For the those considering Hillary over Bernie… #Hate it!
GO FUCKING VOTE
are you all really that bernt out that your fave politician lost so you’ll have to make up fake posts like this and continue reblogging just to make Bernie look better and further prove your hatred towards Hillary?
So, I did it – went through and searched my blog for the posts I’d unknowingly reblogged from any of the Russian troll accounts on the list Tumbler’s sending round. I think the results are interesting for anyone else who’s gotten the same email and may be wondering:
I came up with around 15 reblogs in total. Most of them fell broadly under the umbrella of “legit things posted to build the account’s credibility”: actual news stories with credible sources, or screenshots of twitter conversations (which might be either discussing facts or opinions) or of TV shows. Most actually had a positive tone (probably because of the correct assumption that people are less likely to fact-check “awesome historical figure of colour!”-type posts than “awful thing happened yesterday here!” posts), and covered topics like Black history, modern Black leaders, Muslim positivity, and body positivity. One was a post explaining the procedure for writing in Bernie Sanders in the 2016 election, which I and most of the other people in the chain reblogged expressly to explain what a bad idea it was.
Even some of the positive posts, though, take on a bit of a sinister edge when you know where they’re coming from. “Neglected historical figures” posts, like any “why is no one talking about X” posts, can bolster the sense that news sources outside your online bubble are ignoring or obscuring the truth about the world. A gifset (like one I reblogged) of Jon Stewart giving a blistering takedown on The Late Show, with a caption about how much the poster misses Stewart and how much we need someone like him, but there’s no one on The Daily Show now who’s his equal, uses a genuinely great moment of political satire to denigrate the amazing work currently being done in satire, and chip away at the credibility of voices like Trevor Noah’s and all the other comedians and commentators who are calling politicians to account now.
I want to talk about this post in particular, because I think it’s really telling. It shows just how insidious propaganda can be:
The Fact Check: Like many others, the post presents facts that are broadly correct – India TV and several other sources did say that Tom Holland “wants to play an Indian Spiderman”. However, if you read the coverage, the same articles also quote Holland saying that an Indian actor should take the role of Spiderman if an Indian version of the film is made. It seems more likely that it was a language issue or other mistake than a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the actor.
The Hook: The post creates a sense of urgency by suggesting that misinformation is already being circulated, and that this misinformation is hurting innocent people. I certainly hit reblog because I didn’t want a misleading story to make people think badly of Tom Holland. If you buy that the lie is already out there, then, given how fast information circulates, there’s a sense of time pressure around sharing the “truth” that (ironically) helps real misinformation spread.
The Framing: The whole post is (again, kind of ironically) framed as a fact check, contrasting the headline with dialogue from the actual interview. But the fact check is deliberately incomplete. It demonstrates that what Holland said was different from the headline, but skirts the question of what the original article really claimed he said.
The Spin: And this is the really insidious bit. Why bother painting an Indian news outlet like it’s trying to smear a random actor when it’s not? Look at the caption: I am fed up with the media nowadays
That’s the point – that seed of doubt about the media. Not entertainment media, all media. Don’t trust mainstream journalism. Don’t trust the sources of information that have access, resources, and influence.
Sound familiar? The lying mainstream media? Fake news?
So if you’re wondering how infiltration works and what it tries to accomplish – well, here you go.
^^^THAT
Learn to recognize the pattern. Inciting strife or outrage should be suspicious. Anything that is not constructive. “Fed up” – and then what?
Healthy movements want to BUILD: take care of people, comfort, feed, develop.
I’ve been trying to learn about that stuff, and then warn friends, for the last couple of years. The pattern has been very similar in 2013 and up with Russian meddling in Ukraine. Some of the same people are involved. I freaked out so much when I started to see that sick slag happening in the US.
Currently, they are meddling in the gun issue to incite strife.
All of this. Kudos to DC for actually taking the time to do this. It shows how easy it is for any one of us to assist in spreading misinformation online.
(Also, an interesting little book published like almost 100 years ago that details how a lot of this bullshit works is Bernays’ Propaganda. I read it after the election and was surprised/unsurprised at how relevant it was today).
when I was in high school (2011 or thereabouts), I was part of a forum for fans of a particular webcomic (coughcough @discordcomics coughcough). because the webcomic was about queer people, almost everyone in the forum was some kind of queer. I learned like 90% of my queer politics through being a member and interacting with trans folks and ace folks and nonbinary folks and what have you all the time.
we had a section for cool queer news stories, and one day someone posted a link to a blog. it was written by a lesbian in Syria, and the post that was shared was her recounting how the night before, the secret police had come to take her away for being a lesbian, but her father had identified each of the men by name (like, “Don’t I know you from —?” and “Isn’t your father so-and-so?”), shaming them into leaving her alone. it was a heartwarming story, a really important bright spot for us queer folks (a Muslim dad! in Syria! standing up for his lesbian daughter!), and so when she was apparently kidnapped in broad daylight by armed men, the internet (including us!) freaked out and tried to search for her.
now, according to him, he was trying to uplift the voices of Muslims (particularly Muslim women) who he’d met while studying. people were spreading misinformation about the Middle East and Muslims on the internet, and he wasn’t being listened to as a straight white man, and so he thought his opinions might be given more weight if they came from a Muslim lesbian woman.
the problem is, even if what he said was 100% accurate–even if he had so deeply studied the plight of women, particularly lesbians, in Syria, that no actual Syrian Muslim lesbian would disagree with him–the problem is that he’s not a Syrian Muslim lesbian. he’s a white guy from Georgia. he could do nothing but parrot talking points by actual queer Syrians all day and that would never give him the experience or knowledge to be able to speak for them.
the problem isn’t that the deleted blogs promoted ideas from BLM and other social justice groups. lots of people can do that, even if they’re not black or not American. even I can do that. but one thing I can’t do, as a white woman, is to pretend that I am black–to steal photos of real black people to use as my profile pics, to use AAVE exclusively, to talk about how “our” people are oppressed and hurt by white supremacy–even if it’s to promote goals that I agree with. that’s rachel dolezal levels of fuckery. or, more accurate, this is hivliving levels of fuckery.
imagine this wasn’t the IRA. imagine it was a bunch of white kids from spokane, or any one of the police officers who blame BLM for self-inflicted wounds and vandalism, or cole fucking sprouse. would we still be saying “but they made good points”? would we still be defending them as martyrs to tumblr’s censorship? would we claim them as legitimate social justice activists, instead of frauds who duped innocent people into believing they were members of marginalized groups?
Simply go to the wayback machine hereand type in the url of your choice (I’m using 1-800-gloup as an example)
You’re looking for similar avatars between the tumblr accounts and the twitter accounts. This is a screenshot from a confirmed Russian twitter account posing as an activist:
This is a screenshot from 1-800-gloup’s blog:
You can also google the urls, as many journalists have already reported on this exact thing with their own findings, and you can compare notes.
So there you go, at least one of the blogs tumblr staff emailed us about is actually affiliated with the IRA, even though they posted “pro-black lives matter” content (most of these accounts, at least on twitter, promoted a website called blackmattersus, which is a confirmed IRA property that works like most spam sites do: use a similar url to confuse people into thinking they’re actually at the black lives matter website, which is found here btw).
The fact that these blogs posted anti-racism content doesn’t mean anything. Fact check anyways. Anyone can learn vernacular and post rhetoric, and if they were trying to fit in on tumblr, why wouldn’t they pose as activists? Yes, the FBI is labeling black activists as extremists, yes tumblr has done some shady stuff in the past regarding blm and several protests, and yes we should be vigilant against another COINTELPRO, but we should also be vigilant against infiltration, which is exactly the strategy these accounts employed.
I know everyone likes to think they wouldn’t be duped like this, but I got the email too, you’ve gotta at least check before you write it off. That goes for anything.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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