Russian bots with a Kremlin disinformation network published 120,000 fake anti-Ukraine quotes falsely attributed to celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston and Scarlett Johansson, in one day, the independent Russian media outlet Agentsvo reported June 15.
Quotes appeared over celebrity photos, displaying messages calling to end aid to Ukraine and describing European collapse.
The images were published between June 14-15 by the Kremlin disinformation network Dvoynyk, a representative of the Bot Blocker project told Agentsvo. The fake quotes have since garnered over 500,000 views.
These damn bots are out of control lol
“I’ve met Putin, what a guy, some say he’s the second-best guy. I don’t know, what I do know is I am the best guy. People say Mr. President you’re the best guy, no guys better just the best of the best they say. I told Poots, that’s what I call him Poots it’s like a pet name, he calls me cyka, which means friend in Russian because we are best friends some say the only true friends because we are such good friends. Anyway, he gets a bad rap poots, he just wants to stop the nazis and help Russians stuck in Ukraine by the criminal Biden crime family. Crooked Hillary won’t let Russia grow, they need to grow. Nazis, Hillarys, maybe even a few Obamas that’s Ukraine. Obama is trying to stop Russia, I said you can’t do that, they can’t do that. Let’s help Poots stop the crooked Clintons and bring back Taco Tuesdays, you remember Taco Tuesdays? On Tuesdays, before Obama outlawed it we used to have tacos. I had big Macs because I am not Mexican, not a fan of beans. Putin says nazis took his beans to Ukraine, I don’t know…maybe, some say it’s true. Smart people say it, they say Mr. President we need to leave Ukraine and let Russia have it so they can grow and stop Hillary from sending Hunter over there to steal their beans.” - Donald Trump
Fake. Too coherent.
And this dude is trending to be president again. The AI can’t take over fast enough.
Any hope of civility and partisanship ended when social media received widespread appeal.
No, it ended when attention optimization and monetization became the objective.
If social media was all “dumb” it would be totally different, though I suppose keeping third party monetization out is always difficult.
Bro the fediverse is one of the worst platforms when it comes to information warfare. One of the major instances is pretty clearly a training ground for Russian propagandists before they get promoted to Facebook or reddit.
But it doesn’t work as well because you can block entire instances. These people self identify by choosing the instance so it’s easy to just block all posts and comments, even those from people you’ve never seen before.
Blocking an instance only removes your individual ability to interact with an instance. It doesn’t have any impact on the information warfare value of the instance. If anything, it only amplifies it by self-sequestration of opposing voices.
It’s not my responsibility to fix everyone in the world. It’s good that these people sequester themselves. They can yell at each other.
Lemmy has good tools for blocking bad users and communities / instances. That’s sufficient for now. Better moderation will help too.
Lemmy.ml moment.
Watch as they desperately grasp for straws.
They know they’re teetering so hard
I’m surprised they didn’t use deepfakes.
Do… Do people care what the REAL scarlet Johansson, Jennifer Aniston or Elton John have to say about Ukraine defending itself and it’s people against a fascist invasion?
I mean, I find their stuff entertaining, sure, but like… Why would I listen to their tactical analysis in the first place?
Of course people are swayed by celebrities. I’m surprised you even have to ask that. Celebrity worship is huge in Western culture. Taylor Swift told her fans to register to vote and thousands did just because she said so.
It’s the same thing as putting typos in phishing emails so you only target stupid people.
Literally the perfect person for Russia to target
I think they already did. There were rumors she would support Biden and I thought “will she get Kremlin shills attacking her on social media?” Over the next few weeks there was a bunch of noise about her private jet.
Yes!
As stupid as it sounds people trust them more than the experts. We live in the post truth times anyway.
“This is terrible, can someone please find Ja Rule ?”
Yes they do. A few weeks ago everyone on here cared what George clooneys wife was saying about Israel.
You mean Amal Clooney, the international Human Rights Lawyer? The adjunct professor of law at Columbia University? Advisor to the International Criminal Court? That Amal Clooney?
The fact that she’s married to a celebrity is the least interesting thing about her in the context of Israel and the ICC.
And I will once again say that the actor should be referred to as “Amal Clooney’s husband” rather than the other way around.
My favourite description under a picture of the two in a (German) newspaper read (paraphrased): Civil right’s attorney Amal Clooney and her husband, an actor.
Honestly I’ll get down voted but sure.
Nobody knew who she was before.
Plenty of people knew who she was before. You didn’t, because you don’t pay attention to international human rights struggles.
CIA: we have overthrown well over two dozen governments sometimes for reasons we aren’t even clear about. A noticeable fraction of the human race lives under the regimes we have installed.
NSA: we proved your conspiracy theorist uncle right and can read the emails and text messages of over a billion people.
And neither one can stop a government agency of under 100 people, who live in a country that can’t make a CPU over 8 bits, from shit posting on the internet? Not fucking possible.
Check this out: the guy who runs the largest pro-kremlin misinformation website in the world lives in NJ
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ivandjiiski
And yet all these powerful three letter agencies can do nothing?
We know Russia has been funding the NRA and members of the GOP. We know they have blackmailed them. We know they ran stuff through Epstein and have videos of them rapping kids. And yet despite all this, despite the power of tens of billions of dollars a year, despite being only answerable to literal god not a single act can be done to stop trolling? They can overthrow Pakistan but not block an IP!?
They haven’t committed a crime posting on privately owned social media sites. The celebrity first needs to file a complaint.
What does that have to do with what I said?
And neither one can stop a government agency of under 100 people, who live in a country that can’t make a CPU over 8 bits, from shit posting on the internet? Not fucking possible.
How do you expect the FBI stops people from creating fake accounts and sharing false information? Those are not crimes. Fraudulent misrepresentation is a crime, but the misrepresented person first needs to report it.
How do you expect the FBI stop people from creating accounts and sharing false information? That’s not a crime.
Hmmmmmm…perhaps it’s about time that it becomes illegal.
The FBI does not create laws. Congress does. The same congress that is being currently run by people who are pro-Russia.
So I’m thinking there’s some sort of Putin-related reason why that won’t happen.
While technically correct… it appears that you are missing the point here and more broadly misunderstanding how the system actually works.
Do enlighten me.
Knock on the door
Guy opens door
FBI agent: hey we know Putin is sending you money. Stop posting stuff on the internet supporting him or we will plant cocaine and child porn on you, then tell the local police. This is of course if we are in a good mood. If we aren’t in a good mood you will be kidnapped and thrown out of a helicopter into the ocean at night.
Guy: shocked silence
FBI agent: almost forgot. Here is a folder containing pictures of all your family members, with their addresses on the back. Bet you didn’t know that your favorite aunt was a tax cheat. Hope no one calls the IRS and let’s them know. And your nephew Johnny, who just got an internship. How do you think his new employer would react to me calling them and telling them that we are opening an investigation into him?
These are shitty evil people. Who don’t even come close to following basic rules of decency. The fact that they continue to take no action against what Russia is doing hints very strongly that they aren’t opposed to it. You can’t be powerful enough to wage a secret war in Cambodia that kills millions and so weak you can’t intimidate a guy living openly in the US with a lifestyle of tens of millions a year.
Here is another fun fact for you: Monica Lewinsky only agreed to testify after a single member of the Justice department threatened to have her mother thrown in jail. We aren’t talking the entire resources of the federal government here, we are talking about one lawyer.
Considering the recent report on the Pentagon running an anti vax bot spam in the Phillipines, it’s probably that they don’t want to help nullify social media spam in case they ever need to use it (again).
