0. INTRO tl;dr: Any Forums is rife with propaganda and brainwashing. I think we can all agree on that.
Last week I did an analysis of /chug/. It proved divisive, with some lauding it, and others hating it. I'm back for more. Specifically, I'm going to be focusing on the pro-Russian bots/shills/useful idiots that commonly post in /uhg/. However, if you zoom out a bit you can see that this is more of an analysis of common Russian propaganda methods and narrative control, simply viewed through the lens of the Ukraine war.
OP pic is a really interesting read (and even has a tl;dr version in accessible Stonetoss comic form for the low-IQ individuals amongst us). If you're at all interested in learning about the ways that movements are infiltrated by glowies, perceptions are shaped, people are radicalized, and brainwashing occurs online, I recommend reading it. If you're not even *interested* in reading it, then congratulations: you're an NPC, and their goal has been achieved, so turn off your brain and proceed with shitposting lies and spam.
If you're still reading, there's hope for you.
I’m going to be looking at popular Russian shill techniques, and giving evidence for each one. You can follow the evidence and verify for yourself. You’d be stupid not to.
RUSSIAN SHILL TECHNIQUES: 1. Culture creation 2. Scapegoating 3. Infiltration 4. Amplify the message 5. Firehose of falsehoods 6. Repetition
From the next post on, I’m going to be referring to “Exhibits”. They’ll reference evidence in pics attached to each post.
1. CULTURE CREATION tl;dr: “READING IS GAY. THINKING FOR YOURSELF IS LAME. YOU’RE BEING LIED TO (trust us)”
OP pic talked about Russians infiltrating movements and shifting them so that they align with their objectives. Russian propagandists cultivate a specific culture on the board. The Russian-led hivemind dissuades critical thinking, elevates the lowest man to the highest position, creates a culture of lying, establishes common enemies, appeals to emotion, and ostracizes anyone who pushes back against the narrative. Much of this culture creation is not “grass roots” because it’s not organic. It doesn’t come from the people, but instead is manufactured, and only *appears* as if it comes from the people. This is called astroturfing, and it is (mostly) organized and coordinated off-board because otherwise it would be too blatant. See Exhibit A for evidence of this astroturfing campaign. Other, more general evidence can be found by Googling “Glavset” but Russian shills will tell you it’s all fake, not true, etc.
For Russians, the most important aspect of culture creation is to dissuade critical thinking, analysis, independent research, etc. If you stop the populace from thinking for themselves, you can make them believe anything. Make thinking uncool. Call reading “gay”. Just call it reddit, then it’s bad! Reddit spacing is bad because paragraphing is bad because writing long posts is bad because reading complex things is bad because analysis is bad because thinking for yourself is bad.
This is what I meant in my original post when I said “Otherism”. It wasn’t just about saying “nigger” or faggot” or “reddit”. “Otherism” is demonizing things that encourage critical thought and analysis. Otherism is villainizing those who question the pro-Russian narrative. See Exhibit B. If you’re not a complete newfag you know what I’m talking about already though.
Now, you’ve laid down the plastic turf of your narrative, you’ve dissuaded critical thought, next you need to elevate the lowest man. Basically you need to make the low-IQ individuals think that *they* are the most intelligent ones. They need to believe that they have access to secret knowledge – the TRUE knowledge, the knowledge that NPCs are ignorant of. You need to make them think that the common narrative is the wrong narrative, the duplicitous narrative, and there HAS to be an alternative explanation! Basically, foster contrarianism at all costs. See Exhibit C for more info.
Samuel Kelly
Fuck off Saudi glownigger
Lucas Thompson
>he doesn't use a memeflag because so many people have them filtered
Jack Ramirez
2. SCAPEGOATING tld;r: Make an enemy. Anyone who does not oppose the enemy is also the enemy.
Alinsky wrote about this in “Rules for Radicals” which has been used by Russian propagandists to great effect: >Alinsky would find an external antagonist to turn into a "common enemy" for the community within which he was operating. Often, this would be a local politician or agency that had some involvement with activity concerning the community. Once the enemy was established, the community would come together in opposition of it. This management of conflict heightened awareness within the community as to the similarities its members shared as well as what differentiated them from those outside of their organization
Soros! Reddit! Hillary! These are your enemies! Whatever the situation is, the facts don’t matter because we have already built a boogeyman!
If someone points out the lies of the boogeyman, you can just call them a shill. Discredit their news source, whatever it is. The details don’t matter; you’ve already brainwashed your base to not read anything you’ve emotionally primed them to disagree with. See Exhibit A.
…Is it any wonder that all of these conspiracies are connected, or that supporters of all of these movements follow the same posting format? Compare the posting style of modern-day /ptg/ to /chud/. They’re the same. Also, notice how those movements that don’t catch on are promptly forgotten and/or memory holed. Any Forums is a litmus test to see which bullshit gets enough traction, and then they run with it. See Exhibit B.
Reinforce the message: If you’re NOT diametrically opposed to the boogeyman, then YOU are the enemy, and it will be publicized everywhere. Anyone who associates with you will ALSO be associated with the OTHER enemies! It doesn’t matter if you’re just questioning the accuracy of these boogeyman claims. You’ll be branded an outcast regardless. See Exhibit C.
3. INFILTRATION tl;dr: Be amongst the enemy, in order to reroute them – to your advantage.
Next up is infiltrating your enemy. You just have to convince them that you’re one of them.
You can do this for a variety of purposes: 1a. You can try to nudge them along a path that’s more favorable for you. For example, by trying to force a /chug/-style logo on /uhg/, you make /uhg/ appear like unoriginal copycats striving to be like /chug/. You also make it more difficult to post new war-related stuff since the logo obscures so much of the image. As we know, information is damaging to the Russian narrative because the reality is that the war is an overwhelming failure for the Russians!
1b. Somewhat related – you can see the same technique used when Russian propagandists trying to stoke divisions put their graphics team to work creating a flag for Ashli Babbitt. But this was eventually abandoned because they weren’t able to whip up enough organic support for the cause (in brief, most people agreed she was just a retard). Curious how SO many different professional, high-quality flags were created, voted on, etc…. only to be completely abandoned shortly after because no one gave a shit. Totally organic tho amirite guys? See Exhibit A.
2. Make your enemy appear sympathetic to causes the board culture is against. See Exhibit B.
3. Sow discord and confusion. Spamming and trolling are popular ways of doing this. Avoid contributing to the discussion altogether and you can grind all meaningful discussion to a halt and you make your target look foolish for bringing themselves down to your level. Plus, you can get some precious, precious (You)s. At 15 rubles per (You), just a couple of dozen will get you a loaf of bread! Snekposting is the best (worst) example of this. See Exhibit C.
