Anonymous users dominate right-wing discussions online and spread false information

[Hazelelponi]

One thing is for certain: No matter who makes a post with a political/ideological position stated here (usually identified in the title of the article) we can be sure that certain people will show up and take their self-assigned roles and stake themselves out on that hill to die on......sure as the sun comes up. They seem to live for troll bait.

Which is a point this article pointed out. I have a big personal flaw to recitify.

When people are just looking for the reaction, why be that?

It's the same as buying product is it not?

If I'm against the product... Might be time to go. Because the product is no good. And I've apparently been sucked into buying it.

 

[durangodawood]

Which is a point this article pointed out. I have a big personal flaw to recitify.

When people are just looking for the reaction, why be that?

It's the same as buying product is it not?

If I'm against the product... Might be time to go. Because the product is no good. And I've apparently been sucked into buying it.

Do you not get enough honest interaction here?

 

[civilwarbuff]

And I've apparently been sucked into buying it.

I think we all have at one point or another.

 

[MotoToTheMax]

One thing is for certain: No matter who makes a post with a political/ideological position stated here (usually identified in the title of the article) we can be sure that certain people will show up and take their self-assigned roles and stake themselves out on that hill to die on......sure as the sun comes up. They seem to live for troll bait.

The sure thing is, whatever that hill is, there are only 3 possible options. Either one of the hills are right(2) or both are wrong(3). They cannot both be right, unless both hills are saying the same thing, which would entirely negate the very idea of "hills."

 

[Astrid]

The X user who spread the false information about new voter registrants has racked up more than 2.4 million followers [and thousands of dollars in X creator ad revenue] since joining the platform in 2022.

For clarity, is this a one sided thing?

 

[RocksInMyHead]

For clarity, is this a one sided thing?

Completely one-sided, no - there are absolutely people anonymously spreading misinformation in left-wing discussions as well. However, they tend to have less influence because there are more people on the left willing to fact-check them and call them out. They generally don't dominate discussions in the way that the right-wing misinformation-spreaders do.

 

[iluvatar5150]

For clarity, is this a one sided thing?

IME, no, but it is lop-sided.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Completely one-sided, no - there are absolutely people anonymously spreading misinformation in left-wing discussions as well. However, they tend to have less influence because there are more people on the left willing to fact-check them and call them out. They generally don't dominate discussions in the way that the right-wing misinformation-spreaders do.

This is the sort of nuance that a lot of the "but the left does it too" crowd misses. Both sides have cranks and opportunists, and both sides have people ready to eat that up, but only one side has a culture that values accuracy and pragmatism that limits the spread and impact of misinformation.

For example, both sides have, at times, made too much about election irregularities, but only one side had a Jan 6.

 

[Astrid]

Completely one-sided, no - there are absolutely people anonymously spreading misinformation in left-wing discussions as well. However, they tend to have less influence because there are more people on the left willing to fact-check them and call them out. They generally don't dominate discussions in the way that the right-wing misinformation-spreaders do.

Did you fact check that?

 

[Astrid]

This is the sort of nuance that a lot of the "but the left does it too" crowd misses. Both sides have cranks and opportunists, and both sides have people ready to eat that up, but only one side has a culture that values accuracy and pragmatism that limits the spread and impact of misinformation.

For example, both sides have, at times, made too much about election irregularities, but only one side had a Jan 6.

I'm aware of the grim spectre of whataboutism
and you're justasbadism.

I'm just curious about numbers, facts.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Did you fact check that?

That's just based on my personal observations. I highly doubt there's any solid data on the subject.

ETA: this is about as close as you're going to get - Misinformation: susceptibility, spread, and interventions to immunize the public - Nature Medicine

 

[essentialsaltes]

For clarity, is this a one sided thing?

OP doesn't really address it, but I seem to recall (though I'm having trouble putting my finger on one) that there were stories a few years ago about all the Macedonian and other Eastern European troll farms. Most of them had the primary goal of making money, rather than any particular political influence. They targetted both left and right, but found they made more money on the right, so they began to concentrate their efforts there.

Here's a pretty good link, though it focuses only on one particular bad actor and from years ago:

Twitter released 9 million tweets from one Russian troll farm. Here’s what we learned.​

3) Most but not all of the content favors the extremist right wing​

Though most of the tweets about the US election involved stirring up anti-Clinton sentiment, the trolls deployed a wide range of political rhetoric, ranging from tweets supporting the Black Lives Matter movement to spreading conspiracy theories and hoaxes.

--

A few links that nibble around the edges.

19 of Facebook’s top 20 pages for American Christians are run by Eastern European troll farms overseas, [Facebook] internal documents leaked to MIT Technology Review reveal. [Content for Black Americans was also targeted.]

--

Money For Misinformation? Experts Say The First Domestic 'Troll Farms' Are Here​

In Phoenix, Arizona, a group of young conservatives — some of them minors — has been getting paid to post misinformation, The Washington Post first reported. They generated messages on social media that said mail-in ballots will lead to fraud, a statement for which there is no evidence.

In another instance, these posters claimed that coronavirus numbers in the U.S. have been intentionally inflated.

Their support comes from a group called Turning Point USA, a non-profit political organization. Turning Point USA's 26-year-old founder, Charlie Kirk, opened up the Republican National Convention this summer.

Experts say this marks the birth of the first domestic troll farms — in other words, paid propagandists.

In a statement to the Post, Turning Point USA said the notion that they are sponsoring a troll farm is a “gross mischaracterization.” [Because of the pandemic, they were unable to send people out to knock on doors and lie to people face to face.]

 

[essentialsaltes]

Russian trolls target U.S. support for Ukraine, Kremlin documents show​

In an ongoing campaign that seeks to influence congressional and other political debates to stoke anti-Ukraine sentiment, Kremlin-linked political strategists and trolls have written thousands of fabricated news articles, social media posts and comments that promote American isolationism, stir fear over the United States’ border security and attempt to amplify U.S. economic and racial tensions, according to a trove of internal Kremlin documents obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post.

The strategy promotes views from the far-right wing of the Republican Party and calls for some of the messaging to be voiced by American “public opinion leaders and politicians,” one of the documents shows, but it does not name any people who could be enlisted to do that.

With the far-right wing of the Republican Party essentially blocking passage of any further assistance to Ukraine since August, the Kremlin’s efforts to undermine support for Ukraine may have so far gained more traction in the United States than anywhere else.
“The impact of the Russian program over the last decade … is seen in the U.S. congressional debate over Ukraine aid,” said Clint Watts, the head of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center. “They have had an impact in a strategic aggregate way.”

Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sunday it was “absolutely true” that some Republican members of Congress were repeating Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine. “We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages — some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

--

One of the most successful claims was disseminated by DC Weekly — a respectable-seeming internet outlet, which disinformation researchers at Clemson University traced back to domains affiliated with a former American police officer, John Mark Dougan, who has reinvented himself as a pro-Russian journalist in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Through DC Weekly, a fake news story alleging that Zelensky had bought two yachts with American aid money went viral in November. The claim — patently false and denied by Zelensky’s government — was picked up by far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who linked to a story about the rumor on X.

One pro-Ukraine senator, North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis told CNN that the debate on aid had been halted in part because some politicians said they were concerned about the corruption allegations and the notion that “people will buy yachts with this money.”

 

[rjs330]

I'm all for anonymity. But with it come the danger the people will post them ngs that are blatantly false simply to cause havoc. And are often on the other side doing it to sew discord and create chaos to make the other side look bad.

But I also understand the desire these days to be anonymous. Most of use here are.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Russian trolls target U.S. support for Ukraine, Kremlin documents show​

One of the most successful claims was disseminated by DC Weekly — a respectable-seeming internet outlet, which disinformation researchers at Clemson University traced back to domains affiliated with a former American police officer, John Mark Dougan, who has reinvented himself as a pro-Russian journalist in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Through DC Weekly, a fake news story alleging that Zelensky had bought two yachts with American aid money went viral in November. The claim — patently false and denied by Zelensky’s government — was picked up by far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who linked to a story about the rumor on X.

Once a Sheriff’s Deputy in Florida, Now a Source of Disinformation From Russia​

A dozen years ago, John Mark Dougan, a former deputy sheriff in Palm Beach County, Florida, sent voters an email posing as a county commissioner, urging them to oppose the reelection of the county’s sheriff.

[other examples]

Those subterfuges in the United States, it turned out, were only a prelude to a more prominent and potentially more ominous campaign of deception he has been conducting from Russia.

He faces an arrest warrant in Florida — its records sealed by court order — on 21 felony charges of extortion and wiretapping that resulted from a long-running feud with the sheriff of Palm Beach County.

Dougan, 51, who received political asylum in Moscow, is now a key player in Russia’s disinformation operations against the West.

Working from an apartment crowded with servers and other computer equipment, Dougan has built an ever-growing network of more than 160 fake websites that mimic news outlets in the United States, Britain and France.

With the help of commercially available artificial intelligence tools, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E 3, he has filled the sites with tens of thousands of articles, many based on actual news events. Interspersed among them are also bespoke fabrications that officials in the United States and European Union have attributed to Russian intelligence agencies or the administration of President Vladimir Putin.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Once a Sheriff’s Deputy in Florida, Now a Source of Disinformation From Russia​

Dougan, 51, who received political asylum in Moscow, is now a key player in Russia’s disinformation operations against the West.

Working from an apartment crowded with servers and other computer equipment, Dougan has built an ever-growing network of more than 160 fake websites that mimic news outlets in the United States, Britain and France.

Phony 'news' portals surpass US newspaper sites, researchers say​

Hundreds of sites mimicking news outlets—many of them powered by artificial intelligence—have cropped up in recent months, fueling an explosion of polarizing or false narratives that are stoking alarm as the race for the White House intensifies.

At least 1,265 "pink slime" outlets—politically motivated websites that present themselves as independent local news outlets—have been identified, the US-based research group NewsGuard said in a report.

By comparison, 1,213 websites of local newspapers were operating in the United States last year, according to Northwestern University's "local news initiative" project.

Nearly half of the partisan sites were targeted at swing states, according to an analysis by the news site Axios

Those sites include a network of 167 Russian disinformation sites that NewsGuard said were linked to John Mark Dougan, a US former law enforcement officer who fled to Moscow.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Once a Sheriff’s Deputy in Florida, Now a Source of Disinformation From Russia​

Working from an apartment crowded with servers and other computer equipment, Dougan has built an ever-growing network of more than 160 fake websites that mimic news outlets in the United States, Britain and France.

With the help of commercially available artificial intelligence tools, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E 3, he has filled the sites with tens of thousands of articles, many based on actual news events. Interspersed among them are also bespoke fabrications that officials in the United States and European Union have attributed to Russian intelligence agencies or the administration of President Vladimir Putin.

A Bugatti car, a first lady and the fake stories aimed at Americans​

A network of Russia-based websites masquerading as local American newspapers is pumping out fake stories as part of an AI-powered operation that is increasingly targeting the US election, a BBC investigation can reveal.

A former Florida police officer who relocated to Moscow is one of the key figures behind it.

The following would have been a bombshell report - if it were true.

Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, allegedly bought a rare Bugatti Tourbillon sports car for 4.5m euros ($4.8m; £3.8m) while visiting Paris for D-Day commemorations in June. The source of the funds was supposedly American military aid money.

[Although debunked by Bugatti and others]

But before the truth could even get its shoes on, the lie had gone viral. Influencers had already picked up the false story and spread it widely.

One X user, the pro-Russia, pro-Donald Trump activist Jackson Hinkle, posted a link seen by more than 6.5m people. Several other accounts spread the story to millions more X users – at least 12m in total, according to the site’s metrics.

Dozens of bogus stories tracked by the BBC appear aimed at influencing US voters and sowing distrust ahead of November’s election. Some have been roundly ignored but others have been shared by influencers and members of the US Congress.

A story which originated on DC Weekly, claiming that Ukrainian officials bought yachts with US military aid, was repeated by several members of Congress, including Senator J D Vance and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The sheer number of stories - thousands each week - along with their repetition across different websites, indicates that the process of posting AI-generated content is automated. Casual browsers could easily come away with the impression that the sites are thriving sources of legitimate news about politics and hot-button social issues.

However, interspersed within this tsunami of content is the real meat of the operation - fake stories aimed increasingly at American audiences.