To think it is naive to assume Russian troll farms don’t target massive high traffic discussion forums like Mumsnet to post misinformation

[ThePeppyMoose]

Given the recent types of posts…

I think Mumsnetters are quite savvy and these threads tend to end up more on the funny side than anything else.

I wouldn't mind if people were arguing based on actual facts. Life isn't black & white so there are issues on the Ukrainian side (though they pale into insignificance by comparison with Russia).

They don't though. They just repeat the same tired old falsehoods. They're easy enough to disprove with the slightest bit of research, but mud sticks.

Now, some might just be sad old nutters like one bloke who used to work with me. He would rant about wind turbines, that vaccines are "poison", that climate change isn't real, that "Zelensky is a Nazi" etc. MAGAts fall into this category. Others however are more sinister.

If Frank Luntz is centre left I'm a fucking sparkling, flying, magical unicorn.

Indeed, @LifeExperience is lying.

Have you come across this in real life too?

Both DH and I have had the pleasure. Two separate Trump fans, not known to each other but both with the exact same 'talking points' and wording of them not to mention both said 'I know about this, I read a lot'.

I mean clearly they read rubbish and one of them hadn't heard of the Dunblane massacre or how it precipitated the banning of handguns, so hardy a font of knowledge and then started rambling on about how Obama was secretly Clinton's cousin.

It's just interesting that they must be getting these scripts from the same source. I wonder if some posters we may presume are bots, are actually people like this.

@Panterusblackish It's just interesting that they must be getting these scripts from the same source. I wonder if some posters we may presume are bots, are actually people like this.

It doesn't matter as much as you'd think whether they are real people or bots, if they are disseminating the same bullshit. If a bad-faith actor programmes a bunch of bots to reach an audience, the message reaches the audience. If he disseminates bullshit to a group of people who share it on, to reach a wider audience, he's just using real accounts instead of the accounts he's set up himself. Those sharing don't necessarily engage very deeply - the point is the sharing on as much as, or more than, 'converting' them.

What makes you think Russian troll farms and not bored 14-year-old boys

No 14yo boy is so bored they'd come here for their lolz.😆

You would be surprised given the stuff my oldest DD tells me about her classmates

I honestly think bored 14 year old boys wouldn't be seen dead on Mumsnet. Why would they want to wind up a bunch of (mostly)old women. I say old, because any one over about 25 is probably old to a 14 year old.

Do share!

Editing wikipedia articles
Signing up on reddit and pretending to be egregiously bad parents/partners in the "am i an ahole" forum or something
One of the popular lads in my dd's form spread around a rumour last year telling everyone they could dress up on world book day (around 5 kids fell for it, dd's high school does not observe world book day)

It's also unlikely that random 14yo boys would be giving the same lies.
They'd be making up their own rubbish.

It's also unlikely that a whole load of 14yo boys would simultaneously decide to sign up to mn to give the same false information.

If it was a set of boys being silly you'd also expect a far greater range of subjects. They're far more likely to be posting about imaginary sexual encounters or discussing body functions if they were doing it to be funny.

I wonder if they will get better at it with AI? There's another site I look at but do not post on where all the posters are very, very obviously British. However, when it comes to any threads on Ukraine or Russia the site gets inundated with sockpuppets who are clearly more used to spamming American- dominated sites. They only turn up for that topic and they stick out like a sore thumb. One of their tactics is just to offend the other posters in order to make the thread boring and off-topic and unreadable.

I've found that, and am disappointed in them. It seems they hate the US, and the enemy of their enemy is their friend. Also they are obsessed with Palestine, and associate Russia with the pro-Palestinian side. They think the people of Donbas and Crimea are fighting for national independence against the Ukrainian oppressor.

I'm not a big proponent of horseshoe theory but the support for Putin on both the far left and far right (lowercase) is notable. Also agree with you re. Palestine. I'm pretty far off to the left, myself, and am also very disappointed with a lot that I see and read.

All the threads about losing weight on various jabs also provide excellent advertising

Not just the US, but 'The West'.

Israel counts as The West, as does NATO, which is why Stop the War blame NATO for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

FWIW I got a post deleted the other day. I believe it's because I suggested a bot was being paid. Rather than just a bot. That seems to be the line crossed into deletion.

The bots will spout out garbage, repeatedly, in different formats, but will not be able to back with facts. If they do attempt a fact, it is usually from a discredited source or completely ficticious.

Yes you question them about sources and facts and they never reply with any. They do sometimes reply with a question instead.

On the subject of "most Americans" voting for Trump. No. We didn't. 77M people voted for him, which is less than 30% of the adult population--less than 23% of the total population of over 340M

I mean clearly they read rubbish and one of them hadn't heard of the Dunblane massacre or how it precipitated the banning of handguns, so hardy a font of knowledge and then started rambling on about how Obama was secretly Clinton's cousin.

@Panterusblackish Americans in general are badly informed about international news as they get hardly any from mainstream verified sources. This means if they seek information out themselves it will generally be from SM.

While most people in the UK are also disadvantaged due to only speaking one language due to our country's size and history we are more likely to be given it from mainstream verified sources, and more interested in going to look for ourselves checking who the source is.

(I do remember telling a couple of Americans I knew how reliable certain US and UK sources were and their political bias.)

In regards to the US presidents it appears that they have taken something that is factual e.g. some genealogists have shown how all the US presidents are related to one another even if it just means they are a x cousin y times removed, and turned it into a conspiracy theory.

Who is to say any thread is genuine, if people blindly believe anything they read what do they really expect, it is up to people to use the brains they have been given, I know it is easier for some more than others but if cant tell fake from real is a forum the best place to be?

For the people denying this happens, it has been researched and reported in the mainstream media, mainly in relation to Brexit. Here's one report:

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/14/how-400-russia-run-fake-accounts-posted-bogus-brexit-tweets