to weaken a country by ensuring it spends more effort on internal struggles. Both Iran and Russia (as well as many other nations) have known information warfare arms that actively post with the intent of stirring up shit. They really don't try to legitimize those accounts because the don't actually need the con to be hidden, because nobody fucking checks, because microblogging platforms like X are full of people who have self selected to be especially credulous, especially bad at interrogating a source of information for quality, and really really bad at recognizing how many times they have fallen for outright false info.
- vintermann 9mo ago
  > Both Iran and Russia (as well as many other nations) have known information warfare arms that actively post with the intent of stirring up shit. So we have been told. What if these are just repurposed cybercriminals, spammers and fraudsters? To me, it makes perfect sense that fraudsters try to convince their own corrupt authoritarian government, "no, we're spreading chaos and distrust, it's great for our country actually! You should protect us and pay us!" when they don't give a rat's ass whether the "distrust propaganda" is useful or not, they're just pumping their scams. The thing I'm arguing against is mainly that this thing works and can be stopped with aggressive censorship. I don't think that's true even if Putin and co. totally buy into the "spreading distrust" narrative. It wouldn't be the first time our spooks and their spooks agreed on a bizarre view of the world.

red-iron-pine 9mo ago

> Once they've gotten enough real engagement that the algorithm thinks they're real people, they can pivot to something entirely unrelated to the political controversy they pushed. Change name, change style, suddenly the victim follows an account they don't remember but gives interesting advice on crypto investments. bingo. you need a trail of real-looking accounts. not just for posting, too, but also to link to, or retweet, or like, etc., in ways that get algorithms to put stuff on the top of a feed. there may be only one actual account pushing the marketing or propaganda, but you need 5k more to upvote or share -- and those accounts can be just random AI slop or reposts of something. take the top replies of a popular post and shorten it, then post it a day or two later. or repost the most popular generic post of last month, etc.

mrguyorama 9mo ago
You don't actually need real looking accounts. Almost all of this stuff is done with the most superficial and obvious accounts. You don't need any reputation at all because the sites do very little actual work to block literal nation state level information warfare campaigns (because that would cost money and reduce their metrics) You also don't need any reputation because the real humans who will be boosting your false narrative or "information" are the type that take someone else telling them "No, that's fake because <reason>" to be high quality evidence that it is "The real truth THEY don't want you to know" Like, these accounts will quite literally only be active from 9-5 Moscow time despite being "In the US", and yet that is apparently not a strong enough signal for companies to target them for review or bans?
- vintermann 9mo ago
  "The real truth THEY don't want you to know" works best when it actually is something you don't trust people will judge as BS on their own.

mrguyorama 9mo ago

> It has been observed that foreign bot accounts often support both positions on contentious issues. Absolutely >Maybe they're just Russian cybercriminals chasing impulse likes and follows for the sake of building up their accounts' social currency? No, you've misunderstood. Pushing both sides isn't evidence that they aren't literally posting as information warfare. The Kremlin goal is not really any party wins in particular (though they have preferences), but to weaken a country by ensuring it spends more effort on internal struggles. Both Iran and Russia (as well as many other nations) have known information warfare arms that actively post with the intent of stirring up shit. They really don't try to legitimize those accounts because the don't actually need the con to be hidden, because nobody fucking checks, because microblogging platforms like X are full of people who have self selected to be especially credulous, especially bad at interrogating a source of information for quality, and really really bad at recognizing how many times they have fallen for outright false info.

vintermann 9mo ago
> Both Iran and Russia (as well as many other nations) have known information warfare arms that actively post with the intent of stirring up shit. So we have been told. What if these are just repurposed cybercriminals, spammers and fraudsters? To me, it makes perfect sense that fraudsters try to convince their own corrupt authoritarian government, "no, we're spreading chaos and distrust, it's great for our country actually! You should protect us and pay us!" when they don't give a rat's ass whether the "distrust propaganda" is useful or not, they're just pumping their scams. The thing I'm arguing against is mainly that this thing works and can be stopped with aggressive censorship. I don't think that's true even if Putin and co. totally buy into the "spreading distrust" narrative. It wouldn't be the first time our spooks and their spooks agreed on a bizarre view of the world.