Russia’s propaganda machine amplifies alt-right

>“Promoting content that is divisive – that is the ultimate goal here,” said Lee Foster, manager of information operations analysis at FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence.

>“It’s the same in Europe, but the specific themes change,” Foster said. “There, one of the most prominent themes is migration and the refugee crisis.”

>In some cases, it is pro-Russia personalities, trolls or automated accounts magnifying right-wing messages.

>The latest example is the recent flood of negative coverage of President Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, which originated on right-wing media outlets like Breitbart News and has been picked up by prominent conservative personalities, including Sean Hannity.

>The campaign, coined #FireMcMaster, was also picked up by automated Twitter accounts—commonly known as “bots”—that are linked to Russia, according to Hamilton 68, a new dashboard developed to monitor fake news. Separately, researchers at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab identified Lee Stranahan, a host on Russian state-run outlet Sputnik, as one of the most prominent voices behind the anti-McMaster campaign.

>“The long view of the Russian active measures program is chaos and disunity among the American government,” Clint Watts, a former FBI agent and cybersecurity expert who developed the Hamilton 68 dashboard, told NPR earlier this month.

>“The reason the #FireMcMaster topic is so potent is it's one of the key themes that you consistently will see the Russians push,” Watts said. “One is anti-EU. They want to see the EU break up. The other one is anti-NATO. And they want to see the U.S. back away from both of those alliances. McMaster's very much about staying engaged in those alliances, which is different from other people in the White House.”

>In other cases, pro-Russian personalities and accounts will push narratives to their targeted audience, attempting to get American influencers to pick up a certain storyline.

>Such was the case during 2016 presidential election campaign, noted Foster, when accounts tweeted content copied from the WikiLeaks dumps of Democratic officials’ emails.

>“Up through the election, it was heavily anti-Clinton and steadily increased in the promotion of pro-Trump material,” Foster said. “It moved into this pro-Trump realm.” He noted that while these accounts continue to push anti-Democratic messaging, the balance has shifted toward pro-right-wing messages.

>A more recent example is laid out by Atlantic Council researchers Donara Barojan and Ben Nimmo.

>According to their August 18 analysis, far-right and nationalist activists in the U.S. picked up a narrative pushed by Kremlin-backed media that the 2014 revolution in Ukraine was driven by neo-Nazis.

>The narrative, which Moscow has advanced to justify its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, again picked up steam as Russian figures began comparing the white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., to the uprising in Ukraine. Those pushing the narrative eventually used it to attack Republican figures, notably Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), accusing him of hypocrisy for denouncing white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville but supporting Ukrainian protesters.

>“[It’s] this kind of unholy alliance between the Kremlin-funded media and the alt-right activists and influencers,” Barojan said in an interview.

>Bots, or automated accounts that tweet at high volumes, play a key role in amplifying these messages online. While some researchers maintain that it is impossible to say for certain in which countries these accounts originate, others say that specific characteristics—such as the times they tweet or the narratives they push–can lead them to reasonably conclude that they originate in Russia, or elsewhere.

>Experts say that pro-Russia bot activity particularly targeting U.S. audiences has evolved in recent months.

>“They went from being effectively propaganda experiments to being something that is now known tradecraft,” explained Ryan Kalember, senior vice president for cybersecurity strategy at Proofpoint. “You look at the numbers and you definitely see trends toward greater organization in terms of the messaging.”

>Some have observed bot activity in general intensify.

>“We see that they’ve been more prevalent in a variety of scenarios, not only political discourse and elections but also really in a variety of nefarious or malicious applications,” said Emilio Ferrara, an assistant research professor at the University of California’s computer science department. “They are used to push conspiracy theories, they are used to push anti-science operations like climate change denial campaigns.”

>Ferrara published research in July linking Twitter bots that spread pro-Donald Trump messages ahead of the U.S. election to those that circulated disinformation about then-French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron leading up to the May 2017 election in France. Ferrara did not attribute the bot activity to Russia.

>Moscow is widely believed to have spread disinformation about Macron, in an effort to prop up far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front. Macron also witnessed his campaign emails hacked and leaked days before the election, though the hack has not been definitively traced to Russia.

>National Security Agency director Mike Rogers has said that the U.S. warned France of Russian cyber activity before the hack.

>When it comes to pro-Russia accounts engaging in the U.S., they are not solely reaching out to the alt-right.

>There are also anti-Trump bots and trolls tied to Russia, Kalember said, that engage with left-wing audiences to push disinformation. For now, though, the engagement is more prominent on the right because the narrative fits Russia’s aim, experts say.

>“It goes to show that this is not in anyway a phenomenon that is restricted to the alt-right,” Kalember said. “That’s just a vehicle of convenience for whatever the Russian agenda happens to be.”

>>173630
Well then we're either gonna have to learn to have more nuanced discussions about policy and representatives than just
>right v left
And we're going to have to learn to be self-critical across the board.

Otherwise we're going to get the dysfunctional democracy that we deserve. Russia is the criminal teenager, you are the gallant preteen who has to make a choice. In any other context, this sort of influence constitutes a coming-of-age decision.

MUH RUSSIA

I've met paranoid schizophrenics more reasonable than libtards.

Everyone on steam who uses altright memes are slav or weeb.

That reminds me, what happened to the steady flow of RT/Sputnik propaganda on /news/, did they finally realize they were being too heavyhanded?

>>173709
Pretty sure it was just trolls who moved on to pidgin posting. We still get Ukrainian propaganda though

>>173630
>>173631
>>173633
>>173636
>>173639
>>173640
>>173643
>>173644

"MUH RUSSIA IS HACKING EVERYTHING"


Please stop this meme.

>>173734
Every major nation on earth has a propaganda system. Why are you up in arms about people saying that Russia has one?

>>173709
Everyone telling them "Fuck off Ivan" hopefully made them realize that their time is better spent elsewhere. That or they're being sneakier about it.

>>173630
And that's why we have reCaptcha.

>>173662
Seriously.

It's funny watching the left use excuses as to why their ideology is dying. The alt-right is growing on its own because people are tired of the left.

>>173709
>Everything I don't like is Russian propaganda.
Is this what your progs say to ignore the fact you are losing the culture war?

>>173747
Because you use it an excuse for why your party and ideology continue to lose. Maybe you should look into the mirror.

>>173791
>Because you use it an excuse
I could use it to lure children into my van for extended rape sessions and it wouldn't make a difference as to whether the underlying claims were true or not.

>>173788
You mean the culture of infinate war, theift, and slavery is winning.

>>173658
Hey, your being reasonable. On 4chan. Grats.
PS. People that affiliate themselves with Nazism and arguably the KKK do not deserve to be included though. If they actively chose to be political pariahs than we should let them have it.

>>173791
>B-B-But Hillary!
Every time. Media distrust is at an all time high why wouldn't the kremlin push disinformation out to radicalize right wingers?

>>173787
it's equally amusing watching nationalist types ignore the co-opting of their political movement by another world power.

>>173788
RT and sputnik are literally classified as propaganda by intelligence agencies

>inb4 hurr durr muh deep state

>>174494
>RT and sputnik are literally classified as propaganda by intelligence agencies
"Propaganda agencies declare other agencies propaganda, propagandists on /news/ tow the line- more at 11"

>>174484
>Media distrust is at an all time high why wouldn't the kremlin push disinformation out to radicalize right wingers?
Because they don't need to, the US MSM isn't doing it just fine on their own, being a constant droning source of divisive fabrications and disingenuous falsehoods for profit. Russia a scapegoat for populist upheaval against the status quo and prominent DNC politicians like Feinstein have already started trying to walk back other extremists takes on the issue.

"Repeat the lie" Goebbels technique doesn't work in todays world, and you'll soon find that out the hard way.

>>174495
>US MSM isn't
Is.* silly typos.