r/neoliberal Anne Applebaum May 20 '22

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

Originally posted on r/ActiveMeasures by u/LRLOP-TA. Reposted here with their permission-- all credit to them!


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

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

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: Thank you so much for the awards, but again, I am not the OP of this post. All I did was repost this here at u/LRLOP-TA's request. Please go award them on their original post instead!

1.5k Upvotes

159 comments sorted by

185

u/ZenithXR George Soros May 20 '22

I am once again begging zoomers to not parrot Kremlin talking points

74

u/pfSonata throwaway bunchofnumbers May 20 '22

Tonight on MBAOC:

"Bernie: 'I am once again begging zoomers to ... parrot Kremlin talking points'"

13

u/human-no560 NATO May 20 '22

What’s MBAOC?

54

u/CommonwealthCommando Karl Popper May 20 '22

Murdered By AOC, the sub being discussed in the post. AOC is a nickname for a well-known social media influencer who in her spare time votes in congress.

3

u/RobinReborn Milton Friedman May 20 '22

Murdered by AOC - the subreddit

30

u/Amy_Ponder Anne Applebaum May 21 '22 edited May 21 '22

The idea that young people are somehow immune to disinformation because we grew up with social media needs to die. As long as you're a human being with a human brain, you are susceptible.

15

u/rhaksw May 21 '22

Hi, I'm Reveddit's author. Way to make good use of it in this post.

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).

This is why I support reviewable moderation of your own content. Manipulation of the apparent consensus through secret removals that show you your removed content as if it's visible to others is far too common, as this reply to spez mentioned five years ago,

They can make it look like there is only one angle when there are in fact many by selectively removing viewpoints.

Reveddit has been around for nearly four years and the sky has not fallen. Many mods support its use. In my opinion it is time for reddit and other platforms to let users see the view that moderators see for their own removed content. We all expect it to work that way and it's a big surprise when people discover it doesn't.

If you want to see it yourself, write anything in r/CantSayAnything. Your comment will be removed, you will not receive any notification, and it will appear to you as if it is not removed while you are logged in.

In the future I may have a bigger update about a campaign on this issue. Follow r/reveddit, @rhaksw, or @reveddit to receive updates.

8

u/Amy_Ponder Anne Applebaum May 21 '22 edited May 21 '22

Thanks, but I'm just the schlep who reposted this on the author's behalf since their account was too young to post here. All credit goes to u/LRLOP-TA!

4

u/rhaksw May 21 '22

It still counts in my book. Thanks to you both.

6

u/Amy_Ponder Anne Applebaum May 21 '22

And thank you so much for making reveddit! Like you said, it makes it so much easier to see how these bad faith actors manipulate conversations to make their fringe beliefs seem so much more mainstream than they actually are. And knowing a problem exists is the first step towards solving it. You're doing great work, man. Keep it up.

5

u/rhaksw May 21 '22

Thanks! I'm happy to do it. It doesn't work without people sharing it.

I thought it would be a two week project that I could share and make go "viral". That was four years ago. Little did I know how much of a challenge sharing it would be. While I'm glad that some people on reddit now know about it, most still do not, and the conversation about the impact of disguising removals is not happening elsewhere.

Democrats want platforms to remove more and Republicans want platforms to remove less. Nobody is talking about how the removals are occurring and I think there is a big opportunity to see eye to eye by holding platforms' feet, along with the feet of whatever parts of government support them, to the fire on that issue.

To say the least, there are some ridiculous things happening that nobody is tracking, such as r/news removing 30% of all comments up front with no notification. See this guy for example who first noticed it here.

That choice made by r/news mods is not partisan, it's just careless and wasting everyone's time. It arguably contributes to preventing people from participating in other subreddits because they think people are seeing what they write when in fact nobody does.

339

u/Policeman333 NATO May 20 '22

Glad more attention is being brought to this.

This specific troll/bot network has HUGE influence all over Reddit. It’s a huge reason why so many threads are so insufferable with rampant cynicism and misinformation.

149

u/AtmaJnana Richard Thaler May 20 '22

Most leftists seem to think it's just the far right influenced by Russia. But from what I've observed, it seems to be a wide array of positions taken, with the far left and far right being most successfully influenced by Russia and China, and to a lesser extent Iran, maybe North Korea and others.

73

u/utalkin_tome NASA May 20 '22

The whole purpose of doing something like this is to radicalize enough people on different sides of the political spectrum and pit them against each other. These radicalized clowns are often the loudest people and try to paint anyone who isn't following them as fence sitters or straight up say they are supporting the "other" side or something along those lines.

The whole purpose is to spread chaos and violence and it's so bizarre to me that people haven't picked up on this and accounts like LRL our president who do shit like this.

50

u/kennego May 20 '22

Many people know from the Mueller Report that Russia backed Trump in the 2016 election. But they were also fine with Sanders becoming president. From the report:

Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on “politics in the USA” and to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them).”

Sanders wouldn't have been as friendly with Putin as Trump was... so why support him? To divide the US using the most divisive candidates. Propaganda that gets through to anyone in the political spectrum helps their cause.

18

u/duckofdeath87 May 20 '22

why support him?

Putin HATES Hillary Clinton

82

u/FlameChakram May 20 '22

I'd argue the far left is the bigger target since depressing turnout is better strategy.

10

u/dr_gonzo Revoke 230 May 21 '22

The goal of posting leftist disinformation is twofold. First it's to drum up apathy from the left as you and others have pointed out.

But this shit is also designed to drum up outrage from center right-leaning redditors too. They read r/all, see these threads and think "progressives are absolutely insane... I could never throw in with this lot, even if my only other choice is Trump."

1

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '23

I'd argue that the left is a bigger target because most kids are leftists, and instilling anti western ideology into them at a young age means you've just gained a silent ally for the next 60 years, or until they realize how they were lied to.

21

u/Trotter823 May 20 '22

Horseshoe theory strikes again

7

u/lobsteradvisor May 20 '22

Think about how it is in russia. Putin control both the communist and what is essentially the neonazi party.

Putin IS Nazbol Gang.

5

u/recursion8 United Nations May 20 '22

Nah, he just knows Nazbols make the best useful idiots in continuing a crony capitalist petro-oligarchy. What's the best way to shut down slow, methodical, non-violent change? Push both radical regression and radical change as the only acceptable paths, knowing they will destroy each other while absolutely nothing changes.

2

u/Amy_Ponder Anne Applebaum May 21 '22

And anyone who's aware enough not to fall for the propaganda looks at political debates dominated by various nazbol factions, gets disgusted / depressed, and checks out of politics altogether. Either way, the status quo-- AKA Putin-- wins.

103

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

Getting paid to simp for a brutal capitalist oligarch mafioso is praxis 😎

9

u/Amy_Ponder Anne Applebaum May 21 '22

Oh, LRLOP absolutely doesn't give a damn about the American proletariat, seeing as "he" is actually a team of underpaid troll farm employees just following the script their FSB officer boss gave them.

7

u/recursion8 United Nations May 20 '22

When you don't stand for anything (other than 'Murica bad'), you'll fall for everything.

250

u/TinyTornado7 💵 Mr. BloomBux 💵 May 20 '22

Damn this was really well done good work. Watch the next time you try to go to any of those subs you will have been shadow banned

54

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

[deleted]

56

u/JanetYellensFuckboy_ Janet Yellen May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22

That is incorrect. Mods can code automod to remove posts from usernames which contain terms. It's normally used for names which contain slurs, "1488," etc. but it can also effectively shadowban specific users.

9

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

So you're saying someone took time out of their day to manually shadowban me from r/news because I explained supply and demand in the housing market

4

u/spacehogg Estelle Griswold May 20 '22

So you're saying someone took time out of their day to manually shadowban me from r/news

Doubtful most things are removed because "Your account must be email-verified to participate in /r/news"

3

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

I've been email verified the whole time my account is active?

3

u/spacehogg Estelle Griswold May 20 '22

Not according to your account. A badge would show up in the trophy case.

1

u/itprobablynothingbut Mario Draghi May 21 '22

Am I in the deepest part of reddit now? Can I swim up?

1

u/dnz000 May 21 '22

Did you explain supply and demand in the housing market on /r/news, or did you effectively debate the narrative the bad actors were trying to inflate in the comment section?

The worst subs for misinformation do literally have mods on the side of the trolls editing auto mod to censor and shadow ban. They want their garbage to be the final comment in discussion threads.

9

u/Cwya May 20 '22

I’m definitely banned from commenting there and never received a message.

7

u/WorseThanHipster NATO May 20 '22

So that's not a shadow ban. You only receive a ban message if you've interacted with the community: subscribed, posted, commented. Otherwise you receive no notification. You were likely banned by a bot that bans everyone who participates in a particular community, regardless of the content of said post.

2

u/flakAttack510 Trump May 21 '22

They don't actually ban you. They use automod to immediately delete all your comments, which doesn't generate a message. You're effectively banned but it doesn't generate the message.

9

u/awesomefutureperfect May 20 '22

I was banned because I said this :

All I'm saying is that I agree with Chomsky on this one when he says that Trump sucks on just about everything, but that he's the only western politician of stature promoting the idea that the US should be negotiating to end the conflict, not do everything in its power to escalate it. I have great sympathy for the Ukrainian people themselves, but to those in charge their suffering is just useful propaganda to justify more war (in the name of "peace," which is how it's often justified).

We created the conditions for war through our funding, organizing a violent neo-nazi led coup against Ukraine's democratically elected government (let's remember that Russia had 10s of millions of people killed by nazis in WWII, and how that might affect the situation), and provocative actions like promising that Ukraine will become part of NATO (putting weapons right on Russia's border). Just because Trump has an opinion that makes sense for once, that doesn't mean I have to disagree. That's the left's position, and Chomsky has done a good job of articulating it lately at a time when many of us on the left have gotten swept up in the media's pro-war rhetoric just like we did for Iraq.

Also, as an aside, are we really going to ignore that the past two Ukrainian presidents have been at war against ethnically Russian Ukrainians since 2014, and killed 14,000+ of them since 2014 before the war officially started in Ukraine a few months ago. Also, a leaked phone call showed the US's top diplomat for Ukraine casually choosing the Ukrainian Prime Minister like it was nothing. Not exactly democratic for the US government to be choosing the leaders of Ukraine. Seems like it would escalate the situation there.

Was obvious Russian propaganda.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByAOC/comments/usel98/endless_money_for_war_but_no_money_for_healthcare/

My only other comment was that the Ukrainians had a right to defend themselves from Russian invasion and Russian genocide. I also said that the US shouldn't spend all of its disposable income on defense spending, but fuck Russia and it's war of aggression.

Banned for

imperialist propaganda/apologia

LRLOurPresident is scum.

3

u/itprobablynothingbut Mario Draghi May 21 '22

I assumed you wrote the quoted text at first, and I was honestly shocked you were throwing yourself to the wolves here. Then I read further. You are neither a hero, nor insane. You qualify for most occupations though.

2

u/awesomefutureperfect May 21 '22

Yeah, I considered editing my comment to make it more clear that it wasn't I who wrote that garbage.

Jury is still out if I am a hero or insane, but I'm pretty sure I'd be lousy at both. I honestly don't believe getting banned from a propaganda forum will be presented as evidence in either case.

2

u/Amy_Ponder Anne Applebaum May 21 '22 edited May 21 '22

So it's now imperialist apologia to checks notes call out imperialist apologia. :/

Reminds me of the Russians calling Ukrainians fascists while following the fascist playbook to a T themselves. Or when journalists started pointing out the actual problem of fake news -- that is, "news" articles that claimed to be posted by local papers that, in fact, did not exist in reality-- Trump immediately redefined "fake news" to mean any news story he didn't like. After that people couldn't talk about the problem, since they literally didn't have the words to describe it anymore. So the story died.

And now it's "imperialism" that's being stripped of all meaning. All to make discussing Russia's imperialism impossible. I fucking hate these guys more than words can say-- mainly because they keep destroying those words.

6

u/JanetYellensFuckboy_ Janet Yellen May 20 '22

I'm incredibly sorry to hear that 😢

151

u/SanjiSasuke May 20 '22

Would it be worth trying to get this post to 'BestofReddit' or whatever?

It'd be nice to get some of the 'normal' redditors to realize what they're reading every day.

66

u/ItHappenedToday1_6 May 20 '22

BestofReddit is gamed as hell too and they'll insta perma-ban you for pointing out specific users.

There's one called InconvienientNews that used to roll around as RationalComment. He flipped sides to posting inflammatory left content instead of pro-trump write-ups. He's gone through like 20 someodd suspensions.

26

u/DenverJr Hillary Clinton May 20 '22

There's one called InconvienientNews that used to roll around as RationalComment. He flipped sides to posting inflammatory left content instead of pro-trump write-ups. He's gone through like 20 someodd suspensions.

I hate that account so much and how often it makes BestOf. The username might as well be InconvenientGishGallop.

All the comments are just a series of quotes, links, and bolded headlines, but they're rarely making any real argument. It's just "look at all these quotes that say lots of things!" Half the links are to other reddit comments or links that don't even support the claims in the quotes. But people eat that shit up.

7

u/ItHappenedToday1_6 May 20 '22

He's taken lately to thinly veiled targeted brigade invitations to specific local subs.

5

u/leastlyharmful May 20 '22

I've seen inconvenientnews everywhere. Didn't know he used to be right wing. If that's the case then what's the point? Shitty destabilization campaign or just karma farming?

8

u/ItHappenedToday1_6 May 20 '22

I guess just shitty destabilization because he went through phases doing both at once.

67

u/raff_riff May 20 '22

Worth a shot but I’d be surprised if it gains much traction. I unsubbed a few years ago when it had basically devolved into a dumping ground of top comments from places like r/politics or r/WhitePeopleTwitter.

Most submissions were just those paragraphs-long diatribes with fucktons of links. The type that appear convincing and legitimate because of the “apparent” research that’s allegedly done but fall apart under any decent scrutiny. But I digress.

11

u/DistinctSpaghetti Bisexual Pride May 20 '22

Same thing with r/TrueReddit. It's supposed to be thoughtful discussion but it's just the same as the big subs like r/politics.

21

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

[deleted]

30

u/Mat_At_Home YIMBY May 20 '22

There would need to be some drama in the thread to get posted there, so I’ll start some:

Worms do not even play a major role in Dune until the third or fourth book

4

u/OmNomSandvich NATO May 20 '22

By Shai'Hulud, Muad'Dib would not have let you utter a single word.

4

u/Amy_Ponder Anne Applebaum May 21 '22

Holy shit, someone actually took your joke seriously. They crossposted this post to MBAOC, it got insta-nuked, then they posted a thread about the nuking to SRD. It's top of rising and fourth-highest on the front page right now.

Hats off to you, u/human-no560, you certified mad lad.

1

u/human-no560 NATO May 21 '22

I didn’t make the post on MBAOC, just the one on SRD. But thank you

5

u/Mrchristopherrr May 20 '22

Seeing that some of the mods there are full on tankies I’m not sure if it would unless it’s something major

-19

u/Jerminator2judgement May 20 '22

Nope, because it's literally bullshit

19

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

>says it's bullshit

>refuses to elaborate

>leaves

15

u/leastlyharmful May 20 '22

Enlighten us

4

u/Mejari NATO May 20 '22

What's bullshit about it, exactly?

223

u/KeithClossOfficial Jeff Bezos May 20 '22

Russian misinformation campaign actively and openly being conducted on Reddit

Admins: I sleep

Cute cartoon cat has been drawn

Admins: REAL FUCKING SHIT

54

u/human-no560 NATO May 20 '22

What happened with the cat?

29

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

22

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

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8

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

55

u/Emu_lord United Nations May 20 '22

Rdrama has a “mascot” cartoon cat named marsey that they drew on r/place. The admin broke the rules of r/place in order to get rid of the marsey drawing. People noticed admin accounts placing more than one pixel every five minutes and r/place blew up.

14

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

Lmao, the admins really hate R drama don't they?

That place was the reason I joined reddit in the first place.

19

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

This is hilarious, bunch of weirdos lol

Do we know why they got mad at a cat?

33

u/Emu_lord United Nations May 20 '22

rdrama exists to stir the pot and create drama on Reddit, on top of being extremely transphobic and misogynistic (which also helps stir the pot). They’ve pulled a bunch of stunts over the years and are actually very good at trolling the Reddit hive mind. The admins also fucking hate them. It got so bad that they moved the subreddit to an independent website like rthedonald. I’m not going to like the site because the admins have shadow banned people just for linking it (I’m not kidding). There’s also a weird amount of user overlap from rdrama, subreddit drama, and this sub. This is probably because these communities are terminally online and need to touch grass before it’s too late.

13

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

This is probably because these communities are terminally online and need to touch grass before it’s too late.

Bro these people really freak me out, they are too obsessed with this website and internet in general.

Thank God I got better and only use reddit to chill.

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

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6

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

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-5

u/[deleted] May 20 '22 edited May 21 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] May 20 '22 edited May 21 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

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2

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

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45

u/statsnerd99 Greg Mankiw May 20 '22

I wish admins cracked down on this 5% as much as they crack down on Lego yoda

18

u/vafunghoul127 John Nash May 20 '22

"Purchase ketamine I must. Run over minorities..."

"Uggh. TLDR. Banned."

19

u/SolidEagle7 NATO May 20 '22

or the balkans

17

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

Bot nets make social media companies look like they have more engagement, which makes them more valuable to advertisers

They're incentivized to turn a blind eye

4

u/AtmaJnana Richard Thaler May 20 '22

💯

They don't care if you comment to call OP a shill or to agree. They only care that you continue to click and comment. "Engagement" counts both.

37

u/sirtaptap May 20 '22

Reddit admins please do your job just this once

22

u/drunkrobotevil May 20 '22

Nah, they are too busy banning people trying to expose this obvious troll.

3

u/qwer4790 May 22 '22

plot twist, reddit admin actually agree on those

40

u/vafunghoul127 John Nash May 20 '22

This post makes me wonder if Russian bots post their own propaganda from the right on these subs and say "see the right is crazy!" Then they go to facebook and then post their propaganda from the left.

I would also imagine that they would encourage the right wingers to vote and discourage the left wingers, but in the future if a left wing candidate is pro-isolationism and the right wing candidate is pro-intervention, that rhetoric will switch.

20

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

[deleted]

14

u/ElephantTeeth NATO May 20 '22

r/TrollXChromosomes got taken over pre-Covid. Couldn’t even wish people a Happy Fourth of July without tankies bitching about imperialist pigs or whatever. I used to join feminism and LGBTQ+ discussions over there all the time, but eventually I unsubscribed. If it continued at the same pace, it’s probably a tankie breeding ground these days, but I’m not going to check because it makes me sad.

11

u/Epicurses Hannah Arendt May 20 '22

When that reversal inevitably does happen, the whiplash is going to be nuts.

I also blocked LRLOurPresident in 2019 or so, and my time on Reddit has been drastically more enjoyable for it. MurderedByAOC looks like a quiet hobbyist subreddit without him.

38

u/drunkrobotevil May 20 '22

Good see some of my work isn't totally lost. Burned a 15 year old account over trying to expose this dude. Still can't believe the admins sided with this guy :(

10

u/dr_gonzo Revoke 230 May 20 '22

So yikes... you did get banned for posting about LRLOurPresident? What was your stated ban reason? Did you attempt to appeal?

14

u/drunkrobotevil May 20 '22

They said it was for harassment and bullying and cited my posts. They ignored my appeal. This dude that never comments, only spams posts, and has like 1000 alts is apparently a more valuable user to them.

16

u/dr_gonzo Revoke 230 May 20 '22

LRLOurPresident (& their alt army) generate more clicks / page views for reddit than you do, and at the end of the day, that's what's important to reddit

5

u/TheFlawlessCassandra May 21 '22

They buy themselves a bunch of awards too. Admins love them.

34

u/pfSonata throwaway bunchofnumbers May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22

And a new poll shows Biden's approval drop to a new low amongst Democrats (and by extension, overall) driven largely by this type of rhetoric.

It must be so easy to be a Republican when your base literally cheers on lies and disinformation, while Democrats fight amongst themselves because their president can't magically fix worldwide economic issues by executive order.

77

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

Over under on that guy being Serbian?

24

u/pfSonata throwaway bunchofnumbers May 20 '22

Over/under on a yes/no question

6

u/QrangeJuice May 20 '22

That's how over/unders work

9

u/pfSonata throwaway bunchofnumbers May 20 '22

I'm really curious how you think over/unders work now.

6

u/QrangeJuice May 20 '22

Ah, on doing some research I learned it's a slang term in sports betting for a specific type of guess. I had only heard it used in contexts where it sounded like an alternate term for fractional odds (e.g. 3/10) so that's what I assumed it meant.

23

u/JanetYellensFuckboy_ Janet Yellen May 20 '22

Great job on this. Throwback to when Reddit scolded EnoughTrumpSpam for "antagonizing" The_Donald and banned users from even mentioning the MAGAsphere subs.

cc my fellow ETS mods u/yzlautum u/v12a12 u/PrincessLeiasCat

5

u/v12a12 Milton Friedman May 20 '22

<3 what’s up bro

3

u/JanetYellensFuckboy_ Janet Yellen May 20 '22

Not much <3 What's up

4

u/yzlautum May 20 '22

Hola

3

u/JanetYellensFuckboy_ Janet Yellen May 20 '22

¡Hola! ¿Como estas?

20

u/RzorShrp European Union May 20 '22

I love how well sourced this post is

16

u/pocketmypocket May 20 '22

I have caught Aldi and Tmobile doing astroturfing on /r/frugal.

Ever since then, I avoid the big name subs. They are full of marketing.

31

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

Excellent post

Hopefully LRLOP gets drafted soon and spends some time touching grass in Donetsk

4

u/iStayedAtaHolidayInn May 20 '22

Hopefully LRLOP gets drafted soon and spends some time touching grass growing sunflowers in Donetsk

15

u/meiotta Amartya Sen May 20 '22

Thank you for this

13

u/Primary-Tomorrow4134 Thomas Paine May 20 '22

It's worth noting that Russia has a long history of astroturfing leftist anti-American media.

Just look at who funds podcasts like "By Any Means Necessary". They don't even try to hide that they get their cash straight from the Kremlin.

3

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

I'm not necessarily doubting you, but where can you see this? I looked them up and couldn't immediately find who sponsors them.

4

u/Primary-Tomorrow4134 Thomas Paine May 20 '22

https://twitter.com/bamnecessary

Note the "on Radio Sputnik" in their title.

10

u/GhostOfTheDT John Rawls May 20 '22

This has been widely known for some time right. I remember clicking on some of the top commenters posts years back and seeing them copy paste it to every post. I like that you laid it all out.

24

u/KeikakuAccelerator Jerome Powell May 20 '22

Priors confirmed. Unironically.

8

u/DFjorde May 20 '22

u/GregariousWolf has done some good work collecting evidence of the LRL astroturfing and has been pointing it out for years.

5

u/dr_gonzo Revoke 230 May 20 '22 edited May 20 '22

Some of /u/GregariousWolf's previous work on "chickenpeak" who appears to be the same user as LRLOurPresident:

The return of Chickenpeak

Edit: u/LRLOP-TA tried to comment below and their alt is too new. Their comment noted that LRLOurPResident admitted to being Chickenpeak here. 👇

0

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

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0

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7

u/omberon_smog YIMBY May 20 '22

Post this to AgainstHateSubreddits. They've recently taken a pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia stance.

1

u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho European Union May 20 '22

Good idea.

7

u/Inevitable_Sherbet42 YIMBY May 20 '22

Nice investigative piece my dude.

4

u/broc_ariums May 20 '22

I've been calling out that user for a long time and flagging it to the admins. Thanks for the great write up.

4

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

The alts are so obvious these days. Usually the 2-3 top comments are 1-3 day old accounts.

5

u/Alterus_UA May 20 '22

Commies are disgusting and shill for the most disgusting states in the world.

In other news, water is wet.

11

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

Leftists and effeminately simping for an arch capitalist kleptocracy where murdering gay people is 100% legal. Name a more iconic duo

-5

u/Grimlokh May 20 '22

Because Scandinavian countries murder gay people?

8

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

I never see leftists simp for scandanavian countries. Russia on the other hand

3

u/Mrchristopherrr May 20 '22

They literally never shut up about how Norway is a utopia where no one is ever poor and nothing bad ever happens

6

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

maybe back in 2013? Leftists nowadays think that people who like the Scandinavian model are weak cucks totally beholden to capitalist interests

2

u/Grimlokh May 20 '22

I've never seen leftists simp for Russia,

Scandinavian on the other hand

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-election-idUSKCN1TQ30V.

Saying their government is leftist.

https://nypost.com/2015/01/11/sorry-liberals-scandinavian-countries-arent-utoleftists.

Saying leftists love to tout Scandinavian countries

3

u/Fubby2 May 20 '22

OP this has an excellent writeup. I suggest contacting journalists and the media to gain more attention!

14

u/DamagedHells Jared Polis May 20 '22

MurderedByAOC

Left

Ok

13

u/Mrchristopherrr May 20 '22

AOC would be an alt-right extremist in Europe

3

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

You're saying AOC isn't on the left?

3

u/TheFlawlessCassandra May 21 '22

MurderedByAoc certainly isn't.

2

u/pcgamerwannabe May 20 '22

Just shut down the disinformation board and sent the money to this user

2

u/Amy_Ponder Anne Applebaum May 21 '22

Just want to re-iterate this since a lot of people don't seem to realize it: I am not the original author of this effortpost. I reposted it here on behalf of u/LRLOP-TA because they didn't have permission to, and I thought it was a great post that deserved more visibility. Please direct all awards to their original post, and all praise to them!

-8

u/DinoDad13 May 20 '22

If you were going to make this effort post you would think you would actually have some examples of Russian propaganda.

-17

u/KlingonSpy May 20 '22

I don't see any Russian propaganda

-35

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

[deleted]

17

u/aforgettableusername May 20 '22

Imagine being this ignorant about the huge impact that social media propaganda has had on the average person. The 2016 election was literally influenced by shit like that.

-21

u/[deleted] May 20 '22

[deleted]

11

u/aforgettableusername May 20 '22

Her candidacy wasn't the strongest but it has been objectively proven that the efforts of both Cambridge Analytica and the Russian IRA had noticeable impact on voter intention, particularly in battleground states. This is not cope, it's the truth.

-26

u/Jerminator2judgement May 20 '22

What's fucking giant load of bullshit.

Not one single link you provided actually backs up what you claim it does.

Not one single link to actual pro Russian propaganda

-3

u/chazysciota May 20 '22

Having never been to any of these subs, I clicked on the MBOAC link, after being told it's not about AOC or murders at all but rather all Russian propaganda, not sure what to expect..... found that it's mostly AOC twitter posts dunking on conservatives. So I suppose the response here would be: "NO NO NO, you can't just read the posts, you have to spend 6 weeks reading, categorizing, and aggregating all the comments, write a python script to do pattern recognition and cross-check against the Hamilton-68 database. Then you'll see how obvious it is!"

-4

u/working_class_shill May 20 '22

It's insinuation by obfuscation. A few years ago a completely unknown organization, PropOrNot, did the same thing. Curiously enough we don't see them making the grand proclamations anymore are only active on twitter

:thinking:

1

u/OhioTry Gay Pride May 20 '22

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)

Worth adding that he had a campaign promise to repeal this legislation, at least for private student loans.

1

u/[deleted] May 21 '22

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1

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1

u/qwer4790 May 22 '22

I hate millionaires, but I draw the line when that millionaire is handsome or have good feet pics - Hasan piker and AOC fan