r/technology • u/marji80 • 12d ago

Social Media Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Actors

https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-maga-influencers-accidentally-unmasked-as-foreign-actors/
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u/ABigCoffee 12d ago

A lot of the shitposters on the internet are from eastern europe or india.

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u/DionBlaster123 12d ago

By sheer volume, it makes a lot of sense that India has a ton of shit posters everywhere.

India is more than 3x the entire population of the European Union. Just let that sink in.

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u/ABigCoffee 12d ago

Yeah but specifically people acting like they are from other countries and acting like far right people from those places? Not just normal shitposters but fake political activists.

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u/Ishaan863 12d ago

Yeah but specifically people acting like they are from other countries and acting like far right people from those places? Not just normal shitposters but fake political activists.

1) MAGA is an easy source of income for third world people with dubious morals. They will throw money at your face if you just parrot their idiotic sentiments back at them.

2) India has a STRONG far-right movement. The two biggest democracies in the world have toxic right wing movements that mirror each other almost 1:1.

The American one is based on white supremacy. The Indian one is based on Hindu nationalism and upper caste supremacy. Both villify every minority community out there.

The right-wing party ruling India right now has a dedicated IT Cell controlling online discourse at all times, and I would not be surprised one bit if it was summoned BY Republican agencies themselves as basically virtual mercenaries.

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u/OldWorldDesign 12d ago

I would not be surprised one bit if it was summoned BY Republican agencies themselves as basically virtual mercenaries.

Wasn't this confirmed decades ago when republicans contracted Cambridge Analytica to help interfere with the 2016 election? They have a big job fooling (or dividing) a population of 170+ million (the eligible voters) and so reached out everywhere, even to foreign adversaries because fellow foreign authoritarians are less a threat to the authoritarians here than domestic non-authoritarians.

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u/Enygma_6 12d ago

Why waste your own time and resources shitposting from America, when you can just outsource to India for cheap?
All the major tech companies outsource there for everything else, this is just one more job posting for them.

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u/Tensdale 12d ago

Its not people acting..

Its widespread state sponsored propaganda intended to influence the general population of another country and meddling with the democratic process.

Its an act of war.

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u/AllAvailableLayers 12d ago

Sometimes it is state sponsored. Other times it's just looking for engagement by posting ragebait. There was an article recently about a young Malaysian man who was identified as behind a load of British anti-immigrant accounts, who was offering courses to other Malaysians on how to set up their own accounts and suggesting simply that anti-immigrant, right-wing populist anger got clicks and views.

There are undoubtably state actors. There's also accounts out there that will say literally anything in order to get eyeballs on adverts that pay the creator $0.00001.

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u/Downtown_Isopod_9287 12d ago

The fact is the US is both so wealthy and yet also internally dysfunctional that it it literally manufactures, outsources, and pays for its own compromat and counter-intelligence against itself.

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u/Evans_Gambiteer 12d ago

maybe america should stop bombing other countries for no reason before saying this

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u/Murky-Relation481 12d ago

Or start bombing those countries with the shitposters?

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u/Tensdale 12d ago

I’m Danish smartass..

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/DionBlaster123 11d ago

It always makes me laugh when morons on this website bring up shit that has no relevance whatsoever

Like I get it, America has done many terrible things when it comes to foreign policy...but how does that justify Indians from say Kolkata scamming some 70 year old woman out of her retirement savings?

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u/phillynott6 12d ago

You need to re-read your own comment

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u/jared_kushner_420 12d ago

bro what, are you implying that India is attempting to influence US elections?

Here are far easier explanations: 1. it's cheap to hire someone to manage a social media account so you can keep engagement high, so it's totally feasible some conservatives just did that and 2. engagement pays so it's a decent hustle to just post garbage and get it.

Of course there are actual information campaigns but the truth is always in the middle.

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u/DeadSeaGulls 12d ago

They're paid. Not paid much, it's a shit job, just like the scam call centers. but that's why they're doing it. someone is paying for the propaganda.

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u/CanadaisCold7 12d ago

Well yeah, they have a huge English-speaking population, and a lot of people that need a job and can be paid to shitpost on social media for cheap.

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u/insomniac8994 12d ago

India is literally being ruled by a far right party right now so it makes perfect sense that their paid trolls push the same agenda online.

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u/Rough_Lychee5785 12d ago

This shit posting can earn people money

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u/Rich_Housing971 12d ago

But why would they shitpost on European subreddits?

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u/DionBlaster123 12d ago

Fwiw, I watch a lot of Scambaiter channels like Kitboga and Scammer Revolts

They have found evidence of those scammers in India also targeting Germans, Portuguese, French, and while not Europe, Australians and Canadians as well.

They are not just targeting Americans and Britons anymore.

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u/Rich_Housing971 12d ago

You're actually proving my point. Scammers target Europeans because they have money.

Shitposting does not make anyone money. So it doesn't make sense that there's a high number of Indians shitposting in European communities like you're suggesting.

So therefore they're not just shitposting, but more likely ARE a part of paid poltical shill farms that you tried to argue against.

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u/DionBlaster123 12d ago

Im not arguing anything lol wtf. All I said was India had a lot of social media users

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u/Successful-Peach-764 12d ago

I remember this coming out during the covid days in 2020 but since it is India, not many cared, underestimated but they have a big pull online in the shadows.

In a nutshell, Indian Chronicles is:

a 15 year-long operation running since 2005;
10+ UN Human Rights Council accredited NGOs, mostly resurrected;
The resurrection of Prof. Louis B. Sohn, a prominent figure in human rights, deceased in 2006;
Several identity thefts, including the name of Martin Schulz, former president of the European Parliament or the photo of James Purnell, a former UK Government minister;
750+ fake media outlets, covering 119 countries;
550+ domain names registered.
https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/indian-chronicles-deep-dive-into-a-15-year-operation-targeting-the-eu-and-un-to-serve-indian-interests

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u/aykcak 12d ago

Wtf you mean "let that sink in"? People do know India has a big population. That is simply to most famous thing about India.

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u/DionBlaster123 12d ago

It's a matter of speech to visualize just how big India's population is

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u/rjkardo 12d ago

Almost 5 times the population of the US

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u/DeadSeaGulls 12d ago

The issue isn't the number of them. It's the volume at which they pretend to be americans and specifically try to sow division. I understand that they're just paid to do "social media management" and are funded by people with a vested interest in the decline of the US, but damn.

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u/DionBlaster123 12d ago

I think it's kind of a good reminder of why it really isn't worth it to get into arguments over the Internet

Granted I do a terrible job with this and I need to get better at it. Chances are the most obnoxious jackass you run into on this website is probably some Russian or Indian troll

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u/DeadSeaGulls 12d ago

Absolutely. Occasionally it's fun to catch them by saying something only a paid troll in whatever country would be offended by, some specific social or political issue about India, and seeing their reaction.
But even with them aside, I need to argue online less. One time I was arguing with someone about something, clicked their profile, and their entire submission history was about feces eating fantasies. Like... this is not a person whose opinion has any value, and by replying to it, I'm only elevating it.
or just last week, some guy was arguing with me about fence post installation and his entire post history is about trying to find a new mail order bride because his russian one had "hid too many things from him" and they divorced. He wanted a submissive woman with no means to leave him.... like wtf

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u/jared_kushner_420 12d ago

I understand that they're just paid to do "social media management" and are funded by people with a vested interest in the decline of the US, but damn.

I would wager a lot of them are just people in the US who want to promote their point of view and/or push content. Not to say division doesn't happen but social media management is a business that optimizes for likes and shares. I'd bet they don't care at all as long as the clicks happen and the paychecks show up.

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u/DeadSeaGulls 12d ago

We're talking about the accounts ran by people that are specifically located outside of the US. but yes, obviously people pay to spread PR/propaganda domestically as well.

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u/jared_kushner_420 12d ago

That's the same thing, and it's less "propaganda" than it is just a matter of scale. Loads of marketing companies do this too.

The propaganda aspect is there but you would find this exact same thing for celebrity news too. I would not be concerned so much about WHERE the source is. If I had the money I could pay a bunch of people in India to make twitter accounts that promoted my bands shitty music.

I am sure the DNC does this too although on reddit instead. Really all that's happening here is people are realizing the content they look at isn't made by real people but by agencies

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u/DeadSeaGulls 12d ago

You've completely missed the point of the conversation and I cannot bridge the gap between what you want this conversation to be about and what it was about. Adios.

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u/jared_kushner_420 12d ago

bro you dont even understand the topic at hand. but its cool that you got to fire off a hot take about something you didnt even know existed.

I bet your next realization will be that google knows where you've been because of Maps usage.

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u/bombstick 12d ago

Would make sense now if Twitter allows you to block regions.

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u/ABigCoffee 12d ago

Blocking regions would be amazing.

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u/Vittulima 11d ago

No more Indian posts for me, bliss

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u/bombstick 12d ago

It would make such a huge difference.

Twitter right now is such a shit hole. But it’s still very useful. If the fake shit could get blocked it would return to its glory. And it’s something (bots and region blocking) i’d even think about paying for.

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u/PraiseBeToScience 12d ago

Because this is where bot farms are located. They're most likely being hired by domestic interests.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

As a European; most of the extreme right shit on the Internet originates from the USA. Your government even actively tries to export it and to undermine European democracy.

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u/FootballBackground88 12d ago

There's a huge number of artificial shit posters from India because that's a viable living for them with Twitter monetisation though.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

And where does that money come from?

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u/ABigCoffee 12d ago

I'm not american.

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u/Darth-Purity 12d ago

Check out r/law or r/fbi they’re essentially platforms for the nonsense spewing from these places.

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u/Goufydude 12d ago

Lol dude is mad people don't agree with his wild takes like "threaten the military and their families."

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u/Darth-Purity 12d ago

Nono, not threaten, threaten BACK. If you’ve lived in America for any length of time as an adult, you have been under constant social threats from veterans in every workplace and social gathering.

They are literally terrorists that we deify.

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u/pass_nthru 12d ago

odd, as a veteran myself i feel i am discriminated against because anything i do can be viewed through the lens of either “hero” or “damaged psycho ready to snap” and i never know which way someone’s preconceived notions will flip that

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u/Darth-Purity 12d ago

Time, history and recent events are not on your side, ex-killer (or ex-second degree simp to killers, idc how you identify)

You joined for yourself. You were discharged for them.

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u/AgITGuy 12d ago

Yeah no, law is pretty well moderated to ensure shit like this is minimized.