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When the style claimed is "increases discord", it's indistinguishable from internal partisans who are unhappy with the current state of affairs, and post their (discordant) opinions on social media.
I guess this is falsifiable if you found some russian operatives posting so as to... increase harmony, but this seems unlikely, and I can't really visualize what "increase discord" looks like on the other end. "Here's some rubles, go stir the shit on twitter"? Government propaganda campaigns always have some sort of goal in mind IME -- it used to be "promote global communism", but what is it now?
Absolutely. Or at least, almost indistinguishable. There are occasionally tells- for example, intermixing the awkward fixing of things an internal partisan wouldn't care about that happens to align with a foreign propaganda interest (plenty of Americans don't like the idea of fighting China over Taiwan, but only a minute number do so on grounds of appeals to the Century of Humiliation narrative)- but often it is indistiguishable.
This is why I'm fully sympathetic to people whose ideological immune system is flaring in suspicion.
Unironically pretty close to that.
One of the origins of the modern Russian troll factory is that one of the more notorious- the Information Research Agency- was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Yes, the Wagner Mercenary guy. Prigozhin was basically somewhere between a front, a fence, and a semi-autonomous vassal of Putin's security establishment. The distinction is that not only did he do what he was told, but he had a degree of freedom to try initiatives on his own. This was/is part of Putin's power structure, where inner-circle elites compete for power and influence and attention... and one of the ways is to do something impressive. Or, in Prigozhin's case, something that appeals to Putin's spy-mentality, while also serving as an excuse to charge the Russian government for services rendered. Other elites began copycatting later, and the American reaction probably justified the investment in Russian views, but IRA was the first (until it's dismantling / repurposing after the Wagner Coup and Prigozhin's assassination).
The IRA began in 2013, and by 2015 it had a reported ~1000 people working in a single building. One of its earlier claims to notice, before the 2016 election and compromise of American political discourse on that front, was back in 2014 when Russia was trying to recalibrate international opinion on its post-Euromaidan invasion of Ukraine. Buzzfeed published some leaked/stolen IRA documents, including a description of daily duties.
To quote-
So how does one counter that narrative mismatch?
...
And how does one fund that?
So, yes. "Here's some rubles, go stir the shit on twitter" is unironically close to what happened. Reportedly.
And this was back in 2014, when it was still very new and immature as an institution. As internet social media technologies evolved, so did the Russian technical infrastructure and incorporation into information warfare theory, which itself evolved. Note that IRA in the early days functioned as a more message-focused concept (a russian position). However, other parts of the Russian information-proxy sphere were decentralized and took other, even contradictory stances- most notable to western observors in the pro-wagner vs pro-MOD narrative wars before the Wagner Coup.
If you'll forgive an unrepentantly NATO-based analysis, the Irregular Warfare Center has a pretty comprehensive analysis of how the Russian information efforts has evolved over time.
Other models of propaganda include making you want to buy something (advertisement), go to a specific church (missionary work), think favorably of a specific cause or subject (advocacy), think worse of a specific cause (defamation),undercut a subject's moral authority (deligitmization), spread a cultural viewpoint (normalization), and so on.
For a more typical model, China's propaganda apparatus is much more focused on specific topics where it wants you have a specific position, such as a good view on Xi, the CPC, multipolarism, etc, while having no particular stance and spending no particular effort on others. Arguing both sides of an argument is rarely done, because point of propaganda is seen as to persuade / push to a certain perspective, and playing both sides at the same time is generally seen as information fratricde countering your own efforts. When confusion is the point, it can be pursued, but these are shorter-term and generally the exception rather than the norm. To a degree this is itself a measure of centralization- the Chinese government has a stronger message control over its directly employed propagandists than the Russians imposed on their associated blogosphere and elite-owned influencer networks.
A general 'increase discord by truth and fiction on any topic any time' motive is relatively rare as a result. Not only does that lead to contradictory themes, but doing so is a success on its own standing. Note how Russian sources fed both a source of anti-Trump narratives (the Steelle Dossier), and in anti-anti-trump narratives (social media boosting), or how in the Ukraine context Ukraine was simultaneously a NATO puppet controlled from abroad (attempting to generate nationalist resistance to foreign meddling against European liberalism) and a Nazi regime suppressing locals (a justification for foreign intervention to prevent an antithesis of European liberalism) . If the goal of propaganda was to actually enable a favored manchurian candidate or promote a foreign (Russian) intervention, this would be self-defeating, since you'd still be having primary state-propaganda persuasion of the classical model, but be actively undercutting it with more contradictory messaging.
An implication of this sort of model is not only is it cause-agnostic, but it can take both sides of the same argument at the same time- support Tribe A with social media via venue C, and Tribe B on the other stance with different media via venue D. (In a non-single-nation context, if you ever get the chance, look up the global conspiracy variations of 'who is to blame for COVID.' The US and China are not the only candidates claimed.) I've long since lost the articles, but a personal pet peeve back in the early Trump administration when the disinformation craze was at it's peak was how much of the coverage of 'Russian interference' in US politics didn't actually identify relative partisan themes being boosted.... because it was both Republican and Democratic themes.
Which, as you say, can be indistinguishable from partisan propaganda, even though it has a different intent.
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