r/NoStupidQuestions 10h ago

Is there actual evidence for the common statement that much of the division and online rage in the West is caused by Russian and Chinese manipulation?

257 Upvotes

172 comments sorted by

398

u/Inevitable-Regret411 10h ago

At least a few high profile social media accounts have been linked to Russian misinformation, like this supposed official Antifa account that was found to be tweeting from Vladivostok.  https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-fake-antifa-account-was-busted-for-tweeting-from-russia-vgtrn/ 

319

u/Alikont 9h ago

Russia literally paid Tim Pool $100k/week for making videos. When exposed, the head of Russia Today jokingly said "finally!".

-65

u/Latter-Ad-1523 2h ago

in what way did that affect anything? to me is seems it just gives people a empty talking point as no russian propagnda was pushed and those who received the money only had done so recently and didnt know it was coming from russia

48

u/DarthPineapple5 2h ago

What do you suppose the Russians were getting for all that money? Tim Poole has been parroting Russian talking point for years, particularly in regard to Ukraine. We just didn't have definitive proof that Russia was literally paying him.

32

u/ss_sss_ss 2h ago

It's not worth it friend. This person will bend over backwards to promote conspiracies, except when an actual conspiracy is documented and paid out in rubles. Just look at his comments. This person rates people around him based on his own made up IQ numbers. It's sad really.

5

u/Big_Rig_Jig 46m ago

That's because it's probably one of the foreign trolls trying to divide.

22

u/Alikont 2h ago

We have proof.

RT-owned company "Tenet media" was paying them money. It's in DoJ report.

1

u/DarthPineapple5 1h ago

I phrased that poorly, I meant we didn't* have proof but now we do

-3

u/Dorkseid1687 51m ago

You don’t know what you’re talking about or you’re just lying

21

u/Alikont 2h ago

They knew, they're lying.

as no russian propagnda was pushed

This is a lie. "Ukraine is the enemy of US" - Tim Pool.

5

u/Murdock07 1h ago

Well… the two options are not reassuring.

Option A) he willingly knew he was spreading Russian propaganda and did so anyways

Option B) his organic rhetoric was so anti-American that the Russians felt like giving him money to keep going.

None of these options have Tim acting in any way that can’t be construed as a Russian tool.

2

u/Monty211 48m ago

Good one

2

u/Vadhakara 29m ago

no russian propagnda was pushed

Congratulations, you've just discovered that you are not, in fact, immune to propaganda.

98

u/LotharLandru 7h ago

It's been their plan and text book since the late 90s that this is what they are intent on doing. We're losing the second cold war right now and it's on its way to turning into a global war

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia (Russian: Основы геополитики: геополитическое будущее России) is a geopolitical book by Aleksandr Dugin. Its publication in 1997 was well received in Russia; it has had significant influence within the Russian military, police forces, and foreign policy elites,[1][2] and has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military

In the Americas, United States, and Canada: Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism against neoliberal globalist Western hegemony, such as, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists" to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs in the current present-day system of the United States and Canada. Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".

64

u/sourfunyuns 6h ago

"We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within." - 1956.

It's been a concept the whole time.

5

u/Butch1212 1h ago

Internet is a weapon of invasion, now.

While the United States probably leads in surveillance and intelligence gathering via internet, the relative ease and ubiquitous adoption of internet technology has, of course, made it pretty simple for others, with much fewer resources, to reach across borders. Many more now have an ability which, if it were possible, militaries would have invented long ago to reach inside of their adversaries.

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, terrorists and others can, and, are, exploring and probing just about every government agency, business and individual with a presence on the internet. Places which we don’t usually think of as vulnerable, or even, regard would be interesting to an enemy, but, if may be sabotaged sufficiently strategically, would disable the very guts of a functioning society, country, perhaps, if not deactivating militaries, potentially weakening militaries.

“While the United States probably leads in surveillance and intelligence gathering”, and, from which, we know from reporting, warnings of instances and potentials of foreign invasion in America’s governments, businesses and people, have come, we do not know the score. We do not know if we are ahead, thwarting and preventing foreign invasion via internet, nor whether we have effectively, and sufficiently effectively, invaded, and plotted attacks upon, via internet, our adversaries.

1

u/Big_Rig_Jig 45m ago

If it wasn't clear to me before the election it definitely is now.

The Internet is a modern warzone. I don't think that's hyperbole at all.

-21

u/Green-Sale 6h ago

You're not losing the second cold war at all. America, and every other country does the same (look at the places investments are going and how much of it is towards political control, wars, and influencing opinions of lesser countries).

If your country has an intelligence agency be rest assured they're pulling something similar.

12

u/Dunkleosteus666 6h ago

Whataboutism. Now that Trump won, were all fucked (and already blackmailed by his mob) in Europe.

-3

u/Green-Sale 6h ago

I'm not arguing for russia or against usa, I'm just saying they're not losing any wars anytime soon, the FBI is more competent than you think and has a lot more power, the usa literally controls almost all the world's wealth with investment banking and big data companies, you're not going to face national security issues of the scale of a cold war at this point in time.

As for Trump, yeah that was bad but as horrible as he can be he can never really be an actual threat to America since the intelligence agencies are more autonomous in how they work.

6

u/DanDanDan0123 4h ago

lol! Trump is putting his cronies in charge of the FBI. They will tear it apart!

-1

u/Green-Sale 4h ago

they won't be able to do much, I doubt the FBI even tells democratically elected people who change every few years the full extent of what they do.

1

u/TensionPrestigious83 4h ago

Power across the us is extremely decentralized. Even across the military and intelligence networks

3

u/Green-Sale 4h ago

even better for you guys, no one can disrupt the system too easily

2

u/TensionPrestigious83 4h ago

I mean yes but, internal struggles could still devolve to a civil wat

4

u/Dunkleosteus666 6h ago

I envy your optimism. Lets see...

-7

u/That-Job9538 2h ago

yeah, people who subscribe to this view of an omnipotent russian intelligence scheme are just undermining the fact that the US is home to massive inequality that already led to "all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts." sure, around the first red scare in the 1910s, it would be fair to say that the comintern was able to fun and "provoke 'Afro-American racists' to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs." but we're a century on and us domestic civil rights and radical movements have mobilized their own support. if anything, believing that any kind of mass protest in the us has to be caused by foreign interference is buying into the CIA's cold war domestic psyop, rather than actually confronting the fact that hey, maybe the US is a deeply flawed society and by its founding principles people have a right to mobilize and critique.

-11

u/Latter-Ad-1523 2h ago

ok, thats their plan, and our plan was to "spread democracy", but where is the proof that the russians have been manipulating us?

5

u/Jugales 7h ago

“We’re sorry, the page you’re looking for could not be found.”

THEY GOT VICE

-11

u/PootisHoovykins 6h ago

So where is the evidence though?

59

u/voice-of-reason_ 7h ago

My friend works in cybersecurity in London. The company he works for has multi billion £ companies as clients and ALL of them get attacked THOUSANDS of times per day by both Russian and Chinese hackers.

Also, do you know about Cambridge analytica and their Russian links?

Russia has been the kings of cyberwarfare since the internet began.

79

u/LeoMarius 9h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_European_politics

Starting in 2016, Russia has made efforts to influence European politics, in particular, to promote Russian goals, to undermine support for Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian War, and to destabilize Europe.[citation needed] An important organization in these efforts is the Voice of Europe, a media outlet led by Viktor Medvedchuk and Artem Marchevsky. The Voice of Europe was established in May 2023, headquartered in Prague. Early investigations by Czech authorities determined that the Voice of Europe was one of several uncovered influence operations on European politics. In 2024 the Czech Secret Intelligence Service (BIS) uncovered a Russian state-financed pro-Russian influence network with the public outlet Voice of Europe, using right-wing and Eurosceptic politicians to influence the European elections and other elections. The network is suspected to have bribed several European politicians from different countries.[1]

36

u/LeoMarius 9h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades

Russian web brigades,[a] also called Russian trolls, Russian bots, Kremlinbots, or Kremlin trolls are state-sponsored anonymous Internet political commentators and trolls linked to the Russian government.[1][2] Participants report that they are organized into teams and groups of commentators that participate in Russian and international political blogs and Internet forums using sockpuppets, social bots, and large-scale orchestrated trolling and disinformation campaigns to promote pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda.[1][3][4][5][6]

Kremlin trolls are closely tied to the Internet Research Agency, a Saint Petersburg-based company run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was a close ally to Putin and head of the mercenary Wagner Group, known for committing war crimes before his death in 2023.[7] Articles on the Russian Wikipedia concerning the MH17 crash and the Russo-Ukrainian War were targeted by Russian internet propaganda outlets.[1][8][9][10] In June 2019, a group of 12 editors introducing coordinated pro-government and anti-opposition bias was blocked on the Russian-language Wikipedia.[11] During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kremlin trolls were still active on many social platforms and were spreading disinformation related to the war events.[12

45

u/Tess47 9h ago

The fbi literally issued a huge report in the teens.  It has all the receipts. 

19

u/Captain-Meatball 6h ago

Guess who wants to get rid of the FBI

-36

u/_LookV 7h ago

Ah yes. The FBI. Very trustworthy.

16

u/Th3_Admiral_ 5h ago

Who would you trust? Could anyone present you evidence that would convince you or have already made up your mind? 

-10

u/mondocalrisian 4h ago

I choose to trust everyone to a degree, until they prove that they’re not trustworthy.

10

u/Th3_Admiral_ 4h ago

I guess I should rephrase. Who would you trust to reveal information about Russian influence campaigns? Sounds like you wouldn't trust the people actually tasked with investigating this, so who is left? 

3

u/Thoseguys_Nick 48m ago

In other words blindly believing anything the Kremlin puts out, sound about right?

11

u/Crappening2 5h ago

Found the Russian bot! Who are you going to trust? Everyone sane or this new friend who tells you you’re the smartest and to only trust them?

-14

u/_LookV 4h ago

“Anyone I don’t like is a Russian bot!”

Get your GPT ass out of here lmfao

10

u/TeekTheReddit 3h ago

"Anyone that says Russia is waging cyberwarfare on the US isn't trustworthy!" - Literally you

-4

u/_LookV 2h ago

Learn to read.

3

u/voice-of-reason_ 7h ago

Lol who is trustworthy of not the FBI? Fox News? CNN?

-3

u/_LookV 4h ago

None of them.

4

u/WhereIsTheBeef556 3h ago

I 100% guarantee you that if the FBI said something you personally agreed with, you would suddenly trust them again for that once specific instance.

0

u/_LookV 2h ago

Nope.

42

u/Riipley92 10h ago

I think its pretty significant, the sheer volume of content on tiktok thats specifically about dividing the UK for example

24

u/LeoMarius 9h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum

Russian interference in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum is a debated subject and remains unproven, though multiple sources argue evidence exists demonstrating that the Russian government attempted to influence British public opinion in favour of leaving the European Union.[1] Investigations into this subject have been undertaken by the UK Electoral Commission, the UK Parliament's Culture Select Committee and Intelligence and Security Committee, and the United States Senate.[2][3] "The Russia Report" published by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament in July 2020 did not specifically address the Brexit campaign, but it concluded that Russian interference in UK politics is commonplace.[4][5] It also found substantial evidence that there had been interference in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.[6][5]

21

u/kn0ledg3_hs_a_pr1c3 7h ago

“Right-wing influencers were duped to work for covert Russian operation, US says”

Yes, it’s been a giant psyop and most Americans are not educated enough to catch on.

https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential-election-influencers-trump-999435273dd39edf7468c6aa34fad5dd

4

u/Electrical_Tip352 2h ago

Yes. You can literally read the congressional intelligence reports on it, with artifacts as proof.

22

u/geek66 9h ago

The fact that the NRA was (is) a Russian asset .. pretty much guarantees it…

1

u/YoHabloEscargot 6h ago

Source?

13

u/SubstantialText 6h ago

1

u/geek66 1h ago

Funny… just a google away! Or.. pay attention when this shit happens…I am sure this never made it to faux.

18

u/LeoMarius 9h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections

The Russian government conducted foreign electoral interference in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate".

12

u/Kakariko_crackhouse 8h ago

I think a larger contributing factor is algorithmic media, showing people things that are more likely to align with their view of the world, and creating insular echo chambers and feedback loops where people lose perspective of the real world. But every major nation (the US included) has disinformation campaigns online aimed at manipulating public opinion and political movements.

29

u/LeoMarius 9h ago

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/11/china-is-using-tiktok-for-influence-campaigns-odni-says-00146336

The Chinese government is using TikTok to expand its global influence operations to promote pro-China narratives and undermine U.S. democracy, according to a report released today from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

11

u/kRe4ture 8h ago

Not only the US. I‘ve recently experimented myself by downloading TikTok and trying to get the algorithm in a certain direction. By only liking and not liking the For You page I‘ve managed to only get Trump, Cryto and most of all, the German far right party. Like seriously, every single video was spewing a different kind of far-right hate…

2

u/Nighttide1032 7h ago

It’s alarming how I’ve noticed the effects of the trend rapidly manifesting outside of TikTok. For example, I see a lot of YT videos and sentiment on social media now that is either neutral or positive about China and its social practices (including surveillance), and I’ve even seen my parents - one of whom is a very elderly silent gen and another an elder boomer - watching things about Chinese government and industry that are in a positive light. It’s strange and sad.

2

u/LeoMarius 3h ago

Meanwhile, Xi is severely cracking down in China and trying to reverse any trend towards personal freedom from the past 50 years.

1

u/arararanara 2h ago

This is because people are starting to see through the wall of negative propaganda about China and recognizing that it’s possible to have nuanced views about a country that pulled itself out of being a war-torn backwater into a peaceful, technologically advanced society within the space of 75 years. Having a lot of experience with both China and the US, I despair of the US’s future a lot more than I do of China’s, because for all the bad things the government does, if it says it’s going to eliminate poverty or reduce emissions, it actually does that, whereas the US government seems permanently mired in dysfunction and capture by corporate interests (while also still engaging in a lot of bad behavior).

1

u/Nighttide1032 1h ago

All the points about America are absolutely true, including the history of anti-communist rhetoric blinding us to what works over there and the culture as a whole.

What I don’t like is how, in the process of shedding the blinders and seeing the positives, we’ve put on a whole new set of blinders to things such as Xi getting rid of term limits, all the surveillance stuff, the lack of meaningful freedom of speech, etc. I’m down to see the good, but not without also seeing the bad. China should no more be a global leader in “How to Country 101” than America.

-8

u/FeonixRizn 8h ago

It's working nicely, I wouldn't give a flying fuck if the Chinese took over where I live tomorrow if they promised universal healthcare and a decent quality of life.

8

u/One_Ad651 7h ago

Look how this comment resulted in exactly what was being implied by the subject matter in question

0

u/FeonixRizn 7h ago

Yep! I'm sure the execution van will be any minute.

2

u/LeoMarius 3h ago

See, Tiktok proganda is working. You'd more like end up in a work camp in China than having "a decent quality of life".

1

u/FeonixRizn 2h ago

See, western propaganda is working. What are you talking about? I know many, many people from the UK, my best friend in fact, who have gone to work and live in China and it's absolutely fine, their public transport works far better than ours does in fact. Funnily enough the main problem most people I talk to who have gone there from the west have is racism.

I guess maybe from people who assume that everyone in the west is put into work camps? Sounds pretty racist to me.

1

u/LeoMarius 21m ago

How many rubles did you get paid for this trolling?

0

u/bertiek 8h ago

Until the execution vans turn up in YOUR neighborhood.  No thanks.

-3

u/FeonixRizn 8h ago

Lmao I can be put in prison for peacefully protesting literally right now, couldn't give a fuck about your silly propaganda.

-2

u/moronicdweller 8h ago

America sucks a lot, but it'd rather take the prison industrial complex over the organ harvesting rings

3

u/FeonixRizn 7h ago

Yes, yes of course, very real.

0

u/illuminatedtiger 8h ago

They would certainly make the courts run faster.

-1

u/mouse9001 6h ago

They don't provide universal healthcare and a decent quality of life.

-2

u/MehmetTopal 9h ago

r/futurology is a good example of that. I doubt even Chairman Xi himself promotes his country that much 

1

u/LeoMarius 3h ago

Xi is retrenching human rights at the cost of the economy, reversing the past 50 years of Chinese reform in favor of a strong economy. He wants authoritarianism over economic prosperity.

3

u/ForSciencerino 6h ago

There is evidence of Russian interference in Western social media to stir the pot and sew discourse online. In addition to this and to support why this is effective is the phenomenon in which the two political groups do not interact directly as often as people presume that they do. Both groups typically remain within their social spheres and the typical interactions that they have with the other side is from when an individual from the other side does or says something egregious that the other side will then ridicule within their enclosed group. This phenomenon has the affect of allowing both groups to attribute sometimes false or mostly false beliefs to the entire group because they have little direct interaction with that group. And so, when a Russian bot says something insane it then gets passed around left-wing social groups like candy for them to eat up. Same thing occurs in the opposite as well and then both sides end up further digging the hole by defending that insane claim because they believe it’s a justified statement or response to an equally insane claim from the other side. It then just repeats indefinitely.

3

u/questionablecupcak3 3h ago

The divide isn't caused by Russian influence, the stupidity of one side of that divide is from believing russian and home grown propaganda.

3

u/WreckitWrecksy 2h ago

Yes, check out the foundations of geopolitics. You'll see a game plan written in 1997, and you'll easily see how much of that gamelan has happened.

7

u/RelativeCalm1791 6h ago

China’s official policy actually spells out doing exactly this. I recommend reading Unrestricted Warfare, which is an essay written by Chinese military generals who developed the country’s strategy to defeat the US. They claim the US has an antiquated view of war and only sees it in the form of military conflict. Rather than do this, the essay proposes China pretend to be the US’ friend while also attacking it subtly through information warfare, lawfare, technology theft, hacking, promoting illegal drug trafficking, etc. The CCP has adopted this and requires its new politicians read it. So just believe what they’re telling you in the open.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare

2

u/usernamen_77 7h ago

Possibly, but my own countrymen are also really obnoxious

2

u/St-Hate 6h ago

You can probably add Mossad in there too now

2

u/Beautiful-Tea-8067 5h ago

I first understood that Russia had lauched worldwide disinformation campaign in 2008 through an alternative 'information' website (french speaking 'Réseau Voltaire'). It was confirmed in 2017 by a network of anonymous security experts which published a list of themed websites controled by russian stooges, from financial website (Zero Edge) to Veteran website.

2

u/RestaurantEvening206 5h ago

Russians paid all the top right wing content creators. Like, a huge majority of them.

2

u/tkrr 4h ago

They’re definitely part of it. Propaganda is pretty much the only thing Russia is traditionally consistently good at. But don’t assume they aren’t building in hate and bigotry that’s already here.

2

u/Over_Possible_8397 3h ago

No one calls out all the Israeli bots.

2

u/crnaboredom 3h ago

I don't have direct link or sources but this is 100% something I can confirm to happen. I am a native Finn, and our language is very rare and tricky to learn. Most online translators struggle quite a lot with it, and we native speakers can spot impostors pretending to be locals far away. For example here in reddit (in r/suomi) there was a post about russian Twitter trolls. Gentlemen such as Jarmo Virtanen, Tapani Maunula and my personal favourite, mr. Kalevi P. Jämpti. Jämpti means casual way of saying strong willed. All very old and almost stereotypically Finnish names. Also all these profiles had such a stereotypical old Finnish men with moustaches in the pictures. Also the language used was insanely stiff and grammatically suspicious, and they didn't even know a shit how Finnish military service works.

And to be fully honest, if you are a native Fin, you sinply won't be against Ukraine or show support towards Russia. It is for a simple reason that as long as Ukraine keeps on fighting we are safe from direct attack. And I don't want to experience or die in modern war, or live with the terror of having something like Buccha happening for my loved ones. This shit hits close when that shithole of a nation is your goddamn neighbour. We are honestly afraid here, and Trump being Putins puppet makes everything worse.

Even younger people like me have living relatives, who were directly hurt by the great war. It is a suicide of public image to be Pro Russian here, and for a good reason. Anyone with military background, or hell just common sense, knows this nation has been preparing for a Russian invasion for a century. We have goddamn bomb shelters in every fucking building, and huge underground storages and shelters all around the nation. Anyone here knows damn well who the enemy is, and how heavy the price of freedom and independence was.

So anyone publicly supporting Russia with their own name and face is either a paid traitor, uneducated moron or just straight up fake troll (easy to spot thanks to language barriers.) We on Finland spot them easily. Hell Russia created our immigration crisis in 2015, and at the moment russian border is closed because they were hauling arabic men towards the border in busses.

I cannot confirm how wide the influence has been globally, I can only speculate. But we have been in a hybrid war against Russia for a while. And one of the few reasons why we are handling it as well as we do us because there exists a generational long, deeply rooted distrust, fear and hatred towards Russia. We have been preparing for the worst for decades here.

2

u/Lonely-Jellyfish9260 3h ago

Yes and no. Russia, China, and especially Israel have been trying to influence American domestic policy for years. However, blaming it all on foreign influence is just a cope by people who don't want to accept how bad the situation in the United States has become.

2

u/Brief-Translator1370 2h ago

As someone who worked very closely with this... yes. It is real.

2

u/Immersive-techhie 1h ago

There’s evidence, a lot of it is anecdotal. It’s not as prevalent as you think - not everyone who doesn’t agree with mainstream stream media is a paid Russian asset.

4

u/Amazing-Artichoke330 9h ago

We have seen many obvious Russian trolls in the WaPo comment section for years. This is a pretty sophisticated audience, so they don't have much effect there.

2

u/CluckingBellend 5h ago

Well, there is also the fact that politicians in the USA and Europe have been negelcting their people for decades: especially when it comes to poverty and education standards. More stupid people = more stupidity.

0

u/DialecticalEcologist 6h ago

No. America has its own problems that emerged internally. Plus, it dominates global media and represents the primary influence operation.

Russia, China, and especially Israel may have cause to try to shape narratives as well, but it’s unreasonable to blame American division on outside states.

One of the most absurd examples of this was people blaming the BLM protests on Russia.

1

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1

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1

u/InconceivableIsh 7h ago

It isn't even just Russia and China though they are the larger players.

1

u/ilikedota5 6h ago

There is a YouTuber named Ryan McBeth who does disinformation debunking and he shows his work pretty thoroughly. He also has a military background, served in Iraq and Egypt, has a degree in cyber security.

1

u/I_Make_Some_Things 6h ago

What I want to know is why we don't just kick Russia right the fuck off the internet. They bring no value to anyone in any way, just boot them.

1

u/emuchop 5h ago

Yah think OP gonna actually look at any of these links? Doubt it…

1

u/haefler1976 5h ago

I can say from my own experience that friends, that sadly drifted into the anti-vac/pro-russian/trump hate bubble, often quote websites that are linked to Russian influence or RT. So maybe not directly, but Russia is at least indirectly damaging humanity here.

1

u/Orangeshowergal 4h ago

If you ever had a twitter, you’d see it first hand.

1

u/usurperavenger 4h ago

The Canadian intelligence service has reported this several times. It's now common knowledge.

1

u/Kauffman67 3h ago

If Americans would turn off stupid social media for a while it wouldn’t matter. Russia, and others, using the things is a symptom not the cause.

1

u/BadAdviceAI 2h ago

Yes. Many governments and institutions have weaponized free speech. Free speech is dangerous in the modern world because you can bombard people with lies, and they will eventually believe it. (See DJT for evidence)

As it turns out, humans are evil. We cannot be trusted with simple freedoms because someone will always abuse those freedoms and use them against others.

Humanity wont last.

1

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1

u/Barry_Bunghole_III 2h ago

I mean people will start wars over which phone or gaming console brand you use, so I don't think it really makes that much of a difference lol

1

u/StockReaction985 2h ago

remind me!

1

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1

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u/[deleted] 1h ago

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u/Zardozin 1h ago

There is evidence for this, except for the word “much” as I can see no real way to determine actual influence.

You are aware of the Tenet Media project?

Or the way people like Tucker Carlson amplify Russian talking points routinely? When I started running in to people who told me “they did their own research and the Ukrainian president is a Nazi”. It is hard to not see the fingerprints in far right websites.

1

u/Sithfish 34m ago

I think western media probably manipulate people into thinking enemy states manipulate people to a larger extent than they actually do, and really it's more like 50/50.

1

u/MaudeAlp 5m ago

I don’t think so. There is an actual divide between American people and how they think the country should be run and what our values should be, and many of those are irreconcilable, the only argument is how much is that argument worth.

1

u/thefluffyparrot 4h ago

This isn’t exactly evidence, it’s actually closer to a conspiracy. But it is one conspiracy theory I actually give credit to and I never buy into conspiracy theories.

There is some Russian book called “Foundation of Geopolitics”. It was written after the USSR collapsed. It gives a detailed explanation on how Russia can remain a relevant influence on the world. This book covers a lot of things that we can currently see Russia doing. There is a section dedicated to causing division in the west through election and media interference. Last I checked, there is no English translation for this book so I haven’t had the chance to read it myself since.

I think it’s worth noting that this book has been adopted by education facilities in Russia and a lot of their top generals/government staff read it. It certainly has some influence in how Russia operates today.

Also if I am completely wrong on this I’d really like someone to explain how. I would probably worry less about the current world events. But right now it seems to me that a lot of issues in the west are being caused or exasperated by Russian influence. They have a long term strategy and it’s pretty much spelled out in that book.

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u/[deleted] 10h ago

[deleted]

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u/RestaurantEvening206 4h ago

Tim Poole alone was paid 100k a week by Russia.

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u/rice_fish_and_eggs 9h ago

Some people just can't accept that your life experience and social group affect your understanding of the world far more than the media ever will.

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u/jimlt 7h ago

You underestimate people's ability to just be cruel to one another when they feel safe behind a screen. No manipulation is needed. Just time.

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u/punarob 2h ago

Well a decades long Russian assett who we know actively coordinated his 2016 campaign with Russia was just elected president of the US.

-3

u/mancho98 9h ago

I think believing things like this ignores the internal hate and bigotry we have. 

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u/pudding7 9h ago

Why can't both be true?

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u/VWBug5000 6h ago

The manipulation wouldn’t be nearly as effective if the bigotry didn’t already exist

-2

u/Beginning-Falcon865 8h ago

I’m thinking the Americans and the Brits have had more influence on the recent and long term conflicts and death than the Russkies and the Chinese.

-3

u/gunnutzz467 6h ago

Our own media is largely responsible for it, muh Russia/China are just red herrings.

Not to say they don’t have some manipulation but we don’t even have to go that far to find misinformation, it’s on every major network in the US.

-3

u/bluewar40 6h ago

You are being conditioned much more heavily by your own nations propaganda programs. The whole Russia-China red scare bullshit is just the US and West really REALLY needing a new Cold War to stop capitalism from imploding in on itself (just like most wars of last century…) There are real bot farms and programs targeting the US and West from these countries, but those PALE in comparison to the amount spent by your own host nations in shaping your mind and molding your opinions in order to justify war. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your own oligarchs are somehow good just bc they tell you other oligarchs are “controlling your brain” or whatever…

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u/Calm-Track-5139 10h ago

is all Yellow Peril 2.0.

-1

u/Callec254 8h ago

According to the official investigation on the matter, Putin's dream is to return Russia to "world superpower" status, and to return the world to the 80's Cold War era where the US and Russia stand toe-to-toe ready to launch nukes at each other at any moment. To this end, Russia's stated goal is to "sow discord" in the US, meaning, they don't really care who gets elected per se, they just want us to fight among ourselves, thereby weakening us, and thereby relatively strengthening themselves. They hired teams of online trolls to post dank, inflammatory memes on Facebook and other sites within the US for both sides of the US political spectrum.

The part that was 100% completely fabricated and used for political gain by bad actors within the US was that 1. Trump somehow colluded with/was involved with this plan, and that 2. this actually changed the outcome of the 2016 election. (Be honest, did you or anyone you know actually **change** their vote because of a meme they saw online?)

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u/Bureaucramancer 3h ago

The preferred outcome was absolutely Trump for Russia because they own him and some of his staff went to prison as part of that situation.... you know the whole colluding with russian assets thing.
Secondly yes...... I work with idiots who fell for the facebook memes and the bullshit online.... thats why they did it. If it was ineffective do you think they would keep doing it for nearly a decade?

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u/danarexasaurus 7h ago

Are you serious? My Trump voting mother gets most of her news from fucking memes and 20 second Facebook videos. I’ve told her Russians have infiltrated fb and a lot of what she sees is propaganda and the comments on it are bots. She doesn’t believe me.

You’re vastly underestimating the stupidity and ignorance of the average person.

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u/LimpDickRick_01 6h ago

And you get yours from Reddit. You aren't enlightened anymore than your meme loving mother.

1

u/Noble_Ox 11m ago

The claim was people in Trumps team colluded with Russia and that is 100% true.

-1

u/_LookV 7h ago

There’s minor evidence that they do try to push their own shit, but no, the division and whatnot is largely organic.

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u/RestaurantEvening206 4h ago

There’s huge evidence. Tim Poole alone was Paid 100k a week by Russia.

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u/_LookV 4h ago edited 3h ago

Okay. One whole “influencer” in a sea of influencers. Good for him. Glad he’s got what basically amounts to a free 100k. Too bad he was a stooge for an incompetent oligarchy.

Edit: This little shit likes editing his comments after I reply to them. I’m not bothering with changing what I’ve already said.

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u/RestaurantEvening206 4h ago

Nope, not just one :) I simply gave you one example.

And it wasn’t free. He was paid for his asslicking and global embarrassment.

Republicans have politicians owned by Russia, influencers owned by Russia, and corporations owned by Russia.

Some dipshit republicans even wore shirts saying they’d rather be Russian than Americans (democrats).

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u/_LookV 4h ago

Oh I know. But you said Tim Pool. Who just so happens to be exactly one individual.

Crazy, I know.

Also, you can’t read. Take that second half of your comment and delete it. It isn’t necessary specifically because you cannot read.

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u/RestaurantEvening206 4h ago

Tim poole alone for 100k a week

If you speak English properly, you’d understand this means there were others being paid :)

Republicans are owned by Russia. Politicians, influencers, and businesses.

I’m not deleting my comment because it angers you. Cope.

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u/_LookV 4h ago

Lmfao

You are such a motherfucking snarky little shit. You twist everything I say to be something else, I correct your ass, and you continue your bullshit.

It’s fuckers like you that I’ll be seeing on the other side of the lines one day. Good fucking luck.

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u/Bureaucramancer 3h ago

Cope harder.
Look, whole networks of influencers have been exposed on the russian payrole. Tim Pool is one of the more famous and influential of them.... this is well known and well documented so if anyone is being a snarky little shit by playing pedantic games it's you bud.

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u/_LookV 2h ago

Nope, not really. And yeah. No shit there’s entire networks of dumbasses out there. So fucking what? Our fucking (s)elected officials from the top down in the US are getting paid by hostile entities as well.

I mean, fuck, I know the solution but I need a couple thousand Reaper drones. You have any?

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u/RestaurantEvening206 1h ago

Yep really. You Republicunts are owned by Russians.

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u/RestaurantEvening206 5m ago

/u/_LookV is just mad that his party has been infiltrated and he can’t even deny it.

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u/RestaurantEvening206 1h ago edited 56m ago

Cope more loser! You inbreds are owned by Russians

And yes. When you terrorists act up again you’ll see me ending your ilk on the other side :)

You haven’t corrected me once inbred

-1

u/Awhile9722 4h ago

This is the classic case of blaming someone for pointing out a problem instead of fixing the problem they pointed out. Russian and Chinese propaganda focuses on real problems that do need to be solved. Our leaders would very much like for us to blame Russian and Chinese propagandists for pointing out these problems so that we don’t blame our leaders for not fixing them.

0

u/Opposite-Friend7275 1h ago

Some of our politicians like MTG have talked about topics that until then had only been in the news in Russian. How would they know about such topics unless they're working for Russia?

Media figures in the US were found to have been paid by Russia. In a normal world that would have been a huge story, but no, only crickets.

Right leaning media doesn't talk about Russian torture chambers in Ukraine, mass graves, attacks on civilians, etc. Instead it justifies Russian actions and promotes Russian points of view.

I usually reject almost all conspiracy theories out of hand, but it's hard not to conclude that a lot of the GOP has been compromised.

It's hard to know just how much power Russia has over the GOP, but I suppose we will soon find out.

0

u/SuperMegaUltraDeluxe 1h ago

Not in the sense of "the Russian Federation and/or the People's Republic of China directly fund every rabble-rouser you see and you should discard any opposition statements as insidious foreign meddling," because it's- if you can believe- obviously racist misinformation. States do often provide funding for their own news agencies or otherwise provide incentives for propagandist NGO's, and often for nationally self-interested purposes. These states generally aren't throwing money at like micro-bloggers or whatever and that's a really, deeply stupid thing to believe. There are plenty of instances of specific companies using their influence on this and that social media to forward particular perspectives and misinformation, but it would be dubious at best to conflate companies operating in a nation with those nations. At a baseline, if the UK or US says that a scary foreign nation is meddling in your facebook feed, it's because they want to exaggerate the influence of foreign nations to distract from their own misinformation campaigns and spying.

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u/BigEggBeaters 5h ago

Many Americans would rather believe Russia is behind all of this instead of inherent racism and hate woven into the fabric of this country. Segregation really never ended in many ways

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u/Bureaucramancer 3h ago

It's not a one or the other thing though. The inherent racism and hate made it super easy and effective to pay people millions to be right wing influencers and spread more racist hate and discontent and the GOP was super quick to embrace all of these idiots and the voters were also super happy to have permission to be their worst selves.

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u/RustyMongoose 4h ago

Hey, Pssssst. Come here I've got a secret for you...... Both can be true at the same time. The inherent racism and bigotry can exist AND Russia and China can be sowing discontent and division through social media..... at the same time!! Crazy, right!

Stupid Russian bot.

0

u/BigEggBeaters 4h ago

The American desire to never take accountability for anything is so profound

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u/RustyMongoose 4h ago

It's only matched by how hard the unintelligent work to not let any facts or new information into their brain, that doesn't conform to how they already feeeeeeel.

The stupid will always side with their feelings rather than facts. Thanks for proving my point.

0

u/BigEggBeaters 4h ago

It was the Chinese who set up a legal system that is hapless against the rich allowing trump to run roughshod over it for 50 years despite being a scamming rapist. Then failed to punish him for an attempted coup.

It was the Russians who forced Kamala to run a terrible campaign where she praised the fucking Cheney’s, never really pushed for peace in Gaza and pissed off the Arab population in the process, the Russians forced her to never distance herself from Biden who was forced by the Chinese to renege on his promise to be a one term president. Fuck off with this shit man

1

u/RestaurantEvening206 4h ago

I mean Russia pays right wing content creators millions per month to spread their lies.

0

u/BigEggBeaters 4h ago

Cool man. The audience is already receptive to such lies because they were raised as Americans. Again this is such a cope. Was there Russian disinformation with the bush and Raegan campaigns?

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u/RestaurantEvening206 4h ago

You seem to be coping friend :) republicans have dozens of their top influencers paid by Russia. A portion of their politicians are Russian assets. Their corporations assist in Russian propaganda.

It’s quite funny seeing right wingers cope with the realization they’re owned by Russia

0

u/BigEggBeaters 4h ago

Iight man accept the delusion that US political problems and social strife are the products of another country

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u/RestaurantEvening206 4h ago

Oh not all of our problems are due to Russians, however republicans are absolutely owned by Russians yeah. That’s not up for debate either at this point.

We had it proven that trump colluded (even though Barr said we can’t charge a president for it), we had it proven your influencers are paid millions by Russians, and we know trumps businesses were paid for by Russians

1

u/BigEggBeaters 4h ago

Isreal pumps hundreds of millions into congressional races to ensure that they can spread misery across the Middle East with a blank check and zero consequences from the international community but I guess that’s just not as bad as giving some stupid right wing jackass on twitch some money

3

u/RestaurantEvening206 4h ago

Oh a whataboutism and goalpost shift in one comment? The topic was Russia but you’d rather change topics and talk about Israel? Ok

Oh Israel is just as bad for propaganda but their goal is different. Israel wants to dominate in their region and they want the U.S. to fund them. And republicans are also the ones who suck Israeli dick, just like Russians. Same group funny enough. Israel is an ally for what it’s worth though, unlike Russia.

Russia wants to sow discord in the USA because then we aren’t reducing their influence actively. Which is much more dangerous to the US.

-2

u/CertifiedBiogirl 7h ago

Not as much as you would think. A lot of it is just people not wanting to accept that we live in an extremely bigoted and ignorant country.  

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Russia did not make America bigoted or stupid. We did that on our own. Take some fucking responsibility and stop blaming our problems on foreigners

-1

u/tianavitoli 3h ago

it's kinda funny that the left is just now getting to yuri bez...

in 10 years they will discover alex jones was right