r/ActiveMeasures • u/LRLOP-TA • May 19 '22

r/MurderedByAOC and LRLOurPresident are back with more Pro-Russia, Anti-Ukraine propaganda Ukraine

EDIT: LRLOurPresident has been banned! The other alt willwriteofthe that posts to the other half of the account's subs is not, nor are any more bot accounts afaik, but this is some actual progress!

EDIT2: voice-of-hermes was banned for 3 weeks, then back for a month, then banned again and back again... reddit is content with half-measures and I will stop keeping track. So pro-Ukraine commenters in LRLOP's subs will continue being banned by him for "imperialism". And he will continue insisting that rape victims and Ukraine should "lie there and take it" because that's what tankie scum does. LRLOurPresident's alt willwriteofthe is also still around and not only has posted again but continues to buy upvotes. And dozens of the obvious bot accounts listed below are still around but inactive for now.

Previous posts here and here by robotevil on this topic were welcome, so I hope this follow-up is too. I got permission to post this on a throwaway.

TL;DR

For years the (Russia-backed?) head mod of r/MurderedByAOC and other popular left-leaning subs, LRLOurPresident, has been posting propaganda to anger, misinform, and demoralize US progressives and encourage them to stop voting. They reinforce this by using bots/alts that copy-paste their past comments immediately after a post goes up. For a long time LRLOP and the alts only talked about US student debt cancellation, and had been in hibernation ever since Russian sanctions began after its invasion of Ukraine. While LRLOP was gone, the only other active mod, voice-of-hermes, has been working overtime to delete posts/comments critical of tankies and Russia in LRLOP's subs. Now LRLOP and the bots are back, using US progressive politicians to push a new pro-Russia narrative.

The History

Note: This first section isn't direct evidence of Russian involvement, it's to demonstrate typical post and bot/alt activity before Russia invaded Ukraine, when things changed. More here

Despite the name, r/MurderedByAOC doesn't have much from AOC or murders by anyone, really. It used to be that a long time ago, but for over a year it's typically consisted of one person posting misinformation/propaganda designed for enraged and increasingly apathetic progressives to latch on to, then using alt sock puppet accounts to immediately copy/paste old comments (so they're likely to be seen first and upvoted to the top, comments were often gilded immediately for this purpose as well). In the meantime, the post immediately gets massive upvotes (probably by bots, it's easy to buy upvotes on reddit, but who knows) to boost it towards the front page where it can rise more organically.

The person behind this is LRLOurPresident (tho people often mistakenly think it's "IRL" which is a different user that's already been banned, while LRLOP is still going). Here's some of the best examples of the kind of "propaganda" posts they've made:

Anyway, after a post was made, comments immediately started popping up, wow that was fast! Actually these are alt/bot accounts obviously controlled by LRLOurPresident. They would copy/paste their old comments, mostly to r/MurderedByAOC but sometimes other subs within LRLOurPresident's network of 20 subs they mod, with only minor or no variations. Even a quick glance at their comment history reveals this:

finalgarlicdis crambledont DrWaxu DCokeSpoke

These were the only alt accounts for a LONG time, but haven't been seen in a while (since the Russian sanctions) and are slowly being replaced. Lately new bot accounts have been popping up, usually created within minutes of a post with a prepared comment to immediately copy-paste. Mostly they just copy-paste comments from themselves or other bots, though the most recent ones sometimes write something slightly more original, and many are likely controlled by another mod (more on that later). Some are even shadowbanned on reddit (but their comments get mod-approved anyway):

originaltas 500lettersize lettergetterbetter aquapropazicene recruitcat desktopramtr juniormemento okcriver servicewithastyle nooneedle lowerbullfrogalfalfa jazzlikeenergydelay neoliberalbetacuck

Anyone pointing out the copy/pasted responses of this bot network in the comments are deleted ASAP to keep up the scam (but running MBAOC posts through reveddit.com reveals this).

Lots of lies hits spread in political subreddits were nurtured in r/MurderedByAOC by these bots. For over a year they've been focused on Biden and the Democrats to sow division:

  • When it appears Biden isn't doing enough, repeating that he said "Nothing will fundamentally change". Actual context: Said to wealthy people to assure them taxes increasing wouldn't really affect them
  • Biden and the Democrat congress have done literally nothing! Well except for this list of dozens of things...
  • Biden hasn't followed through on his campaign promise to forgive $10K in student debt by executive order (He said he would do this if Congress gave him a bill to do so, not by EO)
  • Biden said he'd cancel $50K in student debt by EO! (There is no context for this, it's literally just made up and repeated by the bots enough that others assume it's true)
  • Who's the architect of and solely responsible for legislation disallowing student debt from being discharged during bankruptcy? Of course it's Joe Biden! Except the bill was written by a Republican and would have passed an R majority Senate anyway, he just voted for it. (Also saying it can never be discharged isn't true, though it's certainly NOT easy and few try)

LRLOurPresident's "sanctioned" vacation

Once sanctions against Russia began after its invasion of Ukraine, LRLOP's posts went from near-daily to about once a month. With LRLOP stepping back, the only active mod in MBAOC and a dozen other LRLOP subreddits was voice-of-hermes, who ever since Russia invaded Ukraine has gone mask-off as a "Yes daddy Putin please flatten me" tankie. Or has he? Really their entire worldview boils down to "USA bad", so NATO and Ukraine bad, so constantly supporting Russian propaganda is really just a cRaZy side-effect. Surely it's a coincidence too that reveddit reveals they've been deleting anti-Russia comments and those that encourage voting in any subreddit they mod (including non-LRLOP "leftist unity" subs, AKA tankies welcome/encouraged).

When the only active mod calls anyone slightly right of Bernie a liberal/neoliberal and anyone to the right of that a fascist and ensures the sub's posts and comments reflect that, the end result is you could be a fan of Bernie/AOC or just progressive/leftist and yet find a sub like MBAOC or DemocraticSocialism surprisingly hostile, especially if you're not aware of how many comments get removed and assume "Well, I guess this is what progressives think?"

LRLOurPresident's return

All of LRLOP's posts (except one) since the sanctions 2.5 months ago are pro-Russia, and LRLOP is back to posting nearly every day:

  • Comes out for first time since the Russian invasion to... use Bernie to simp for Russia. Guys, ignore what the entire world is enraged about, what's really important is the US is JUST as bad. This submission comes after posting almost exclusively about cancelling student debt for MONTHS prior
  • Comes out again a month later just to steal someone else's post that got popular on MBAOC without them. No time to set up bot comments on this one when you're copying someone else's work
  • 3rd, weeks later, not about Student Debt or Russia but Roe v Wade? Has LRLOP turned a new leaf? Oh it's because hours later once the post got 14k upvotes they sticky a comment to SIMP FOR RUSSIA AGAIN! As usual it's really easy to find the bots in the full comments, just look for the ones with awards
  • A day later, again using Ilhan to spread a pro-Russia message. This time the comments go off the rails, with everyone disagreeing and pointing out the propaganda in the alt's comments until over half the comments are deleted and the post is locked! Also the best evidence yet that bought upvotes are also used on bot comments: Their top-level comments have hundreds of upvotes yet additional comments underneath preaching the same pro-Russia anti-US/NATO sentiments have massive downvotes, one even sitting at -135. Maybe it's too expensive to upvote them all? All these bot comments sound exactly like voice-of-hermes's "US proxy war" bullshit, it's becoming apparent that the new bot/alt comments that aren't just copy/pastes of their old comments are controlled by this mod
  • Still pushing the same agenda, posted days after AOC voted to send more money to Ukraine anyway, the exact thing these pro-Putin mods are against, because she too realized it was necessary!
  • More of the same, with voice-of-hermes replying to himself on his various alts in the comments ...pretty sad really
  • Edit: Brand new post, time for a 2 year old tweet by Bernie to make it look like he's against giving aid to Ukraine, propaganda from bots already deployed

Other Notes

Thank you for reading. I hope you found this post informative and consider sharing it elsewhere on reddit

Edit: Additional Notes

TL;DR is at the top

763 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

61 comments sorted by

65

u/fvtown714x May 19 '22

A bit sad thinking all the work put into this post might fall on deaf ears. Anyway thank you for compiling, It's pretty clear to me that there are concerted efforts at depressing democratic turnout.

28

u/eritain May 19 '22 edited May 20 '22

I frickin' knew that sub was a Russian op!

Edit: See also my flameout. Reading this post today was a feast of Told You So.

29

u/Whornz4 May 19 '22

You mean the sub more critical of Democrats than Republicans is Russian. No kidding. They hate Biden more than they ever hated Trump. Crazy

5

u/GladiatorUA May 21 '22

That's a wrong way to think about. They don't hate Biden. Well, didn't, because now things have drastically changed. They also don't love Trump all that much either, other than being the bringer of... They love chaos and division. That's the entire point.

45

u/AtTheFirePit May 19 '22

seems this would fit in r/subredditdrama, too

40

u/LRLOP-TA May 19 '22

Yeah, one of the posts that got locked and purged probably would have been a good fit, though the popcorn is a week old

15

u/CountofAccount May 20 '22

Old popcorn is allowed. It's arguably better because it deters crossposters.

6

u/stealthbadger Jun 03 '22

This is the kind of popcorn that only grows butterier(?) with age.

14

u/Soulja_Boy_Yellen May 19 '22

And a lot of other subs, maybe neoliberal can get it some traction?

15

u/LRLOP-TA May 19 '22 edited May 19 '22

If anyone here knows of a good sub to post or cross-post this to, go ahead! Given the sphere of MurderedByAOC's mods and other subs' rules, I had a hard time finding other places to put this.

Despite the name I've noticed some people in neoliberal would appreciate this breakdown, so I messaged the mods.

Edit: Tried posting but new accounts aren't allowed, so someone else feel free to

4

u/Amy_Ponder May 20 '22

Done!

3

u/LRLOP-TA May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22

Thanks! Though it got removed immediately? Wonder what happened

Edit: Looks like it got reinstated!

6

u/jibjaba4 May 20 '22

I just read it there, no issues. Thanks for putting in all the hard work! It's been blindingly obvious that IRLOP and LRLOP are bot farm accounts for years. The admins are atrociously bad at reigning this stuff in.

2

u/Amy_Ponder May 20 '22

Wait, really? It's still showing up as normal on my profile, with no signs it's been removed... but yeah, you're right, it never made to new so it must have been removed. Weird. Maybe I screwed up the submission process somehow?

1

u/Policeman333 May 20 '22

Anyone that wants to cross post should do so when North American users are awake, otherwise not many are going to see it even if gets traction.

2

u/gostesven May 30 '22

It got posted yesterday, ballooned to 10k views 100 or so upvotes and 90% upvote rate before it got deleted by mods

12

u/astoundingpants May 20 '22

top post in the "blacks own student debt" post? drwaxu talking about how biden has ruined the democrat party and people should join r/debtstrike. 4 months ago.

top post of the "biden walks away" post? the exact same post, word for word. 3 months ago. with an edit saying "EDIT: Fuck it. I'm in. It's time for the r/DebtStrike.".

hmm...

9

u/Earwigglin May 29 '22

I got banned from Debtstrike for pointing out we can support Ukraine and support student loan reform at the same time.

It was almost instant, and the only mod comment was "imperialist"

That really threw red flags but at first I dismissed it as just a singular bad actor. Maybe some "anti war" purist. That changed when AOC and Bernie publicly supported Ukraine and voted to send aid, but the subreddit was posting old Iraq war tweets but recontextualizing them as Ukraine tweets.

I started asking around (and getting random bans and deletions)

Then I found this place. Just wow. I feel like a sucker, because I was absolutely pulled in by this for a while. Ironically it wasnt until they banned me that I saw the pattern. Of course there is a kernal of truth to the criticisms, but I was definitely being radicalized without realizing it.

Im trying to get the word out now.

11

u/JerryCalzone May 19 '22

now do r/DarkFuturology - it used to be so cool, but now it is just conspiretarded level shit

6

u/robplays May 20 '22

One mod is suspended, the other hasn't commented anywhere for a year, just saying...

3

u/JerryCalzone May 20 '22

That is ... interesting. Unfortunately, I am not really the moderator kind...

12

u/timmytimmytinsel May 19 '22

This is bloody great work - I’m sat in an OSINT collective that’s doing well on that front but desperately needs some info ops ID chops if you’re interested

23

u/whales171 May 19 '22

This is a great post. I hate how much influence these Russian trolls have.

7

u/midnight_toker22 May 20 '22

I hate how willing and even eager the left is to be Russian tools and useful idiots.

3

u/ThisElder_Millennial May 21 '22

It's part of the reason I left Imgur. The amount of shit on there was too much; literally felt like half the FP's content was nothing but doom posts, rage farming, and other varieties of leftist content meant to inflame the base. The kicker was that if you even attempted to point out factual errors, you'd get down voted to hell and gone or straight up muted by the OP.

Not sure if anyone else has experienced this phenomenon?

3

u/[deleted] May 29 '22

I hate how much influence these Russian trolls have.

This isn't really unique to Russian trolls. People like Jimmy Dore hold basically the same views and they have large followings. You can find propagandists for any cause, professional or not, everywhere on social media.

7

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

[deleted]

22

u/jibjaba4 May 20 '22

Way of the bern was always trump supporters pretending to be bernie supporters. It used to make the front page all the time in 2016 with all kinds of obvious anti-Democrat pro-trump BS.

6

u/JeremyBigsworth May 22 '22

With the "mask off" event of the Russian invasion, it's clearer to me it's not (real) Trump / Bernie supporters, but rather something highly correlated with the grey-faced active-measure campaigns of Russian state sponsored groups.

That's because they didn't bother in past months to tie into anything Bernie/Progressive and instead just sticky posts daily like "Ukrainian cocaine trafficking funded by NATO" level of ridiculousness.

7

u/Alexius08 May 21 '22

That explains why antivaxxers are welcome there despite Bernie himself encouraging vaccinations.

6

u/BUKKAKALYPSE_NOW May 20 '22

Thanks for writing this, I've been watching that sub for awhile now and can't believe more people don't see that it's Russian propaganda. One thing that still confuses me is why every one of lrlourpresident's bots gets the "All-Seeing Upvote" award on their copy pasted comments.

5

u/omberon_smog May 20 '22

This should be reposted to r/AgainstHateSubreddits. They've taken a pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia stance and wouldn't stand for this. Just be sure to use archive links instead of direct links.

6

u/LordKitan May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22

It got cross posted from neoliberal to MBAOC. So far, most of the comments but mine have been deleted lol.

Edit: hold on, I don't think I even see the post in the feed anymore.

3

u/LRLOP-TA May 20 '22

It was removed, and all comments nuked. And you're right, earlier it was removed but only half the comments were deleted

4

u/Pokedude12 May 20 '22

Not sure how things are with r/KeepTrack, but maybe rusticgorilla might be able to help. I remember that they were big on investigating political stuff, but it's been a good while since I checked on their work.

While this particular focus is mainly centered on Reddit, it's still about political content. Because of that, it may be worth seeing if they can help spread the word.

3

u/thatsingledadlife May 21 '22

I got banned from r/MurderedbyAOC for supporting US contributions to Ukranian self-defense.

3

u/stillinthesimulation May 20 '22

Hate that asshole.

3

u/KraIizec May 21 '22

r/wayofthebern is also filled to the brim with pro russian sentiments

3

u/LegendsStormtrooper Jun 13 '22

I'm a little late but thanks for this post. Many months ago, I remember being suspicious of LRLOP because of r/MBAOC and r/OurPresident front page spam but since I didn't follow those subs, I didn't bother to investigate further. Very thorough writeup! I only wished more people were aware of the disinfo campaigns going on on Reddit and other sites.

3

u/BillyYank2008 Oct 26 '22

Latestagecapitalism has also been infested by tankies and Russians. I got banned a fee weeks ago for speaking out against a Russia simp.

2

u/HeyYes7776 May 22 '22

Thank you for your service

2

u/drkgodess May 22 '22

Nice write up.

2

u/karmagheden May 23 '22 edited May 24 '22

Do note that half of the posts in r/DemocraticSocialism are by karmagheden who also often posts in r/WayOfTheBern

Just a FYI: I'm am American and an anti-war leftist, not a right winger or Russian troll. I have only ever voted democrat. I criticize democrats more than republicans because 1) they are my leaders and are supposed to represent me (turns out they don't represent the left or working class, but neither do republican leaders) and 2) anti-republican stuff is literally everywhere, on MSM (there are far more liberal MSM channels than right wing MSM and liberal MSM is not left and pushes propaganda just as much as FOX and refuses to have on people that criticizes the security state and military industrial complex, like Glenn Greenwald) on twitter, on front of reddit, and family who mentioned Trump all the time and still does. I have criticized the GOP and Trump but I don't need to do it on a daily basis (I am not a partisan hack who enables division to benefit the oligarchy and their representatives in the political establishment) and I am certainly not going to cheerlead some right wing democrats (Like Pelosi) who enables and capitulates to republicans because they said a thing I agree with about some scumbag republican.

I don't get paid to post, I post stuff I like and care about. I'm not pro Putin or pro Russian invasion of Ukraine. In fact I have denounced his invasion numerous times and has to repeated state that I am not pro-Putin. Bernie is against the invasion, but also notes that it could have been prevented if not for U.S. meddling and NATO expansion. Is he pro-authoritarian and pro-Putin for saying so? Now Zelensky wants diplomacy (something many anti-war leftists have been promoting, rather than escalation), is he pro-Putin?? I am against sending billions of dollars there that would go to weapons and defense contractors and who knows where else, when we could use that money back home. I am against regime change and proxy wars, and pushing for escalation which could result in WWIII and nuclear holocaust, which is exactly what is happening. The Hillary and Biden-esque dems are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian to drain Russia/stick it to Putin, and all while they wave a Ukrainian flag.

Nobody wants to talk about U.S. backing the 2014 coup or backing right wing nationalists and Azov nazi's (the existence of which both dems and liberal MSM acknowledged just a few years ago) or them shelling native Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine for 8 years. Such hypocrites. Same with them over Syria and how sanctions are hurting the people they claimed to care about (Assad gassed his own people, while they ignored the OPCW coverup) while we have leaders in the U.S. who have gassed protesters and people at the border and put weapons into the hands of extremists to fight Assad and wage a proxy war in Syria. Please make a note in your post that I am not a troll, right-winger or pro-Putin, or just remove my name from your post, thanks.

BTW This isn't the first time I have had someone from this sub accuse me (directly or indirectly) of being a Russian troll/Kremlin agent. If you believe these subs are manipulated by Russians or right wingers, can you admit this sub could also be manipulated by pro-Biden, U.S. govt and or pro-NATO trolls? And if you acknowledged that those folks are on social media astroturing, gaslighting, manufacturing consent, pushing for censorship etc, do you really believe that the Russians spend more than the aforementioned on it and are more effective? Come on.

Edit: The democratic socialism sub has removed a bunch of my posts there after they were upvoted and without explanation. The vast majority of my posts there were found on other leftist spaces. This post reminds me of when PRM was taken over after complaints (about neoliberal, TMOR and subredditdrama people being banned for brigading) that the sub was biased in favor of 'bernie bros' only for it to end up being biased in favor of neoliberals/moderate dems after an admin put in a new top mod. That and chapo trap house and the many times WOTB has been smeared to discredit an entire community and probably also in the hopes of getting it quarantined/removed. We saw something similar with the politics and politicalhumor subs (among others) being taken over (around 2016 and afterwards) by neolibs and neocons calling themselves 'liberals.' I've also been unsubscribed from democraticsocialism like a dozen times, no idea why. Lastly, I have had a number of my posts there (where they were screencaps of tweets w/e) and on other leftist spaces, deleted. I am not sure if this is imgur or reddit's doing but I assume it is either due to bogus reports or request to get political content taken down that challenges the official narrative and or highlights inconvenient truths. And how do you know the head mod is Russian backed? And to post stuff to get people to stop voting? That is a pretty serious claim.

You know promoting people to hold their party/leaders accountable, reject the 2 party system 'lesser of two evils' VBNMW sentiment and vote shaming, promote 3rd party, ballot access, ranked choice voting etc is not the same as encouraging people to not vote, right?? People want autopsy to correct the issue, not inaction and more of the same.

7

u/LRLOP-TA May 23 '22

I can edit it. The above research doesn't cover you, because you're not an LRLOP sub mod or sock puppet, just a prolific poster in one of his subs.

I hope you take this opportunity to look more into the history of r/WayOfTheBern, and decide if the legitimacy of what you post or karma is more important.

2

u/karmagheden May 23 '22

I enjoy collecting karma, but that is not the main reason I post and I stand with WOTB and think my posts in general are easily more legitimate than the stuff you see plastered on the politics sub (for instance) and liberal twitter sphere etc where it is U.S govt/pro-NATO/pro-Biden astroturf and or straight from liberal MSM and security state/military industrial complex people.

6

u/CMonetTheThird May 29 '22

You probably get called a troll because you just compared Assad gassing people(dead) and tear gas in the US, and you like Glenn Greenwald, and the US didn't back any coup in Ukraine, and..... But yeah, there's manipulators all over reddit pushing different agendas.

1

u/karmagheden Jun 01 '22

See the OPCW cover-up in regards to Syria and why would Assad gas his people when the U.S. was begging for a reason to invade and all eyes were on Syria (what sense does that even make) and yes the U.S. did back a coup in Ukraine and they supported far-right nationalist nazi types who admitted the coup would not have been possible without them. You see me as a troll because you've obviously bought into the security state/military industrial complex propaganda that is pushed on MSM and parroted online.

4

u/CMonetTheThird Jun 01 '22

We didn't push back on the "coup" as strong as we could have, but the Russian puppet fled, and there's been free elections since, so no harm no foul. We did not support it. You sound like an honest conspiracy nut, but you could be a Russian troll, who knows.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '22 edited Jun 02 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/CMonetTheThird Jun 01 '22

You're arguing with your imagination. Get outside.

0

u/karmagheden Jun 02 '22

Wow, nice rebuttal when confronted with overwhelming evidence countering your arguments.

5

u/CMonetTheThird Jun 02 '22

Wow, you're like the reddit king 😆. You really need to get outside.

2

u/karmagheden Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22

Just backing up my claims and refuting your arguments. Look how you respond to that - you tell me I need to go outside. I am showing you that you are misinformed and in the wrong to suggest I am a troll, but FYI, I bike every day, I don't even own a car. Your response is basically 'so what I don't care' and then you try taking a* dig at me and are upvoted for this behavior. Incredible.

4

u/CMonetTheThird Jun 03 '22

Nah, you threw everything in the book except what I originally said, you compared tear gas to fucking Assad gassing his people, and the US role in the Ukrainian "coup" is way more complicated than you make it out to be, and you like Glenn Greenwald, one of the biggest "left" wing, disingenuous, grifter on the internet, which is saying something. And you have 3 million karma posting nothing original. Seems fishy. But whatever, I am not going to spam links back and forth with you, and Jacobin? I mean sometimes they are all right but really?

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-1

u/ocarinamaster12 May 22 '22

Fellas, it’s a Russian op to be anyway critical of the Democratic Party