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Except that every time I’ve seen the claim made, it’s not really backed up by any evidence of trolling. It’s just a go-to excuse for the reports in question and circulated on social media. This isn’t remotely a good faith attempt at explaining what’s going on, but an easy off the cuff statement of “yeah don’t pay attention to this.” And I think at this point, the propaganda claims that Russia is causing or amplifying these stories by far outstrips what Russia itself is actually doing.
Yes, troll farms exist, I’m not disputing that Russia, China, and pretty much every other country with internet access has some sort of troll farm. But if they aren’t capable of getting results and getting good results, then it kinda doesn’t matter. And given that it’s possible for us to track them, we know where the trolling is coming from, stuff like this is probably fairly trivial to block.
And to be clear my grounds for dismissal are pretty simple. First, this is the go-to story every single time a social media story contradicts or embarrasses the cathedral. It never happens that Russian Trolls are pushing the narrative of Project 2025, or calling Trump a danger to democracy, or calling Republicans fascists. That is never considered trolling. But when the story is something embarrassing to the establishment, that’s the trolls. Kinda interesting how one set of stories is always pushed by, started by, faked by, or amplified by Russia, and the other side absolutely never is.
Secondly, we never seem to find out which Russian troll account starts or amplifies these stories. Can you name any troll accounts outed by the regime? Have they given any evidence beyond “trust us bro” for any such claims that a story has been deliberately seeded or amplified by a known Russian troll account? And this seems fairly telling. There’s almost never evidence presented to show these trolls did all the things they’re accused of. They are invisible and leave no evidence behind every time.
The Russian IRA does cyberwarfare, that much is obvious. To the degree it exists, it’s there to do various forms of cyber warfare in support of Russian military operations. And it’s not like I don’t think they’re occasionally effective. Honestly they might be as good as the ones in the CIA group we have. But again, if you’re going to issue a blanket statement that every anti-cathedral story on social media is based on something Russians are pushing, it’s simply not credible unless and until it’s shown to actually have been done by Russia.
To blame Russian trolls for every negative viral story is a conspiracy theory.
Cool, but who here that you're replying to is doing that?
You lead off with this,
And if you're looking for examples of Russian efforts because you literally have never head any, sure these can be provided. Here is a 140 page academic review of Russian propaganda in the context of the start of the Ukraine war. Here is a 2014 (and thus pre-2016 craziness) on the Internet Research Agency, one of the original notable troll farms. Here is coverage of an IRA-linked accounts conducting an Ebola and cop-shooting hoax in Atlanta, GA. Here is a study of when IRA accounts were engaging in pre-COVID vaccine debates. Here is IRA posters involved in inflamatory British rhetoric. Here are times they helped organize protests by Americans on differing parts of the spectrum, including BLM.
Heck- and you'd probably agree with the thesis of this one- here is a Foreign Affairs article including a recount of the Doppelganger project which cloned entire news sites to introduce fake news in what people believed would be real webistes.
One of the benefits of the IRA when it was around was that it didn't constantly change all of its accounts regularly, allowing for pattern-matching. This has gotten rarer with evolutions in bot-technologies and such, but you can still find examples if you look.
But then you go to this
Which is assigning a motive to me I do not have, and a mischaracterization of many opinions I do have.
To which I and others would say... yes! If / when Russian troll accounts are linked to these such things, they can absolutely be called supported by Russian trolls! It's Russian trolls if they're involved in trying to arrange Black Lives Matter protests. If Russia trolls are linked to supporting a cause it is considered Russian trolling. There is no claim to the Russsian troll style that there is any allegiance to a specific cause.
....but this is where I feel bad for you, because this is the opposite of positions already provided to you in this overall thread. The people claiming Russian trolls only support one side are not the people you are actually arguing against, shoving other peoples arguments into theirs is dishonest.
As such, I'm going to skip to this-
And be frank: it doesn't matter to the argument you responded to if Russian stroll accounts start or amplify these stories.
There are cases of Russian trolls starting stories. There are cases of Russian trolls amplifying stories. Neither is meaningfully different when it comes to whether it is a bit of an effort to manufacture a narrative. Signal boosting and initiation are both ways to try and manipulate narratives.
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Based on the "cathedral" and "establishment" phrasing, it looks like you believe the Democrats are basically in control of the country. If so, then why would Russia, should they aim to destabilize, push narratives against the underdog Republicans? They are already losing, if Russia starts helping Democrats they'll just lose harder and then there'll be no destabilization, just securing the Democrat regime.
Would boosting PunchANazi, BLM, MeToo, Trans Women Are Women and whatnot count as helping or hurting Republicans?
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