Good article on the power of Russian trolls below.
Did you ever spend a moment thinking about how our little corner of the Internet could fit into international disinformation conspiracies; except the point of asking would be to remind how easily calculated bullshit finds its way into mundane chatter and everyday social media—it's one thing if Russian and Macedonian troll farms with obscure working connections to American and British political influence target large sites like Facebook and Twitter, but it's hard to imagine employed trolls coming after a place like ours. At least a couple times I referred to one of our now-departed characters as a troll farm washout, someone who just wasn't up to the job.
But while it seems unlikely that some troll farm, somewhere, had a Sciforums desk or anyone assigned to our little corner, our community does not exist in some vacuum; between the spam we kill, here, and some of the stuff that comes up in blog filters, it's easy to feel paranoid.
Here's an analogy: There is, within "rap", a particular movement, and most days I would say never mind. These years later, though, you might think you hear elements of it in someone's song, but it's just the next generation imitating, adopting, or transforming stylistic fragments. For instance, I never went and looked to see if a particular duo was part of the movement, but the album opened appropriately, and includes in its last song a conspicuous line that can sound like affirmation; it really could just be a stylistic thing, the use of lexicon and structure that persists beyond generations. You might actually be amazed how much of rap runs through this territory, but you hear white boys saying some of it, and they're not part of it.
Similarly, it is unclear, by the time certain disinformation reaches us, whether certain people are part of something, or not. And as we know from friends and family, that someone recites the propaganda does not mean they are an active participant in some conspiracy. I can think of a longtime family friend, and as long as we have known him, he has always been a sucker for crackpottery that feeds his sense of empowerment. He's not part of some swindle. He's one of its marks. And you know the punch line: He's a white supremacist, right wing crackpot whose libertarianism has always had the argumentative effect of empowering authoritarianism.
In our neighborhood, that one I called a washout was not part of something; one of our longtime neighbors, in this current thread, isn't part of something even if he can be seen praising organized propaganda. The one would be an utterly sublime performance of utter futility; and this is a particularly stupid episode of the other's long antisociality. Of that other, though, there is also a question of the signal he is boosting, because yet another person most likely isn't part of anything, either. That is to say, when
Sculptor↑ boosts
Scorpius↑, the more likely answer is that Sculptor is just that credulous.
For surely you have noticed, at least in the time of the alt-right and pepe-chans, that cynical and even belligerent self-denigration when someone insists on saying something interminably stupid in as blindly provocative and outright offensive manner as they can muster. We've seen some of that around here, over the years; in American discourse it's not unrelated to the idea that someone is
not supremacist but just making a point, so learn what irony is, or can't you take a joke, and this is all everybody else's fault, especially yours! and stuff like that.
The new Poe's Law isn't simply genuine or satire; it must necessarily include bots, basket cases, and provocateurs. Consider the idea that being nearly indistinguishable from paid liars and actual non-human operatives is not so much an insult as the intention. In many cases, sure, both, but ... right, nevermind.
One of the things I watch for is a context in which maybe what one says has application in a more general context, but it does not seem to suit the present moment. Like when Scorpius
complains↑ about links; to the one, I should probably give him some advice about that, but, to the other, he is so incorrect that it reads like a stock line referring to disinformation filtering at large social media sites. And it's possible there is something wrong in site software, I suppose, but come on: "Since this site doesnt allow links ( CENSORSHIP ) !!!! Freedom of speach is dying in america it seems." First: We don't? Next: The site is owned by a British company, and our guiding principle in re free speech is not especially influenced by the American context.
A lot of people do that, and in diverse ways. But that diversity is important. Like, I have long disputed with someone else, and every once in a while he tries to zing me, or something, and, honestly, maybe a line works on some archetype or stereotype, but for as long as he's known me, he sometimes throws down these odd lines that he already knows just don't apply. Compared to being part of something, it is more likely he just isn't thinking it through. And compared to bot spam praising the food blog I never had, no, complaining about the wrong website doesn't make Scorpius part of something. Just like the the fake med student botching a debunk isn't part of something, nor that bit lately where someone writes a string of words that almost makes a sentence and then asks the same question for the
nth time despite having been answered repeatedly.
Which brings us back 'round to the power of Russian trolls: No, these people aren't part of some conspiracy, but they are apparently easily influenced by unreliable ideas. Watching the American right wing, for instance, fall down the trumphole, qhole, dewormhole, and now putihole, we can easily suggest the power of Russian trolls is greatly augmented by extraordinary credulity among target demographics.
And if we take a moment to consider how our little corner of the Internet might fit into international disinformation conspiracies, it is simply the reminder of just how easily some people will believe whatever two bits will charge them up with even the slightest thrill of empowerment.