MNHQ - do you think that there were Russian trolls operating on Mumsnet during the Brexit debates?

Yes glamour because the whole point is to destabilise western democracy not their own.

Putin has it sewn up anyway. It’s mainly a shown election. Many Russians wouldn’t ever vote for anyone else.

As for a certain Trump poster. It is perfectly possible that they were a long term plant. There are a few highly popular Twitter posters who were revealed to be Russian trolls after the US election. One had spent a couple of years building up their credibility with reality TV based stuff before they started tweeting anti- Hillary propaganda.

www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/russia-fake-twitter-facebook-posts-accounts-trump-election-jenna-abrams-20171103.html

Hopefully mn have been looking at these posters since we reported them back around the Brexit vote and the US election. There were a small number who as others have said, clogged up threads in a particular way that made it difficult for anyone to have a discussion.

You'll be claiming next there are tories on MN 😂

I have to say, the second a poster starts wimbling on about Ukraine and Russia Today, I'm .

Here's the full US indictment, if anyone's interested: www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download

Some extracts:

6. Defendant ORGANIZATION had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) and disparaging Hillary Clinton. Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities. Defendants also staged political rallies inside the United States, and while posing as U.S. grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates. Some Defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.

[...]

43 [...]
a. On or about February 10, 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators internally circulated an outline of themes for future content to be posted to ORGANIZATION-controlled social media accounts. 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).”

b. On or about September 14, 2016, in an internal review of an ORGANIZATION- created and controlled Facebook group called “Secured Borders,” the account specialist was criticized for having a “low number of posts dedicated to criticizing Hillary Clinton” and was told “it is imperative to intensify criticizing Hillary Clinton” in future posts.

Another eg re the US:
Exclusive: Fake black activist accounts linked to Russian government
money.cnn.com/2017/09/28/media/blacktivist-russia-facebook-twitter/index.html

(Those "Blacktivist" accounts have now been named in the indictment.)

Surely EVERYONE should question the validity of everything you read on social media?

Completely agree. But lots don't. You see it here all the time on all sorts of threads - people getting sucked in to totally implausible stories.

There's one at the moment on those threads @InfiniteSheldon - she's a nasty piece of work.

I assumed Claig finally got the banhammer? They reminded me of the one from property who was constantly predicting a crash no matter what the thread was actually about, he finally got banned and then popped up on a different forum to annoy them posting the same old stuff..

It was like a broken record.

I changed my mind on Brexit but not because of anything I read on social media. I found the constant arguing between leave and remain to be tiresome and the nastiness being trotted out online via social media was just ridiculous.

I hate social media and I never believe anything I read online no matter the source.

Did Russia try and influence Brexit? I have no idea and have no particular concern about them using MN. Surely EVERYONE should question the validity of everything you read on social media?

BTW, a couple of quick primers for what's being going on affecting the US:

Seven key takeaways from the Russian indictments
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43093260

The tactics of a Russian troll farm
www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43093390
When the operatives - they called themselves "specialists" - weren't posting, they were learning and getting feedback on writing style. They were said to be constantly monitoring the viral success of their approach, tweaking and adjusting to maximise retweets and the spread of the message. The team is also said to have had a list of US public holidays, and appropriate content ready to go so they would blend in.

kalapattar. Threads would be taken over within minutes by a couple of users posting and posting without engaging until everyone else gave up. It was very very noticeable

Still happening on the EU threads same posters constantly shut down Leaver discussions don't think they are trolls though just incapable of seeing anyone elses viewpoint.

And no, meditrina, the complaint isn't that "there were some right wing posts and posters".

You're a right-ish wing poster and I don't suspect you of being a troll. Maybe I'm wrong there, but I don't.

There were and are other posters where I do wonder if they're trolls.

But I don't think we should be offering a Trolls' Handbook for political trolls, any more than we than do for MN's emotional vampire trolls.

There were certainly trolls of some description on here leading up to the US election.

I wish I'd screenshotted it, but the morning after the election, one was posting stuff like, "I love the smell of liberal tears in the morning." And then vanished.

Don't know why they were on a UK site for a US election, but MN does come pretty high up Google results.

Claig's views and ways of expressing him/herself were exactly the same as my dad!

He's no Russian troll.

Definitely. Don't know where they were based - Bristol would be a good guess. But there were lots of threads IN CAPITAL LETTERS about Turkey definitely joining the EU and 'YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE RECRUITED TO AN EU ARMY' from posters who completely disappeared post late June 2016.

Lots still here of course. MN aren't bothered at all.

I always thought claig was a fella for some reason.

One poster has already been mentioned. They certainly clogged up debate.

Are you on about Claig?

She was on the politics boards for years before Brexit, Trump or even Cameron's GE win - if she's one of your suspected Russians then you're definitely barking up the wrong tree.

Obviously, we bring here what we've learnt in the outside world- so if you're learning is mostly from sm then you might well be disseminating Russian produced junk anyway.

I heard some researchers on this speak recently. They feel Americans are exposed to 1:1 junk news- for every 1 legitimate, professionally researched, evidenced feature on social media, there was 1 entirely made-up.

They felt it was 4:1 in the uk during brexit. (They didn't mention mn!) it's not just Russians but Macedonian teenagers - some want to make money/many want to spread discord.

This is bad news obviously.