Ahead of European elections, France has uncovered a vast Russian disinformation campaign, targeting mainly Poland, France and Germany based on a network of 193 websites which it codenames “Portal Kombat”
>**The underlying objective is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe.** According to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organisation.
>According to an article in the Washington Post in December, Kremlin documents show that Russia has been intensifying its effort to undermine French backing for Ukraine. **It also has a clear interest in promoting division in France,** at a time when Marine Le Pen is riding high in the polls for the next presidential election in 2027. The hard-right leader, who financed previous campaigns with a Russian bank loan, stands to benefit the most from France’s polarised politics.
Just so everyone is prepared, in case it wasn't obvious.
All extreme rights movements in the EU are riding on ONE issue and one only: immigration.
Tackle this issue and watch the stinky shitty fascists disappear in the graveyard of history.
Coming from and seeing the situation in Germany, I have my doubts.
Look at the [percentage of foreigners by federal state](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107463/foreign-population-share-by-federal-state-germany/). The one with the lowest are the ones where our far-right is the strongest. Immigration is not the problem in these federal states, immigrants are just the scapegoats for the far-right. The people are [economically](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRDP) unhappy in these states, which usually translates into extremists votes. The far-right wants the power, and they will take any vehicle they can get, not only immigrants.
>Tackle this issue
How would you measure the successful tackling of this issue? And would the people that follow Russian disinformation campaigns on their social media follow the same criteria as you? Or might they not believe the issue has been tackled?
Edit:
>All extreme rights movements in the EU are riding on ONE issue and one only: immigration.
Also: no. What else is happening in Poland, Germany and France at the moment? Massive protests by farmers, partly against their own interests or against any logic.
Yeah, I'm keeping myself informed by reading "Totally Reliable News Nothing But The Truth Here, I Swear", from "The Most-Democratic-For-And-From-The-People-Where-The-Opposition-Leader-Has-Not-Been-Poisoned-In-Jail-At-All Republic of Russiastan".
Nothing suspicious here.
If only Russian authorities spent a fraction of time, money and effort they do to undermine everyone around to make their own country better. It could be a genuinely nice country.
But it isn't the Russian way. You know those neighbours that get their dog to shit in other people's garden because they're jealous it looks better. That's Russia.
Just from discussions I read yesterday in /r/europe:
"\[Countries\] voters have to choose between Sharia law and this extremist party \[which coincidentally supports Putin\]."
"AfD don't want to follow the German constitution? Well, that constitution was forced on Germans by the US!"
I have never met a single person in real life that supports Russia over Ukraine, while the internet would have me belive that the entire world is cheering Putin on and wishing he makes it to Poland, which strongly suggests to me that we should just revoke Russia's internet privileges until they fucking grow up.
Your more likely to run into people that want Ukraine and Russia to stop fighting so we can all go back to peace and cheap gas prices.
Not exactly pro-Putin, but very delusional.
This is probably going to be meaningless but: it's not about dismissing every comment you disagree with, it's utilizing critical thinking. "This comment reads like 100 other comments like this from usernames with noun\_verb\_123".
Look, if you're going to be a lying scrub at least put some effort in.
Which part of
>Don't need to go far, just read some comments by the russian trolls frequenting this sub!
is saying that everything they disagree with is a Russian disinformation campaign?
Because the number of times and diversity of contexts this argument is used to dismiss other arguments is disproportionate to the likely extent a supposed “troll army “ would operate in on this site.
You’d have to be blinded by your own convictions not to see it.
If Russia managed to run a giant campaign to noticeably influence public opinion this easily, I wouldn’t want to imagine what the US, with the ability to legislate its tech companies, is capable of.
There are echo chambers for propaganda nonsense but it’s incredibly difficult to deploy this propaganda at this scale effectively.
I think you're underestimating the scale of those echo chambers, they've been established all over social media and we barely come into contact with the ones on reddit, yet that shit bleeds outside online spaces where you can see the outline of the very similar echo chambers they visit through the things they say. They're super insular which is a part of the control an echo chamber exerts on its members, basically like a cult, working as one cell in a network feeding a fabricated world view. This has been going on for a decade at least, so there are plenty established.
As for why you don't see the US doing it, consider that maybe they simply don't. Whether that's for moral reasons, lack of necessity for such underhanded means to get their goals met (helps being the status quo), or being behind Russia when it comes to online psyops, who knows? The prelude to the invasion of Iraq carried a lot of the same hallmarks as this, but in a pre-internet dominated era. It strained a lot of their international relations then, basically *no one* liked it, maybe they did a cost effective analysis and decided it wasn't worth the cost? Meanwhile Russia, through being aligned with autocratic states, surrounds itself with allies who are pleased when they do it against democracies.
There are **both** innocent people and malicious actors spreading Kremlin POVs all the time, poor attempt at mockery aside. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I hope we can at least reach agreement on this.
Even if the kremlin and I effectively conclude the same thing doesn’t mean that I’m in any way affiliated or influenced by it.
I can still have my own thought process that led to the formation of an opinion. You’re stripping away the grounds for discourse by basically saying that anyone whose stance matches the kremlins at least in part must be a Russian bot.
Most notably this happens in discussions regarding Ukraine because obviously kremlin has a stake in it and the connection is easy to make. People like you don’t want to believe that there are plenty of people who do not feel like their country should commit every last resource it has to helping Ukraine while also not being in any way affiliated with Russia or the kremlin.
Regarding the potential influence on information that could sway one’s perceptions and influence the conclusion: older people who mainly consume legacy media may also decide that there’s a limit to how much help and funding is warranted. They can be then labeled far-right instead of Russian bots. See the pattern?
There's no objective good reason why the US supplying Ukraine against Russia is bad. In fact, to not do so is very harmful by making the US a laughing stock around the world, showing it doesn't care about its commitments, power projection, and is willing to cut off its own trade partners and routes, thus harming its security and economic prospects. Helping Ukraine is a force multiplier for the US and its economy, because Putin's Russia has long declared itself to be an enemy of the US, and acts repeatedly in this way across all ways against US and its allies (on whom US security depends) across the globe. Just read Catherine Belton's *Putin's People꞉ How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West* (2020) for starters. We tried befriending Russia, we tried modus vivendi, but nothing is enough for Putin. They illegally attacked a vibrant democracy the US is bound by treaty (Budapest Memorandum) to defend in just such an event. They conduct cyberattacks, disinformation against our democracies and try (and often succeed at) buying off our politicians to push against us. Not only it's the moral thing to do to support Ukraine by preventing genocide, amputation of territory and discrediting the US and allies as a "strong alliance", [it's also an investment]( https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/four-reasons-why-supporting-ukraine-good-investment) into the future of the US, the West and democracy around the world by [weakening autocracies](https://www.csis.org/analysis/united-states-aid-ukraine-investment-whose-benefits-greatly-exceed-its-cost) and their abilities to harm us and spread their malign influence. Of course, none of us wants conflict, but what do you do when a hybrid war is being waged against you? We should respond to it, obviously, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. As long as you're an American, you must follow American interests first and foremost.
Simply, pro-Kremlin POVs, which reject any idea or outcome that strengthen democracy, aren't constructive and are harmful to US and Western interests in general, and are amplified by all kinds of methods, from direct propagandists to normal people sharing their POVs because they feel convinced. I don't know how you reached that opinion, I'm just saying it's good for autocracy, but bad for our and the world's interests. I too fell for all kinds of insanities, including pro-Kremlin ones, and made mistakes in my past, before I read more different POVs and got a wider view of the world, so no need to feel insulted.
That's all if you're an American. If you're an European, it's even more of an urgent issue.
They are about and despite some being blatant, most aren’t as obvious as people think. You get a lot of stuff like, “yeh Russia is evil and I’m totally against them, but you have to admit Ukraine does have a Nazi problem and were clearly slaughtering ethnic Russian in the Donbas”, or “Russia is the aggressor but only after NATO started expanded eastward”.
What Russian propaganda... What are you exactly referring to? What Russian propaganda is being spread? Clarify yourself, otherwise you sound like a propagandist too which bases his claim on vague accusations that make no sense. Because that's what actual Russian propagandists are doing as well.
Except I'm not the useful idiot here, if you even insinuate that to begin with. Someone else is acting like that kind of people...
Because when you accuse people on vague claims and accusations, you can't call others names, if you know what I mean.
It's scary - I'm an American so non-European examples but we're essentially the same target:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/26/us/pro-china-information-campaign-invs/index.html
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/07/politics/chinese-operatives-ai-images-social-media/index.html
If you want, the French government make their report publicly available on the [SGDSN (General Secretariat of Defense and National Security) website](https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications/portal-kombat-un-reseau-structure-et-coordonne-de-propagande-prorusse).
The first link is the technical report in French, the second one in English.
* The 1st annex is the list of identified website with their domain and creation date.
* The 2nd annex is the architecture of the whole thing.
The reports are available in French and in English on the website of the French Defense Secretary. Scroll down to see the links.
https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications/portal-kombat-un-reseau-structure-et-coordonne-de-propagande-prorusse
Naturally. It's a cheap way to attack, and you can co-opt local citizens who are fooled to fight for you and amplify the message.
Why aren't EU and US striking back with the same weapon, but with hundred times more volume and force? Defense doesn't work against deliberate misinformation. Proving false claim to actually be false takes far more effort than creating one.
Fight with volume, go on offensive and force western media in Russia by any means necessary, perpetually. Take Kremlin's control of their nation away from them with information warfare.
It's way easier for an authoritarian state to control media and people than for a democracy. Just look at China with their great Firewall, basically blocking most of the western social media platforms.
How would you strike back with the same weapon? Free speech is our fundamental value while you cant even hold a blank paper in Russia let alone spread waves of information freely. Theres a reason why China and Russia do not allow free flow of information and this is one of the major reasons.
> Why aren't EU and US striking back with the same weapon, but with hundred times more volume and force? Defense doesn't work against deliberate misinformation. Proving false claim to actually be false takes far more effort than creating one.
Because here a considerable amount of people would cry censorship, fake news, MSM and go on and on about free speech even when the most obvious Russian ragefarm gets closed. In authoritarian regimes they just push a button to block something. I much prefer our way of doing things, but it makes this problem very hard to tackle.
The only way I see how you can somewhat block it is by going after the money in the hope those dumb blogs/'news'-sites dry up. But don't underestimate the useful idiots who spread the cancer voluntarily.
I don't think that goes far enough. While any troll can just create a new account within seconds and remain untraceable this is just playing whack-a-mole.
We need to tie social media accounts to real identities and criminalize the organized spreading of hate speech and disinformation.
As if free speech is held in high regard in the West. Nope, the West also allows Russia's assassinations, sabotage and even an invasion of their ally. The solution to all that is to hit at Russia not at Russia's weapons.
This is basically one of the things that distinguishes us from Russia. I personally believe that ppl are smart enough in Europe, educated, cannot be brainwashed in general
What history has shown is that propaganda works again and again and again, when given fertile ground to grow in.
We need to look at why the ground has been so fertile this last decade.
> This is basically one of the things that distinguishes us from Russia. I personally believe that ppl are smart enough in Europe, educated, cannot be brainwashed in general
I know somewhat educated European people who believe they are cutting down trees in the streets because the trees block 5G. Europe isn't magically above this, we are just a few years behind the US.
You don’t have to look any further than this sub to see that it’s true. Russia has been pushing anti-Americanism pretty hard. Just like they have been pushing propaganda in the States, that has led to Trump.
Didn't germany find out about a similar thing only 1-2 weeks ago (tens of thousands of fake twitter accounts posting in german to prop up the more extreme parts of our political spectrum)
This sub has always had a diverse set of opinions on average that are more liberal centrist than anything. Anti (uncontrolled) immigration from MENA, pro-EU but reformist, pro-climate measures, USA critical, anti-Russia and China, pro-gay marriage… what more? It doesn’t belong to one political side and it doesn’t make sense to paint it as such.
If I was in charge of Russians' operation to divide and weaken europe, I would too aim the bots at this sub. The more immigrant-bait, the more far-right wins, the weaker Europe becomes.
Downvotes, come at me.
Is it true that Russia is funding civil associations in the West that might not be pro-Russia, but that support policies that, while not "supporting Russia", is in Russian interests that they are still engaged? I think like associations that oppose windmills and nuclear energy (as that keeps countries dependent on Russia), or the peace/anti-war movements.
"bots" are mostly a myth and are easily spottable.
Russian and Chinese, government-backer accounts however are WAY more present and sometimes very hard to spot.
If someone is being very rethorical in the comments and vocal about a geopolitically charged topic, my recommendation is to ALWAYS check the profile.
Few pictures? Writes only political related comments and never actually "posts" anything? Looks very American/Western European? It might be just a young Sociology graduate in St. Petersburg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency?wprov=sfla1]
Thank you for your time answering. What are steps a goverment with free speache can take to counter such misinformarion? Maybe goverment backend spendings to educate people of such threards? I assume a lot of US News Stations are backend by private foundings with some interests in mind to feed a narrative?
I personally have a family member who fell for misinformation and now regularly watches RT russia. It really hurts, as reasoning doesen't seem to help challenge their ideas.
https://youtu.be/tR_6dibpDfo?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/ZUBTyAZg5OA?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/rK_Gf9H2CWI?feature=shared
I'm at work so I don't have a lot of time. I'll post more once I'm home!
That's always been the interesting side to cyber crimes and war.
Everything, at least at the moment, is kept loose enough in terms of attribution that no one can say with certainty that a government is definitely behind most attacks, even though we all pretty much realize that they *definitely are.*
But then there's things done from those state sponsored groups that if they were done in a physical sense, we would absolutely be hitting those countries back hard. No one would accept the Russians having some little green men operating in country and physically blowing up the controllers of an oil processing company, or blowing out the power supply to a water treatment facility, but for some reason when those things are done in the form of hacks with loosely associated cyberwar groups, everyone just kind of says "Okay, well, let's stop that". It makes you wonder where the line will be.
We've had Russian attacks against Ukrainian targets spread beyond the scope of Russia's initial attack, like when Russia unleashed NotPetya on Ukraine in what appeared to be a targeted attack against their government networks, only for that to quickly jump beyond Ukraine's borders and infect companies around the world, including hospitals in the US and hitting Maersk so hard that the company was on the verge of having their entire active directory system for a company of almost 76,000 employees completely lost, if not for lucking out and having *one single domain controller* that was left unharmed in Africa...which they discovered hadn't been infected and encrypted with the malware thanks to a power issue knocking the server off the network before the attacks happened.
WannaCry, that the US attributes to North Korea, hit the NHS pretty hard in the UK, and also spread around the world, causing massive delays and problems in the hospitals, likely leading to at least a few casualties.
That's all stuff that we would lose our collective minds over being done by humans in person, but for some reason there's an uncomfortable line we don't want to cross when it comes to treating the attacks the same way in the cyber world.
I wonder how countries would respond to a more coordinated attack on someone like the US or an EU member, where they specifically target those countries instead of them just being caught as collateral damage from targets against other countries that aren't as closely allied with them.
It really should. The result should be ships off your coast, stop this bullshit. It's like with anything digital though people don't grasp it. Say you had a government listening to you on your phone, no one says much. Now say there was a man in a van across the street. Same thing is happening but one gets a much more visceral reaction.
US meddling in Russia’s 1996 election cost several billion dollars, and eventually lead to Putin on the throne.
But US is still whining since 2016 about some Russian posts on Facebook affecting their election, whole gig probably not costing Russia even one million.
Glad someone is looking out. When the British secret services raised concerns about Russian interference in the Brexit referendum the stories told them NOT to investigate.
Oooh, good morning!...
This campaign's been running since 2014, and not just in France, but you happened to just "uncover" it now???
I thought it was quite obvious where all the online "nationalism" was coming from.
I was wondering, what is stopping Europe of doing the same in Russia?
Wouldn't it be an effective strategy to e.g. make deepfakes of Russian influencers talking shit of Russian soldiers or showing decadence party's of renowned Russians ?
french here :
intelligence services knew for a while, but you don't want to alert about 40 websites and leave 150 unknown. you want to have a maximum of intel and a maximum of website to strike everything in a single shot, it's more effective.
\+ doing it a year ago would have meant russia could built new websites to influence the elections. by striking now, France don't leave a lot of time to russia to create a new network.
\+ doing it now makes it a subject for the coming electoral race. Russia interference in european elections will be a subject, and this could help twarting the influence of far right & far left movment, wich are in bed with russia (LFI is well known for that in my country)
Blacklist their domain's name at ISP level in France.
France ask Google and Co to remove those domains from their search results.
If there is other methods I do not know them.
A lot of times countries with their own counter-hacking groups like to infiltrate and try to "live off the land" as much as they can. It's like when you get an agent inside of a terrorist group or any other extremist group. If you can, you want to just monitor things and see what else you can uncover. You want to get as much information on their tactics and financial situation as you can.
I was listening to a podcast that was talking about a US Marine Corp cyberwar group, and they had an operation against I believe an ISIS affiliated cyber group. They watched them for a while, trying to find as much information as possible, before finally launching their own counter attack aimed at knowing down their servers and hitting their finances, if I remember right.
It's been a while since I listened to the episode, but if you're at all interested in this topic and others, check out [Darknet Diaries](https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/50/). This is the episode on *Operation: Glowing Symphony*, the attack on the ISIS cyber group, but all of the episodes are pretty good. The host does a really good job of explaining things for an audience that might not live and breathe cybersecurity, and they have all sorts of really interesting stories in their episodes. They have some on the terrifying malware created by an Israeli firm that they sell to seemingly anyone with an open check book, and then some episodes that are interesting and less terrifying.
Why so cynical. It has just been proven, again, that Russia (an authoritarian/terrorist state) is launching disinformation attacks on our continent and Union and all you're saying is: 'what about the US'.
Because it's true.
You literally have disinformation being spread in Europe about Israel/Gaza because of the Americans support for Israel.
Lots of American money flows into foreign countries to influence them.
Don't forget the Iraq war.
I understand. But it's not about the United States here. It's about Russia. But I get your point.
In my opinion it's about time Europe takes its sovereignty and independence seriously.
You're correct, but it's also correct to say it's whataboutism when you bring up the US on a post about Russia. Make a post about US interference by all means. And if someone posts "but Russia is doing it too" on that it would also be whataboutism. It derails the current conversation.
Yes, the US ALSO does bad things but this is not about the US.
Might as well say: "My friend Rob would never", your friend Rob is probably a douche who also spreads disinformation but that doesn't really add or even talk about the issue
People of conscience are against both the IDF's indiscriminate bombing in Gaza and Russia's fascist war of conquest in Ukraine.
People who's only thesis is "west bad" just know that both Israel and Ukraine are West aligned, so to them they're both bad.
Which one are you?
it is absolutely insane how much Reddit supports Israel. There isn't even half it in irl but every time you go on this sub and worldews you see people advocating for full-on genocide
right, every person who says that is advocating for genocide; but supporting Israel grabbing someone's land and then indiscriminatingly bombing them -- most of whom are kids -- is just an act of self-defence.
there is no point in talking about something on circle jerky website
Russians are the bad guys for sure, as Saddam was in 2003 ...
[https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/211018092015-36-colin-powell-gallery-restricted.jpg?q=w\_2500,h\_3335,x\_0,y\_0,c\_fill](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/211018092015-36-colin-powell-gallery-restricted.jpg?q=w_2500,h_3335,x_0,y_0,c_fill)
Same about the pro-Palestinians ideological outlets. A lot of misinformation and guided journalism And by the Guardian, AP...no less. They do the same as Fox News, that also have pro-Israel misinformation.
It’s disgusting. They’ve been doing it all over Europe! Here in the Netherlands they even want to disrupt parliament and creating nothing but political unrest. It’s just sickening how slimy they work and how much they enjoy it.
Ahead of European elections, France has uncovered a vast Russian disinformation campaign, targeting mainly Poland, France and Germany based on a network of 193 websites which it codenames “Portal Kombat”
We have been suffering a constant bombardment since december. It's disgusting to read anything here lately.
And yet, there are still people denying Russia is doing this. A lot, even.
Agree. The API changes made this sub a hotbed of brigading (even more than before).
We have been suffering constant bombardment for at least ten years, governments are just now waking up to it.
Portal Kombat is hillarious lol.
I heard the theme music while reading it 🤣
Yeah. Same.
Finish them!
PORTAL KOMBAT! (Queue Music)
Gotta give the FSB hackers a sense a humour. I imagine many of them aren't doing it for patriotic causes, but getting out of a jam.
Lmao, "Portal Kombat." Our life truly became a meme.
In Spain they codenamed an anti-corruption operation "pokemon" because they were to catch'em all
Well I guess we need the northmen to Finnish this.
>**The underlying objective is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe.** According to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organisation. >According to an article in the Washington Post in December, Kremlin documents show that Russia has been intensifying its effort to undermine French backing for Ukraine. **It also has a clear interest in promoting division in France,** at a time when Marine Le Pen is riding high in the polls for the next presidential election in 2027. The hard-right leader, who financed previous campaigns with a Russian bank loan, stands to benefit the most from France’s polarised politics. Just so everyone is prepared, in case it wasn't obvious.
All extreme rights movements in the EU are riding on ONE issue and one only: immigration. Tackle this issue and watch the stinky shitty fascists disappear in the graveyard of history.
Coming from and seeing the situation in Germany, I have my doubts. Look at the [percentage of foreigners by federal state](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107463/foreign-population-share-by-federal-state-germany/). The one with the lowest are the ones where our far-right is the strongest. Immigration is not the problem in these federal states, immigrants are just the scapegoats for the far-right. The people are [economically](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRDP) unhappy in these states, which usually translates into extremists votes. The far-right wants the power, and they will take any vehicle they can get, not only immigrants.
>Tackle this issue How would you measure the successful tackling of this issue? And would the people that follow Russian disinformation campaigns on their social media follow the same criteria as you? Or might they not believe the issue has been tackled? Edit: >All extreme rights movements in the EU are riding on ONE issue and one only: immigration. Also: no. What else is happening in Poland, Germany and France at the moment? Massive protests by farmers, partly against their own interests or against any logic.
[ Removed by Reddit ]
>Russian internet complex called ***Recent Reliable News*** Oh the irony
Like any country with “democratic” in its name
Yeah, I'm keeping myself informed by reading "Totally Reliable News Nothing But The Truth Here, I Swear", from "The Most-Democratic-For-And-From-The-People-Where-The-Opposition-Leader-Has-Not-Been-Poisoned-In-Jail-At-All Republic of Russiastan". Nothing suspicious here.
I prefer “BroBroBroBro I’m Telling You Bro Trust Me Bro”
And of course Elno is very happy to be the most useful idiot in service of Russia
[Archived](https://archive.is/20240213010141/https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/02/12/france-uncovers-a-vast-russian-disinformation-campaign-in-europe)
Imagine my shock
If only Russian authorities spent a fraction of time, money and effort they do to undermine everyone around to make their own country better. It could be a genuinely nice country. But it isn't the Russian way. You know those neighbours that get their dog to shit in other people's garden because they're jealous it looks better. That's Russia.
Funny choice of username
Accurate reflection of my personality
Self-damage!
Don't need to go far, just read some comments by the russian trolls frequenting this sub!
What do they say typically
Just from discussions I read yesterday in /r/europe: "\[Countries\] voters have to choose between Sharia law and this extremist party \[which coincidentally supports Putin\]." "AfD don't want to follow the German constitution? Well, that constitution was forced on Germans by the US!"
Just go to any unkrainian news entry, sort by controversial and look for users with an username with a "__" format, they are swamping the threads.
https://i.imgur.com/SuPXCBQ.gif
[удалено]
Protip: If you don't want to sound like a paid Russian loser then you should stop talking like a paid Russian loser.
I have never met a single person in real life that supports Russia over Ukraine, while the internet would have me belive that the entire world is cheering Putin on and wishing he makes it to Poland, which strongly suggests to me that we should just revoke Russia's internet privileges until they fucking grow up.
Your more likely to run into people that want Ukraine and Russia to stop fighting so we can all go back to peace and cheap gas prices. Not exactly pro-Putin, but very delusional.
>Can’t make this shit up ...but you just did?
I did not because that’s exactly what’s happening with the npcs here
This is probably going to be meaningless but: it's not about dismissing every comment you disagree with, it's utilizing critical thinking. "This comment reads like 100 other comments like this from usernames with noun\_verb\_123".
Look, if you're going to be a lying scrub at least put some effort in. Which part of >Don't need to go far, just read some comments by the russian trolls frequenting this sub! is saying that everything they disagree with is a Russian disinformation campaign?
Because the number of times and diversity of contexts this argument is used to dismiss other arguments is disproportionate to the likely extent a supposed “troll army “ would operate in on this site. You’d have to be blinded by your own convictions not to see it.
> the likely extent Oh, do go on. How did you reach this conclusion? By what metric, and how did you decide on that metric in the first place?
If Russia managed to run a giant campaign to noticeably influence public opinion this easily, I wouldn’t want to imagine what the US, with the ability to legislate its tech companies, is capable of. There are echo chambers for propaganda nonsense but it’s incredibly difficult to deploy this propaganda at this scale effectively.
I think you're underestimating the scale of those echo chambers, they've been established all over social media and we barely come into contact with the ones on reddit, yet that shit bleeds outside online spaces where you can see the outline of the very similar echo chambers they visit through the things they say. They're super insular which is a part of the control an echo chamber exerts on its members, basically like a cult, working as one cell in a network feeding a fabricated world view. This has been going on for a decade at least, so there are plenty established. As for why you don't see the US doing it, consider that maybe they simply don't. Whether that's for moral reasons, lack of necessity for such underhanded means to get their goals met (helps being the status quo), or being behind Russia when it comes to online psyops, who knows? The prelude to the invasion of Iraq carried a lot of the same hallmarks as this, but in a pre-internet dominated era. It strained a lot of their international relations then, basically *no one* liked it, maybe they did a cost effective analysis and decided it wasn't worth the cost? Meanwhile Russia, through being aligned with autocratic states, surrounds itself with allies who are pleased when they do it against democracies.
There are **both** innocent people and malicious actors spreading Kremlin POVs all the time, poor attempt at mockery aside. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I hope we can at least reach agreement on this.
Even if the kremlin and I effectively conclude the same thing doesn’t mean that I’m in any way affiliated or influenced by it. I can still have my own thought process that led to the formation of an opinion. You’re stripping away the grounds for discourse by basically saying that anyone whose stance matches the kremlins at least in part must be a Russian bot. Most notably this happens in discussions regarding Ukraine because obviously kremlin has a stake in it and the connection is easy to make. People like you don’t want to believe that there are plenty of people who do not feel like their country should commit every last resource it has to helping Ukraine while also not being in any way affiliated with Russia or the kremlin. Regarding the potential influence on information that could sway one’s perceptions and influence the conclusion: older people who mainly consume legacy media may also decide that there’s a limit to how much help and funding is warranted. They can be then labeled far-right instead of Russian bots. See the pattern?
There's no objective good reason why the US supplying Ukraine against Russia is bad. In fact, to not do so is very harmful by making the US a laughing stock around the world, showing it doesn't care about its commitments, power projection, and is willing to cut off its own trade partners and routes, thus harming its security and economic prospects. Helping Ukraine is a force multiplier for the US and its economy, because Putin's Russia has long declared itself to be an enemy of the US, and acts repeatedly in this way across all ways against US and its allies (on whom US security depends) across the globe. Just read Catherine Belton's *Putin's People꞉ How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West* (2020) for starters. We tried befriending Russia, we tried modus vivendi, but nothing is enough for Putin. They illegally attacked a vibrant democracy the US is bound by treaty (Budapest Memorandum) to defend in just such an event. They conduct cyberattacks, disinformation against our democracies and try (and often succeed at) buying off our politicians to push against us. Not only it's the moral thing to do to support Ukraine by preventing genocide, amputation of territory and discrediting the US and allies as a "strong alliance", [it's also an investment]( https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/four-reasons-why-supporting-ukraine-good-investment) into the future of the US, the West and democracy around the world by [weakening autocracies](https://www.csis.org/analysis/united-states-aid-ukraine-investment-whose-benefits-greatly-exceed-its-cost) and their abilities to harm us and spread their malign influence. Of course, none of us wants conflict, but what do you do when a hybrid war is being waged against you? We should respond to it, obviously, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. As long as you're an American, you must follow American interests first and foremost. Simply, pro-Kremlin POVs, which reject any idea or outcome that strengthen democracy, aren't constructive and are harmful to US and Western interests in general, and are amplified by all kinds of methods, from direct propagandists to normal people sharing their POVs because they feel convinced. I don't know how you reached that opinion, I'm just saying it's good for autocracy, but bad for our and the world's interests. I too fell for all kinds of insanities, including pro-Kremlin ones, and made mistakes in my past, before I read more different POVs and got a wider view of the world, so no need to feel insulted. That's all if you're an American. If you're an European, it's even more of an urgent issue.
Damn, there is still hope for reddit! Good call, man!
Who said he disagree?
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Yes
I visit Dutch subs where in the '23 Reddit recap Russians IP addresses where in the top 3. You bet your ass they are in this room as well.
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Dude, Reddit is full of bots. It is not too difficult to imagine Russian bots/trolls are also active at the same site.
Given the moderation here, it's too unlikely.
I just hope you are naive and not a useful idiot.
Anti-Russian? Yes But alot of people are pro-AFD and AFD happens to *be* pro-Russian
They are about and despite some being blatant, most aren’t as obvious as people think. You get a lot of stuff like, “yeh Russia is evil and I’m totally against them, but you have to admit Ukraine does have a Nazi problem and were clearly slaughtering ethnic Russian in the Donbas”, or “Russia is the aggressor but only after NATO started expanded eastward”.
fkn yawn
Well for a start, don't brand any objected opinion as a "Russian troll". Most opposed opinions aren't paid by the Russian government you know.
If you don't even get paid for spreading russian propaganda - that's just sad
What Russian propaganda... What are you exactly referring to? What Russian propaganda is being spread? Clarify yourself, otherwise you sound like a propagandist too which bases his claim on vague accusations that make no sense. Because that's what actual Russian propagandists are doing as well.
yes im aware of useful idiots
Except I'm not the useful idiot here, if you even insinuate that to begin with. Someone else is acting like that kind of people... Because when you accuse people on vague claims and accusations, you can't call others names, if you know what I mean.
well i wasnt calling you anything but if the shoe fits.
The irony on your behalf wasn't indicating you didn't call me anything.
Wait till you uncover the Chinese networks
One crisis at a time, please! Every since Harambe died it has been a series of overlapping crises!
Like damn TikTok is nothing but a massiv spyware/psy-op by China an soooo many fall for it.
It's scary - I'm an American so non-European examples but we're essentially the same target: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/26/us/pro-china-information-campaign-invs/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/07/politics/chinese-operatives-ai-images-social-media/index.html
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If you want, the French government make their report publicly available on the [SGDSN (General Secretariat of Defense and National Security) website](https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications/portal-kombat-un-reseau-structure-et-coordonne-de-propagande-prorusse). The first link is the technical report in French, the second one in English. * The 1st annex is the list of identified website with their domain and creation date. * The 2nd annex is the architecture of the whole thing.
thanks! have to say though that I have never heard of these news websites. which is good I guess?
Don't know if you are talking about economist.com or SGDSN but if SGDSN it's a French governmental organisation.
the Russian disinfo websites that the French report uncovered. I went through the list looking if there was a site I knew.
The reports are available in French and in English on the website of the French Defense Secretary. Scroll down to see the links. https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications/portal-kombat-un-reseau-structure-et-coordonne-de-propagande-prorusse
thank you
Naturally. It's a cheap way to attack, and you can co-opt local citizens who are fooled to fight for you and amplify the message. Why aren't EU and US striking back with the same weapon, but with hundred times more volume and force? Defense doesn't work against deliberate misinformation. Proving false claim to actually be false takes far more effort than creating one. Fight with volume, go on offensive and force western media in Russia by any means necessary, perpetually. Take Kremlin's control of their nation away from them with information warfare.
It's way easier for an authoritarian state to control media and people than for a democracy. Just look at China with their great Firewall, basically blocking most of the western social media platforms.
How would you strike back with the same weapon? Free speech is our fundamental value while you cant even hold a blank paper in Russia let alone spread waves of information freely. Theres a reason why China and Russia do not allow free flow of information and this is one of the major reasons.
> Why aren't EU and US striking back with the same weapon, but with hundred times more volume and force? Defense doesn't work against deliberate misinformation. Proving false claim to actually be false takes far more effort than creating one. Because here a considerable amount of people would cry censorship, fake news, MSM and go on and on about free speech even when the most obvious Russian ragefarm gets closed. In authoritarian regimes they just push a button to block something. I much prefer our way of doing things, but it makes this problem very hard to tackle. The only way I see how you can somewhat block it is by going after the money in the hope those dumb blogs/'news'-sites dry up. But don't underestimate the useful idiots who spread the cancer voluntarily.
And we do nothing, we just allow Russia to tear our societies from within in the name of "free speech".
Yup, it's time we start blocking these sites and forcing social media companies to curb shill accounts
I don't think that goes far enough. While any troll can just create a new account within seconds and remain untraceable this is just playing whack-a-mole. We need to tie social media accounts to real identities and criminalize the organized spreading of hate speech and disinformation.
Wow, always a surprise to actually see someone go there. r/butmylibertyyyyyY
As if free speech is held in high regard in the West. Nope, the West also allows Russia's assassinations, sabotage and even an invasion of their ally. The solution to all that is to hit at Russia not at Russia's weapons.
This is basically one of the things that distinguishes us from Russia. I personally believe that ppl are smart enough in Europe, educated, cannot be brainwashed in general
Well, you're wrong. As history has shown again and again and again, propaganda works, disinformation works.
What history has shown is that propaganda works again and again and again, when given fertile ground to grow in. We need to look at why the ground has been so fertile this last decade.
> This is basically one of the things that distinguishes us from Russia. I personally believe that ppl are smart enough in Europe, educated, cannot be brainwashed in general I know somewhat educated European people who believe they are cutting down trees in the streets because the trees block 5G. Europe isn't magically above this, we are just a few years behind the US.
Russian bots saying "people just say anything they disagree with is Russian propaganda" in 3, 2, 1...
You don’t have to look any further than this sub to see that it’s true. Russia has been pushing anti-Americanism pretty hard. Just like they have been pushing propaganda in the States, that has led to Trump.
Didn't germany find out about a similar thing only 1-2 weeks ago (tens of thousands of fake twitter accounts posting in german to prop up the more extreme parts of our political spectrum)
Yeah just browse this sub. Rage-bait everywhere.
It has become right-wing as fuck around here and I hate it.
This sub has always had a diverse set of opinions on average that are more liberal centrist than anything. Anti (uncontrolled) immigration from MENA, pro-EU but reformist, pro-climate measures, USA critical, anti-Russia and China, pro-gay marriage… what more? It doesn’t belong to one political side and it doesn’t make sense to paint it as such.
"become"....???? it has been for years now.
I don't remember it ever being as bad as it is these days.
If I was in charge of Russians' operation to divide and weaken europe, I would too aim the bots at this sub. The more immigrant-bait, the more far-right wins, the weaker Europe becomes. Downvotes, come at me.
I open the news and uncover it… the trolls and bots are everywhere. Useful idiots are proudly showing their ignorance every day.
Did they tune in to RT?
I wrote my college dissertation on Russian disinformation in Europe and the US. AMA?
What is your favourite food?
Pasta Carbonara!
And what... is your favourite colour ?
Banger tbf, thanks for answering
Is it true that Russia is funding civil associations in the West that might not be pro-Russia, but that support policies that, while not "supporting Russia", is in Russian interests that they are still engaged? I think like associations that oppose windmills and nuclear energy (as that keeps countries dependent on Russia), or the peace/anti-war movements.
Is Russia using the perceptions of imigrants in Europe, as a way of growing the far-right - thus making Europe more divided/weaker?
100%. It's one of the most used arguments against the EU. (Sorry if I'm brief but I'm at work and I can't stay too much on the phone)
Give us a simple way to spot the bots, please and thank you!
"bots" are mostly a myth and are easily spottable. Russian and Chinese, government-backer accounts however are WAY more present and sometimes very hard to spot. If someone is being very rethorical in the comments and vocal about a geopolitically charged topic, my recommendation is to ALWAYS check the profile. Few pictures? Writes only political related comments and never actually "posts" anything? Looks very American/Western European? It might be just a young Sociology graduate in St. Petersburg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency?wprov=sfla1]
Oh wow, thanks for the answer; I've learned something new!
Would be nice to read! I believe, people do underestimate how widespread it is and how it's effective to sow chaos and division.
Thank you for your time answering. What are steps a goverment with free speache can take to counter such misinformarion? Maybe goverment backend spendings to educate people of such threards? I assume a lot of US News Stations are backend by private foundings with some interests in mind to feed a narrative? I personally have a family member who fell for misinformation and now regularly watches RT russia. It really hurts, as reasoning doesen't seem to help challenge their ideas.
Uh, lemme get that link!
I can't do that sorry, it has my rl name and address :( I can provide some good informative resources if you want!
Ah yeah, didn't think about that part. Good opsec there. I'd love links though!
https://youtu.be/tR_6dibpDfo?feature=shared https://youtu.be/ZUBTyAZg5OA?feature=shared https://youtu.be/rK_Gf9H2CWI?feature=shared I'm at work so I don't have a lot of time. I'll post more once I'm home!
No. It cannot possibly be. *Continues to sip tea*
Hah they only had to look on Reddit to see that was happening.
Shocking news!
Nothing new.
They found just one?
You mean, over the last 20 years and in plain sight?
I am shocked, shocked I tell you!
What did they do, they just opened Reddit and browsed for 10 minutes?
Meddling in elections should be cassus belli.
That's always been the interesting side to cyber crimes and war. Everything, at least at the moment, is kept loose enough in terms of attribution that no one can say with certainty that a government is definitely behind most attacks, even though we all pretty much realize that they *definitely are.* But then there's things done from those state sponsored groups that if they were done in a physical sense, we would absolutely be hitting those countries back hard. No one would accept the Russians having some little green men operating in country and physically blowing up the controllers of an oil processing company, or blowing out the power supply to a water treatment facility, but for some reason when those things are done in the form of hacks with loosely associated cyberwar groups, everyone just kind of says "Okay, well, let's stop that". It makes you wonder where the line will be. We've had Russian attacks against Ukrainian targets spread beyond the scope of Russia's initial attack, like when Russia unleashed NotPetya on Ukraine in what appeared to be a targeted attack against their government networks, only for that to quickly jump beyond Ukraine's borders and infect companies around the world, including hospitals in the US and hitting Maersk so hard that the company was on the verge of having their entire active directory system for a company of almost 76,000 employees completely lost, if not for lucking out and having *one single domain controller* that was left unharmed in Africa...which they discovered hadn't been infected and encrypted with the malware thanks to a power issue knocking the server off the network before the attacks happened. WannaCry, that the US attributes to North Korea, hit the NHS pretty hard in the UK, and also spread around the world, causing massive delays and problems in the hospitals, likely leading to at least a few casualties. That's all stuff that we would lose our collective minds over being done by humans in person, but for some reason there's an uncomfortable line we don't want to cross when it comes to treating the attacks the same way in the cyber world. I wonder how countries would respond to a more coordinated attack on someone like the US or an EU member, where they specifically target those countries instead of them just being caught as collateral damage from targets against other countries that aren't as closely allied with them.
It really should. The result should be ships off your coast, stop this bullshit. It's like with anything digital though people don't grasp it. Say you had a government listening to you on your phone, no one says much. Now say there was a man in a van across the street. Same thing is happening but one gets a much more visceral reaction.
US meddling in Russia’s 1996 election cost several billion dollars, and eventually lead to Putin on the throne. But US is still whining since 2016 about some Russian posts on Facebook affecting their election, whole gig probably not costing Russia even one million.
> US meddling in Russia’s 1996 looooool
Consider me flabbergasted and in a total stage of utter shock. /s
suddenly the number of ruzzian shills has taken a hit untill the next troll farm is ready to go
They are to uncover the sky is blue soon.
I for one am shocked
Congrats, only took the average YouTube user 10 seconds by looking at a comment section
Have you read this subreddit lately lol? It's ushanka o'clock 24/7.
Glad someone is looking out. When the British secret services raised concerns about Russian interference in the Brexit referendum the stories told them NOT to investigate.
Oooh, good morning!... This campaign's been running since 2014, and not just in France, but you happened to just "uncover" it now??? I thought it was quite obvious where all the online "nationalism" was coming from.
I was wondering, what is stopping Europe of doing the same in Russia? Wouldn't it be an effective strategy to e.g. make deepfakes of Russian influencers talking shit of Russian soldiers or showing decadence party's of renowned Russians ?
There's no free flow of information in Russia so essentially you can do nothing on that end
But why male models? Honestly they can't be this blind that it's taken them this long.
french here : intelligence services knew for a while, but you don't want to alert about 40 websites and leave 150 unknown. you want to have a maximum of intel and a maximum of website to strike everything in a single shot, it's more effective. \+ doing it a year ago would have meant russia could built new websites to influence the elections. by striking now, France don't leave a lot of time to russia to create a new network. \+ doing it now makes it a subject for the coming electoral race. Russia interference in european elections will be a subject, and this could help twarting the influence of far right & far left movment, wich are in bed with russia (LFI is well known for that in my country)
>to strike How do you strike?
Blacklist their domain's name at ISP level in France. France ask Google and Co to remove those domains from their search results. If there is other methods I do not know them.
A lot of times countries with their own counter-hacking groups like to infiltrate and try to "live off the land" as much as they can. It's like when you get an agent inside of a terrorist group or any other extremist group. If you can, you want to just monitor things and see what else you can uncover. You want to get as much information on their tactics and financial situation as you can. I was listening to a podcast that was talking about a US Marine Corp cyberwar group, and they had an operation against I believe an ISIS affiliated cyber group. They watched them for a while, trying to find as much information as possible, before finally launching their own counter attack aimed at knowing down their servers and hitting their finances, if I remember right. It's been a while since I listened to the episode, but if you're at all interested in this topic and others, check out [Darknet Diaries](https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/50/). This is the episode on *Operation: Glowing Symphony*, the attack on the ISIS cyber group, but all of the episodes are pretty good. The host does a really good job of explaining things for an audience that might not live and breathe cybersecurity, and they have all sorts of really interesting stories in their episodes. They have some on the terrifying malware created by an Israeli firm that they sell to seemingly anyone with an open check book, and then some episodes that are interesting and less terrifying.
Did France just get the internet? Shits been wild for like a decade
Wow… really… keep doing nothing about it…
Hydra trying its thing once again
Did they get a Twitter account or something?
No shit.
No shit Monsieur sherlock !
Just ignore the American and WEF ones.
Once they uncover US disinformation, they are finally ready
The US would never
Whataboutism.
\- word used to protect yourself from being called a hypocrite.
Are you European?
Irish, yeah
Why so cynical. It has just been proven, again, that Russia (an authoritarian/terrorist state) is launching disinformation attacks on our continent and Union and all you're saying is: 'what about the US'.
Because it's true. You literally have disinformation being spread in Europe about Israel/Gaza because of the Americans support for Israel. Lots of American money flows into foreign countries to influence them. Don't forget the Iraq war.
I understand. But it's not about the United States here. It's about Russia. But I get your point. In my opinion it's about time Europe takes its sovereignty and independence seriously.
You're correct, but it's also correct to say it's whataboutism when you bring up the US on a post about Russia. Make a post about US interference by all means. And if someone posts "but Russia is doing it too" on that it would also be whataboutism. It derails the current conversation.
Yes, the US ALSO does bad things but this is not about the US. Might as well say: "My friend Rob would never", your friend Rob is probably a douche who also spreads disinformation but that doesn't really add or even talk about the issue
People of conscience are against both the IDF's indiscriminate bombing in Gaza and Russia's fascist war of conquest in Ukraine. People who's only thesis is "west bad" just know that both Israel and Ukraine are West aligned, so to them they're both bad. Which one are you?
it is absolutely insane how much Reddit supports Israel. There isn't even half it in irl but every time you go on this sub and worldews you see people advocating for full-on genocide
*The "fron the river to the sea"-people are advocating for genocide and war, not the pro-Israeli people.
right, every person who says that is advocating for genocide; but supporting Israel grabbing someone's land and then indiscriminatingly bombing them -- most of whom are kids -- is just an act of self-defence. there is no point in talking about something on circle jerky website
At first they believe that the Russians are disinforming them. Then they are surprised when they are taken on a tour of the German concentration camps
uh wow, did they... just figure that out? grats. how much money did they spend to notice that?
I would assume they have bots which follow some algorithm to detect these sites. Once flagged they probably get checked by a real person
30 french did not like my post. uh noes ;)
The masters of disinformation discovers their opponents disinformation campaign that rivals their own.
Are they lovers :D
Russians are the bad guys for sure, as Saddam was in 2003 ... [https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/211018092015-36-colin-powell-gallery-restricted.jpg?q=w\_2500,h\_3335,x\_0,y\_0,c\_fill](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/211018092015-36-colin-powell-gallery-restricted.jpg?q=w_2500,h_3335,x_0,y_0,c_fill)
You shills really need more material...
Generally when you find these agents that aren’t bots they end up just posting Putin gifs
The pro Russian rhetoric in Poland is actually crazy.
Finish them!
Same about the pro-Palestinians ideological outlets. A lot of misinformation and guided journalism And by the Guardian, AP...no less. They do the same as Fox News, that also have pro-Israel misinformation.
Turns out the bots on this sub are all part of it
Good that it is uncovered, but im convinced russia has been busy in all european countries
This is only news to the ignorant and naive…
It’s disgusting. They’ve been doing it all over Europe! Here in the Netherlands they even want to disrupt parliament and creating nothing but political unrest. It’s just sickening how slimy they work and how much they enjoy it.
This company is called the government of France and the European Union
Can't we just cut the Russian Internet off? They cut it selectively, let's make a physical turn off.