4Chan? It’s 4Putin Image boards, and they are Changing the World
You know what the plan is, you know how many numbers are involved in executing it — but how does it all work? The impact this has influences everything from narrative control to slander, accusations of crime and false imprisonment of protesters who dared to defy Russia’s Government Franchise otherwise known as The United States.
Where does all the content come from?
The biggest source of all Russian propaganda on the internet is 4Chan — an anonymous image board that has been totally compromised by the Russian government. Among the repulsive racism, bigotry and intolerance, the board is constantly mined for images and talking points. Any piece of disinformation you come across on the Twitter will have originated from 4Chan.
These mining algorithms will pass on content to bot accounts on twitter, that instantly push it out to bot counts that follow it — liking, retweeting and hijacking existing hash tags to falsely insert propaganda into trending sections on websites. Whenever there is a major event, such as a school shooting, content will be up and ready within the hour. Within 2, it is shaping an entirely different narrative and viewed by hundreds of thousands of people
Why aren’t these accounts simply banned?
Each of these accounts come with a phone home mechanism — Russian servers are constantly pinging these accounts for activity. When an account is banned a response will not be received, and within an hour a new account is created, linked up to the content mining and followed automatically by hundreds and thousands of bots
What Real World Impact can this possibly have?
Not only does it make people doubt the credibility of the media, but it has also been used to falsely accuse activists at non-violent protests. One particular incident involved a Professor at Berkely University who, as a result of the viral spread of information, is now facing a potential life sentence. 4Chan agents using KGB resources poured over images, located his ratemyprofessor.com page which was subsequently attacked by a bot network, and destroyed his life for the crime of standing up for what was right. They sent a message to the world that no-one was safe from persecution, that freedom of expression would be crushed under the weight of this bot network, and as it is all faceless — there is no target for you to fight back against.
Is it working?
It absolutely is. One of America’s last hopes were an unpaid army of freedom fighters bravely making a stand in the face of rising Naziism in America. Concealing identities for fear of retribution, Antifa members sought to bring an end to the hate speech that was taking control of the public.
In response to this, the Russian government commissioned a network of fake Antifa accounts on twitter, the purpose of which was to discredit the name, single out individuals in order to scare people into inaction and associate fake news with Antifa. It was a success
How can this be stopped?
Report fake antifa accounts — they will have an incremental number at the end of their handle, do not engage with troll accounts, they are algorithm training programs designed to pick up the subtleties of the language, training the more advanced bots so that wherever you are on the internet, a bot will be able to pick up your conversation and insert false information
If you truly must respond, respond with this image. It contains no machine readable text, and will not train their programs
The fight back starts with disengagement with the enemy, but we must also pressure Twitter into safeguarding against the creation of Bot accounts — there are ways to prevent bot creation. Incredibly, it is all entirely legal! At the moment you can create your very own bot within minutes and it will like, retweet tirelessly. This simply is not acceptable and change must happen sooner rather than later, for the future of our children.
Steff Maxson
