Germany unearths pro-Russia disinformation campaign on X
www.theguardian.com
Investigators uncover concerted onslaught on Berlin’s support for Ukraine involving more than 1m posts

The German foreign ministry, which commissioned the study after suspecting it was being targeted by bots, said the findings highlighted the need for governments to systematically tackle the growing number of disinformation campaigns and recognise the effect they could have on elections.

  • arymandias@feddit.deEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    Ok, let me be more specific then: They are using the same tensing errors and making the same phonetic drifts that Slavic root speakers working on the clock make.

    Is that unsubtle enough for you?

    Yep the anti-Slavic racism is quite clear now.

    (Btw I’m impressed that you can read phonetic drifts)

    • Moira_Mayhem@beehaw.orgEnglish
      12·
      10 months ago

      (Btw I’m impressed that you can read phonetic drifts)

      The human brain is an amazing pattern matching system that can over time even without direct application can do things like smell parkinsons and recognize a song from 3 bars of music.

      And I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life spending no less than 3 hours a day, nearly everyday, online actively learning to spot the tactics of forum sliders and propagandists in general. Note I am not just specifically referring to russian troll farms as when I started getting concerned no one knew they even existed. To clarify: I have been online since the late 80s, but only interested in spotting online propaganda since Gamergate started this entire shitshow.

      Add on top of that the fact that I am pretty firmly on the spectrum with several special interests that involve web communities, and that I have been using the internet very actively since before the web supported pictures.

      Over time I have learned that people develop an online ‘accent’ that is made up of phrases and idiosyncrasies that form within the forums they participate in. One of my earliest discoveries was that I could almost unfailingly spot people who had spent a significant amount of their time on 4chan due to the format their antisemitic posts took, that were different from other forms of antisemitism and characterized by the memes that became popular inside that forum but had little exposure elsewhere, like the early white nationalist Pepe memes.

      I’m not sure if it is because they hire locally at the Russian IRA, or that their target scripting phraseology is so strict but whatever the cause people from that organization have a very clear accent that is shaped by their Slavic language roots as well as the online communities who’s language they absorbed that makes their communications stand out if you are familiar enough with them.

      TO BE CLEAR: Slavic root language speakers who just use forums do not show this same ‘online accent’, and troll farms from China and the Philippines while contextually similar have their own idiosyncrasies.

      I may have been incorrect using the label ‘phonetic’ but I really have no other way to convey the fact that Slavic character pronunciation affects the way that Slavic people type in other languages.